Chapter VII (1)

A SERMON OF MERCHANTS.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1846.

ECCLESIASTICUS XXVII. 2.

As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones;
so doth sin stick close between buying and selling.

I ask your attention to a Sermon of Merchants, their Position, Temptations, Opportunities, Influence and Duty. For the present purpose, men may be distributed into four classes.

I. Men who create new material for human use, either by digging it out of mines and quarries, fishing it out of the sea, or raising it out of the land. These are direct producers.

II. Men who apply their head and hands to this material and transform it into other shapes, fitting it for human use; men that make grain into flour and bread, cotton into cloth, iron into needles or knives, and the like. These are indirect producers; they create not the material, but its fitness, use, or beauty. They are manufacturers.

III. Men who simply use these things, when thus produced and manufactured. They are consumers.

IV. Men who buy and sell: who buy to sell, and sell to buy the more. They fetch and carry between the other classes. These are distributors; they are the Merchants. Under this name I include the whole class who live by buying and selling, and not merely those conventionally called merchants, to distinguish them from small dealers. This term comprises traders behind counters and traders behind desks; traders neither behind counters nor desks.

There are various grades of merchants. They might be classed and symbolized according as they use a basket, a wheelbarrow, a cart, a stall, a booth, a shop, a warehouse, counting-room, or bank. Still all are the same thing--men who live by buying and selling. A ship is only a large basket, a warehouse, a costly stall. Your peddler is a small merchant going round from house to house with his basket to mediate between persons; your merchant only a great peddler sending round from land to land with his ships to mediate between nations. The Israelitish woman who sits behind a bench in her stall on the Rialto at Venice, changing gold into silver and copper, or loaning money to him who leaves hat, coat, and other collaterals in pledge, is a small banker. The Israelitish man who sits at Frankfort on the Maine, changes drafts into specie, and lends millions to men who leave in pledge a mortgage on the States of the Church, Austria or Russia--is a pawnbroker and money-changer on a large scale. By this arithmetic, for present convenience, all grades of merchants are reduced to one denomination--men who live by buying and selling.

All these four classes run into one another. The same man may belong to all at the same time. All are needed. At home a merchant is a mediator to go between the producer and the manufacturer; between both and the consumer. On a large scale he is the mediator who goes between continents, between producing and manufacturing States, between both and consuming countries. The calling is founded in the state of society, as that in a compromise between man's permanent nature and transient condition. So long as there are producers and consumers, there must be distributors. The value of the calling depends on its importance; its usefulness is the measure of its respectability. The most useful calling must be the noblest. If it is difficult, demanding great ability and self-sacrifice, it is yet more noble. A useless calling is disgraceful; one that injures mankind--infamous. Tried by this standard, the producers seem nobler than the distributors; they than the mere consumers. This may not be the popular judgment now, but must one day become so, for mankind is slowly learning to judge by the natural law published by Jesus--that he who would be greatest of all, must be most effectively the servant of all.

There are some who do not seem to belong to any of the active classes, who are yet producers, manufacturers, and distributors by their head, more than their hand; men who have fertile heads, producers, manufacturers, and distributors of thought, active in the most creative way. Here, however, the common rule is inverted: the producers are few--men of genius; the manufacturers many--men of talent; the distributors--men of tact, men who remember, and talk with tongue or pen, their name is legion. I will not stop to distribute them into their classes, but return to the merchant.

The calling of the merchant acquires a new importance in modern times. Once nations were cooped up, each in its own country and language. Then war was the only mediator between them. They met but on the battle-field, or in solemn embassies to treat for peace. Now trade is the mediator. They meet on the exchange. To the merchant, no man who can trade is a foreigner. His wares prove him a citizen. Gold and silver are cosmopolitan. Once, in some of the old governments, the magistrates swore, "I will be evil-minded towards the people, and will devise against them the worst thing I can." Now they swear to keep the laws which the people have made. Once the great question was, How large is the standing army? Now, What is the amount of the national earnings? Statesmen ask less about the ships of the line, than about the ships of trade. They fear an over-importation oftener than a war, and settle their difficulties in gold and silver, not as before with iron. All ancient states were military; the modern mercantile. War is getting out of favor as property increases and men get their eyes open. Once every man feared death, captivity, or at least robbery in war; now the worst fear is of bankruptcy and pauperism.

This is a wonderful change. Look at some of the signs thereof. Once castles and forts were the finest buildings; now exchanges, shops, custom-houses, and banks. Once men built a Chinese wall to keep out the strangers--for stranger and foe were the same; now men build railroads and steamships to bring them in. England was once a strong-hold of robbers, her four seas but so many castle-moats; now she is a great harbor with four ship-channels. Once her chief must be a bold, cunning fighter; now a good steward and financier. Not to strike a hard blow, but to make a good bargain is the thing. Formerly the most enterprising and hopeful young men sought fame and fortune in deeds of arms; now an army is only a common sewer, and most of those who go to the war, if they never return, "have left their country for their country's good." In days gone by, constructive art could build nothing better than hanging gardens, and the pyramids--foolishly sublime; now it makes docks, canals, iron roads and magnetic telegraphs. Saint Louis, in his old age, got up a crusade, and saw his soldiers die of the fever at Tunis; now the King of the French sets up a factory, and will clothe his people in his own cottons and woollens. The old Douglas and Percy were clad in iron, and harried the land on both sides of the Tweed; their descendants now are civil-suited men who keep the peace. No girl trembles, though "All the blue bonnets are over the border." The warrior has become a shopkeeper.

"Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt;
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
The Douglas in red herrings;
And noble name and cultured land,
Palace and park, and vassal band,
Are powerless to the notes of hand
Of Rothschild or the Barings."

Of merchants there are three classes.

I. Merchant-producers, who deal in labor applied to the direct creation of new material. They buy labor and land, to sell them in corn, cotton, coal, timber, salt, and iron.

II. Merchant-manufacturers, who deal in labor applied to transforming that material. They buy labor, wool, cotton, silk, water-privileges and steam-power, to sell them all in finished cloth.

III. Merchant-traders, who simply distribute the article raised or manufactured. These three divisions I shall speak of as one body. Property is accumulated labor; wealth or riches a great deal of accumulated labor. As a general rule, merchants are the only men who become what we call rich. There are exceptions, but they are rare, and do not affect the remarks which are to follow. It is seldom that a man becomes rich by his own labor employed in producing or manufacturing. It is only by using other men's labor that any one becomes rich. A man's hands will give him sustenance, not affluence. In the present condition of society this is unavoidable; I do not say in a normal condition, but in the present condition.

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Here in America the position of this class is the most powerful and commanding in society. They own most of the property of the nation. The wealthy men are of this class; in practical skill, administrative talent, in power to make use of the labor of other men, they surpass all others. Now, wealth is power, and skill is power--both to a degree unknown before. This skill and wealth are more powerful with us than any other people, for there is no privileged caste, priest, king, or noble, to balance against them. The strong hand has given way to the able and accomplished head. Once head armor was worn on the outside, and of brass, now it is internal and of brains.

To this class belongs the power both of skill and of wealth, and all the advantages which they bring. It was never so before in the whole history of man. It is more so in the United States than in any other place. I know the high position of the merchants in Venice, Pisa, Florence, Nuremberg and Basel, in the middle ages and since. Those cities were gardens in a wilderness, but a fringe of soldiers hung round their turreted walls; the trader was dependent on the fighter, and though their merchants became princes, they were yet indebted to the sword, and not entirely to their calling, for defence. Their palaces were half castles, and their ships full of armed men. Besides those were little States. Here the merchant's power is wholly in his gold and skill. Rome is the city of priests; Vienna for nobles; Berlin for scholars; the American cities for merchants. In Italy the roads are poor, the banking-houses humble; the cots of the laborer mean and bare, but churches and palaces are beautiful and rich. God is painted as a pope. Generally in Europe, the clergy, the soldiers, and the nobles are the controlling class. The finest works of art belong to them, represent them, and have come from the corporation of priests, or the corporation of fighters. Here a new era is getting symbolized in our works of art. They are banks, exchanges, custom-houses, factories, railroads. These come of the corporation of merchants; trade is the great thing. Nobody tries to secure the favor of the army or navy--but of the merchants.

Once there was a permanent class of fighters. Their influence was supreme. They had the power of strong arms, of disciplined valor, and carried all before them. They made the law and broke it. Men complained, grumbling in their beard, but got no redress. They it was that possessed the wealth of the land. The producer, the manufacturer, the distributor could not get rich: only the soldier, the armed thief, the robber. With wealth they got its power; by practice gained knowledge, and so the power thereof; or, when that failed, bought it of the clergy, the only class possessing literary and scientific skill. They made their calling "noble," and founded the aristocracy of soldiers. Young men of talent took to arms. Trade was despised and labor was menial. Their science is at this day the science of kings. When graziers travel they look at cattle; weavers at factories; philanthropists at hospitals; dandies at their equals and coadjutors; and kings at armies. Those fighters made the world think that soldiers were our first men, and murder of their brothers the noblest craft in the world; the only honorable and manly calling. The butcher of swine and oxen was counted vulgar--the butcher of men and women great and honorable. Foolish men of the past think so now; hence their terror at orations against war; hence their admiration for a red coat; their zeal for some symbol of blood in their family arms; hence their ambition for military titles when abroad. Most foolish men are more proud of their ambiguous Norman ancestor who fought at the battle of Hastings--or fought not--than of all the honest mechanics and farmers who have since ripened on the family tree. The day of the soldiers is well-nigh over. The calling brings low wages and no honor. It opens with us no field for ambition. A passage of arms is a passage that leads to nothing. That class did their duty at that time. They founded the aristocracy of soldiers--their symbol the sword. Mankind would not stop there. Then came a milder age and established the aristocracy of birth--its symbol the cradle, for the only merit of that sort of nobility, and so its only distinction, is to have been born. But mankind who stopped not at the sword, delays but little longer at the cradle; leaping forward it founds a third order of nobility, the aristocracy of gold, its symbol the purse. We have got no further on. Shall we stop there? There comes a to-morrow after every to-day, and no child of time is just like the last. The aristocracy of gold has faults enough, no doubt, this feudalism of the nineteenth century. But it is the best thing of its kind we have had yet; the wisest, the most human. We are going forward and not back. God only knows when we shall stop, and where. Surely not now, nor here.

Now the merchants in America occupy the place which was once held by the fighters and next by the nobles. In our country we have balanced into harmony the centripetal power of the government, and the centrifugal power of the people: so have national unity of action, and individual variety of action--personal freedom. Therefore a vast amount of talent is active here which lies latent in other countries, because that harmony is not established there. Here the army and navy offer few inducements to able and aspiring young men. They are fled to as the last resort of the desperate, or else sought for their traditional glory, not their present value. In Europe, the army, the navy, the parliament or the court, the church and the learned professions offer brilliant prizes to ambitious men. Thither flock the able and the daring. Here such men go into trade. It is better for a man to have set up a mill than to have won a battle. I deny not the exceptions. I speak only of the general rule. Commerce and manufactures offer the most brilliant rewards--wealth, and all it brings. Accordingly the ablest men go into the class of merchants. The strongest men in Boston, taken as a body, are not lawyers, doctors, clergymen, book-wrights, but merchants. I deny not the presence of distinguished ability in each of those professions; I am now again only speaking of the general rule. I deny not the presence of very weak men, exceedingly weak in this class; their money their only source of power.

The merchants then are the prominent class; the most respectable, the most powerful. They know their power, but are not yet fully aware of their formidable and noble position at the head of the nation. Hence they are often ashamed of their calling; while their calling is the source of their wealth, their knowledge, and their power, and should be their boast and their glory. You see signs of this ignorance and this shame: there must not be shops under your Athenaeum, it would not be in good taste; you may store tobacco, cider, rum, under the churches, out of sight, you must have no shop there; it would be vulgar. It is not thought needful, perhaps not proper, for the merchant's wife and daughter to understand business, it would not be becoming. Many are ashamed of their calling, and, becoming rich, paint on the doors of their coach, and engrave on their seal, some lion, griffin, or unicorn, with partisans and maces to suit; arms they have no right to, perhaps have stolen out of some book of heraldry. No man paints thereon a box of sugar, or figs, or candles couchant; a bale of cotton rampant; an axe, a lapstone, or a shoe hammer saltant. Yet these would be noble, and Christian withal. The fighters gloried in their horrid craft, and so made it pass for noble, but with us a great many men would be thought "the tenth transmitter of a foolish face," rather than honest artists of their own fortune; prouder of being born than of having lived never so manfully.

In virtue of its strength and position, this class is the controlling one in politics. It mainly enacts the laws of this State and the nation; makes them serve its turn. Acting consciously or without consciousness, it buys up legislators when they are in the market; breeds them when the market is bare. It can manufacture governors, senators, judges, to suit its purposes, as easily as it can make cotton cloth. It pays them money and honors; pays them for doing its work, not another's. It is fairly and faithfully represented by them. Our popular legislators are made in its image; represent its wisdom, foresight, patriotism and conscience. Your Congress is its mirror.

This class is the controlling one in the churches, none the less, for with us fortunately the churches have no existence independent of the wealth and knowledge of the people. In the same way it buys up the clergymen, hunting them out all over the land; the clergymen who will do its work, putting them in comfortable places. It drives off such as interfere with its work, saying, "Go starve, you and your children!" It raises or manufactures others to suit its taste.

The merchants build mainly the churches, endow theological schools; they furnish the material sinews of the church. Hence the metropolitan churches are in general as much commercial as the shops.

* * * * *

Now from this position, there come certain peculiar temptations. One is to an extravagant desire of wealth. They see that money is power, the most condensed and flexible form thereof. It is always ready; it will turn any way. They see that it gives advantages to their children which nothing else will give. The poor man's son, however well born, struggling for a superior education, obtains his culture at a monstrous cost; with the sacrifice of pleasure, comfort, the joys of youth, often of eyesight and health. He must do two men's work at once--learn and teach at the same time. He learns all by his soul, nothing from his circumstances. If he have not an iron body as well as an iron head, he dies in that experiment of the cross. The land is full of poor men who have attained a superior culture, but carry a crippled body through all their life. The rich man's son needs not that terrible trial. He learns from his circumstances, not his soul. The air about him contains a diffused element of thought. He learns without knowing it. Colleges open their doors; accomplished teachers stand ready; science and art, music and literature, come at the rich man's call. All the outward means of educating, refining, elevating a child, are to be had for money, and for money alone.

Then, too, wealth gives men a social position, which nothing else save the rarest genius can obtain, and which that, in the majority of cases lacking the commercial conscience, is sure not to get. Many men prize this social rank above every thing else, even above justice and a life unstained.

Since it thus gives power, culture for one's children, and a distinguished social position, rank amongst men, for the man and his child after him, there is a temptation to regard money as the great object of life, not a means but an end; the thing a man is to get even at the risk of getting nothing else. It "answereth all things." Here and there you find a man who has got nothing else. Men say of such an one, "He is worth a million!" There is a terrible sarcasm in common speech, which all do not see. He is "worth a million," and that is all; not worth truth, goodness, piety; not worth a man. I must say, I cannot but think there are many such amongst us. Most rich men, I am told, have mainly gained wealth by skill, foresight, industry, economy, by honorable painstaking, not by trick. It may be so. I hope it is. Still there is a temptation to count wealth the object of life--the thing to be had if they have nothing else.

The next temptation is to think any means justifiable which lead to that end,--the temptation to fraud, deceit, to lying in its various forms, active and passive; the temptation to abuse the power of this natural strength, or acquired position, to tyrannize over the weak, to get and not give an equivalent for what they get. If a man get from the world more than he gives an equivalent for, to that extent he is a beggar and gets charity, or a thief and steals; at any rate, the rest of the world is so much the poorer for him. The temptation to fraud of this sort, in some of its many forms, is very great. I do not believe that all trade must be gambling or trickery, the merchant a knave or a gambler. I know some men say so. But I do not believe it. I know it is not so now; all actual trade, and profitable too, is not knavery. I know some become rich by deceit. I cannot but think these are the exceptions; that the most successful have had the average honesty and benevolence, with more than the average industry, foresight, prudence and skill. A man foresees future wants of his fellows, and provides for them; sees new resources hitherto undeveloped, anticipates new habits and wants; turns wood, stone, iron, coal, rivers and mountains to human use, and honestly earns what he takes. I am told, by some of their number, that the merchants of this place rank high as men of integrity and honor, above mean cunning, but enterprising, industrious and far-sighted. In comparison with some other places, I suppose it is true. Still I must admit the temptation to fraud is a great one; that it is often yielded to. Few go to a great extreme of deceit--they are known and exposed: but many to a considerable degree. He that makes haste to be rich is seldom innocent. Young men say it is hard to be honest; to do by others as you would wish them to do by you. I know it need not be so. Would not a reputation for uprightness and truth be a good capital for any man, old or young?

This class owns the machinery of society, in great measure,--the ships, factories, shops, water privileges, houses and the like. This brings into their employment large masses of working men, with no capital but muscles or skill. The law leaves the employed at the employer's mercy. Perhaps this is unavoidable. One wishes to sell his work dear, the other to get it cheap as he can. It seems to me no law can regulate this matter, only conscience, reason, the Christianity of the two parties. One class is strong, the other weak. In all encounters of these two, on the field of battle, or in the market-place, we know the result: the weaker is driven to the wall. When the earthen and iron vessel strike together, we know beforehand which will go to pieces. The weaker class can seldom tell their tale, so their story gets often suppressed in the world's literature, and told only in outbreaks and revolutions. Still the bold men who wrote the Bible, Old Testament and New, have told truths on this theme which others dared not tell--terrible words which it will take ages of Christianity to expunge from the world's memory.

There is a strong temptation to use one's power of nature or position to the disadvantage of the weak. This may be done consciously or unconsciously. There are examples enough of both. Here the merchant deals in the labor of men. This is a legitimate article of traffic, and dealing in it is quite indispensable in the present condition of affairs. In the Southern States, the merchant, whether producer, manufacturer or trader, owns men and deals in their labor, or their bodies. He uses their labor, giving them just enough of the result of that labor to keep their bodies in the most profitable working state; the rest of that result he steals for his own use, and by that residue becomes rich and famous. He owns their persons and gets their labor by direct violence, though sanctioned by law. That is slavery. He steals the man and his labor. Here it is possible to do a similar thing: I mean it is possible to employ men and give them just enough of the result of their labor to keep up a miserable life, and yourself take all the rest of the result of that labor. This may be done consciously or otherwise, but legally, without direct violence, and without owning the person. This is not slavery, though only one remove from it. This is the tyranny of the strong over the weak; the feudalism of money; stealing a man's work, and not his person. The merchants as a class are exposed to this very temptation. Sometimes it is yielded to. Some large fortunes have been made in this way. Let me mention some extreme cases; one from abroad, one near at home. In Belgium the average wages of men in manufactories is less than twenty-seven cents a day. The most skilful women in that calling can earn only twenty cents a day, and many very much less.[23] In that country almost every seventh man receives charity from the public: the mortality of operatives, in some of the cities, is ten per cent. a year! Perhaps that is the worst case which you can find on a large scale even in Europe. How much better off are many women in Boston who gain their bread by the needle? yes a large class of women in all our great cities? The ministers of the poor can answer that; your police can tell of the direful crime to which necessity sometimes drives women whom honest labor cannot feed!

I know it will be said, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; get work at the lowest wages." Still there is another view of the case, and I am speaking to men whose professed religion declares that all are brothers, and demands that the strong help the weak. Oppression of this sort is one fertile source of pauperism and crime. How much there is of it I know not, but I think men seldom cry unless they are hurt. When men are gathered together in large masses, as in the manufacturing towns, if there is any oppression of this sort, it is sure to get told of, especially in New England. But when a small number are employed, and they isolated from one another, the case is much harder. Perhaps no class of laborers in New England is worse treated than the hired help of small proprietors.

Then, too, there is a temptation to abuse their political power to the injury of the nation, to make laws which seem good for themselves, but are baneful to the people; to control the churches, so that they shall not dare rebuke the actual sins of the nation, or the sins of trade, and so the churches be made apologizers for lowness, practising infidelity as their sacrament, but in the name of Christ and God. The ruling power in England once published a volume of sermons, as well as a book of prayers, which the clergy were commanded to preach. What sort of a gospel got recommended therein, you may easily guess; and what is recommended by the class of merchants in New England, you may as easily hear.

* * * * *

But if their temptations are great, the opportunities of this class for doing good are greater still. Their power is more readily useful for good than ill, as all power is. In their calling they direct and control the machinery, the capital, and thereby the productive labor of the whole community. They can as easily direct that well as ill; for the benefit of all, easier than to the injury of any one. They can discover new sources of wealth for themselves, and so for the nation; they can set on foot new enterprises, which shall increase the comfort and welfare of man to a vast degree, and not only that, but enlarge also the number of men, for that always greatens in a nation, as the means of living are made easy. They can bind the rivers, teaching them to weave and spin. The introduction of manufactures into England, and the application of machinery to that purpose, I doubt not has added some millions of new lives to her population in the present century--millions that otherwise would never have lived at all. The introduction of manufactures into the United States, the application of water-power and steam-power to human work, the construction of canals and railroads, has vastly increased the comforts of the living. It helps civilize, educate and refine men; yes, leads to an increase of the number of lives. There are men to whom the public owes a debt which no money could pay, for it is a debt of life. What adequate sum of gold, or what honors could mankind give to Columbus, to Faustus, to Fulton, for their works? He that did the greatest service ever done to mankind got from his age a bad name and a cross for his reward. There are men whom mankind are to thank for thousands of lives; yet men who hold no lofty niche in the temple of fame.

By their control of the Legislature the merchants can fashion more wisely the institutions of the land, promote the freedom of all, break off traditionary yokes, help forward the public education of the people by the establishment of public schools, public academies, and public colleges. They can frame particular statutes which help and encourage the humble and the weak, laws which prevent the causes of poverty and crime, which facilitate for the poor man the acquisition of property, enabling him to invest his earnings in the most profitable stocks,--laws which bless the living, and so increase the number of lives. They can thus help organize society after the Christian idea, and promote the kingdom of heaven. They can make our jails institutions which really render their inmates better, and send them out whole men, safe and sound. We have seen them do this with lunatics, why not with those poor wretches whom now we murder? They too can found houses of cure for drunkards, and men yet more unfortunate when released from our prisons.

By their control of the churches, and all our seminaries, public and private, they can encourage freedom of thought; can promote the public morals by urging the clergy to point out and rebuke the sins of the nation, of society, the actual sins of men now living; can encourage them to separate theology from mythology, religion from theology, and then apply that religion to the State, to society and the individual; can urge them to preach both parts of religion--morality, the love of man, and piety, the love of God, setting off both by an appeal to that great soul who was Christianity in one person. In this way they have an opportunity of enlarging tenfold the practical value of the churches, and helping weed licentiousness, intemperance, want, and ignorance and sin, clean out of man's garden here. With their encouragement, the clergy would form a noble army contending for the welfare of men--the church militant, but preparing to be soon triumphant. Thus laboring, they can put an end to slavery, abolish war, and turn all the nation's creative energies to production--their legitimate work.

Then they can promote the advance of science, of literature, of the arts--the useful and the beautiful. We see what their famed progenitors did in this way at Venice, Florence, Genoa. I know men say that art cannot thrive in a republic. An opportunity is offered now to prove the falsehood of that speech, to adorn our strength with beauty. A great amount of creative, artistic talent is rising here and seeks employment.

They can endow hospitals, colleges, normal schools, found libraries and establish lectures for the welfare of all. He that has the wealth of a king may spend it like a king, not for ostentation, but for use. They can set before men examples of industry, economy, truth, justice, honesty, charity, of religion at her daily work, of manliness in life--all this as no other men. Their charities need not stare you in the face; like violets their fragrance may reach you before you see them. The bare mention of these things recalls the long list of benefactors, names familiar to you all--for there is one thing which this city was once more famous for than her enterprise, and that is her Charity--the charity which flows in public;--the noiseless stream that shows itself only in the greener growth which marks its path.

* * * * *

Such are the position, temptations, opportunities of this class. What is their practical influence on Church and State--on the economy of mankind? what are they doing in the nation? I must judge them by the highest standard that I know, the standard of justice, of absolute religion, not out of my own caprice. Bear with me while I attempt to tell the truth, which I have seen. If I see it not, pity me and seek better instruction where you can find it. But if I see a needed truth, and for my own sake refuse to speak, bear with me no more. Bid me then repent. I am speaking of men, strong men too, and shall not spare the truth.

There is always a conservative element in society; yes, an element which resists the further application of Christianity to public affairs. Once the fighters and their children were uppermost, and represented that element. Then the merchants were reformatory, radical, in collision with the nobles. They were "Whigs"--the nobles were "Tories." The merchants formed themselves into companies, and got power from the crown to protect themselves against the nobles, whom the crown also feared. It is so in England now. The great revolution in the laws of trade lately effected there, was brought about by the merchants, though opposed by the lords. The anti-corn law league was a trades-union of merchants contending against the owners of the soil. There the lord of land, and by birth, is slowly giving way to the lord of money, who is powerful by his knowledge or his wealth. There will always be such an element in society. Here I think it is represented by the merchants. They are backward in all reforms, excepting such as their own interest demands. Thus they are blind to the evils of slavery, at least silent about them. How few commercial or political newspapers in the land ever seriously oppose this great national wickedness! Nay, how many of them favor its extension and preservation! A few years ago, in this very city, a mob of men, mainly from this class, it is said, insulted honest women peaceably met to consult for the welfare of Christian slaves in a Christian land--met to pray for them! A merchant of this city says publicly, that a large majority of his brethren would kidnap a fugitive slave in Boston; says it with no blush and without contradiction.[24] It was men of this class who opposed the abolition of the slave-trade, and had it guaranteed them for twenty years after the formation of the Constitution; through their instigation that this foul blot was left to defile the Republic and gather blackness from age to age; through their means that the nation stands before the world pledged to maintain it. They could end slavery at once, at least could end the national connection with it, but it is through their support that it continues; that it acquires new strength, new boldness, new territory, darkens the nation's fame and hope, delays all other reformations in Church and State and the mass of the people. Yes, it is through their influence that the chivalry, the wisdom, patriotism, eloquence, yea, religion of the free States, are all silent when the word slavery is pronounced.

The Senate of Massachusetts represents this more than any other class. But all last winter it could not say one word against the wickedness of this sin, allowed to live and grow greater in the land.[25] Just before the last election something could be said! Do speech and silence mean the same thing?

This class opposed abolishing imprisonment for debt, thinking it endangered trade. They now oppose the progress of temperance and the abolition of the gallows. They see the evils of war; they cannot see its sin; will sustain men who help plunge the nation into its present disgraceful and cowardly conflict; will encourage foolish young men to go and fight in this wicked war. A great man said, or is reported to have said, that perhaps it is not an American habit to consider the natural justice of a war, but to count its cost! A terrible saying that! There is a Power which considers its Justice, and will demand of us the blood we have wickedly poured out; blood of Americans, blood of the Mexicans! They favor indirect taxation, which is taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich; they continue to support the causes of poverty; as a class they are blind to this great evil of popular ignorance--the more terrible evils of licentiousness, drunkenness and crime! They can enrich themselves by demoralizing their brothers. I wish it was an American habit to count the cost of that. Some "fanatic" will consider its justice. If they see these evils they look not for their cause; at least, strive not to remove that cause. They have long known that every year more money is paid in Boston for poison drink to be swallowed on the spot, a drink which does no man any good, which fills your asylums with paupers, your jails with criminals, and houses with unutterable misery in father, mother, wife and child,--more money every year than it would take to build your new aqueduct and bring abundance of water fresh to every house![26] If they have not known it, why it was their fault, for the fact was there crying to Heaven against us all. As they are the most powerful class, the elder brothers, American nobles if you will, it was their duty to look out for their weaker brother. No man has strength for himself alone. To use it for one's self alone, that is a sin. I do not think they are conscious of the evil they do, or the evils they allow. I speak not of motives, only of facts.

This class controls the State. The effects of that control appear in our legislation. I know there are some noble men in political life, who have gone there with the loftiest motives, men that ask only after what is right. I honor such men--honor them all the more because they seem exceptions to a general rule; men far above the spirit of any class. I must speak of what commonly takes place. Our politics are chiefly mercantile, politics in which money is preferred, and man postponed. When the two come into collision, the man goes to the wall and the street is left clear for the dollars. A few years ago in monarchical France a report was made of the condition of the working population in the large manufacturing towns--a truthful report, but painful to read, for it told of strong men oppressing the weak.[27] I do not believe that such an undisguised statement of the good and ill could be tolerated in democratic America; no, not of the condition of men in New England; and what would be thought of a book setting forth the condition of the laboring men and women of the South? I know very well what is thought of the few men who attempt to tell the truth on this subject. I think there is no nation in Europe, except Russia and Turkey, which cares so little for the class which reaps down its harvests and does the hard work. When you protect the rights of all, you protect also the property of each and by that very act. To begin the other way is quite contrary to nature. But our politicians cannot say too little for men, nor too much for money. Take the politicians most famous and honored at this day, and what have they done? They have labored for a tariff, or for free trade; but what have they done for man? nay, what have they attempted?--to restore natural rights to men notoriously deprived of them; progressively to elevate their material, moral, social condition? I think no one pretends it. Even in proclamations for Thanksgiving and days of prayer, it is not the most needy we are bid remember. Public sins are not pointed out to be repented of. Slaveholding States shut up in their jails our colored seamen soon as they arrive in a southern port. A few years ago, at a time of considerable excitement here on the slavery question, a petition was sent from this place by some merchants and others, to one of our Senators, praying Congress to abate that evil. For a long time that Senator could find no opportunity to present the petition. You know how much was said and what was done! Had the South demanded every tenth or twentieth bale of "domestics" coming from the North; had a petition relative to that grievance been sent to Congress, and a Senator unreasonably delayed to present it--how much more would have been said and done; when he came back he would have been hustled out of Boston! When South Carolina and Louisiana sent home our messengers--driving them off with reproach, insult, and danger of their lives--little is said and nothing done. But if the barbarous natives of Sumatra interfere with our commerce, why, we send a ship and lay their towns in ruins and murder the men and women! We all know that for some years Congress refused to receive petitions relative to slavery; and we know how tamely that was borne by the class who commonly control political affairs! What if Congress had refused to receive petitions relative to a tariff, or free trade, to the shipping interest, or the manufacturing interest? When the rights of men were concerned, three million men, only the "fanatics" complained. The political newspapers said "Hush!"

The merchant-manufacturers want a protective tariff; the merchant-importers, free trade; and so the national politics hinge upon that question. When Massachusetts was a carrying State, she wanted free trade; now a manufacturing State, she desires protection. That is all natural enough; men wish to protect their interests, whatsoever they may be. But no talk is made about protecting the labor of the rude man, who has no capital, nor skill, nothing but his natural force of muscles. The foreigner underbids him, monopolizing most of the brute labor of our large towns and internal improvements. There is no protection, no talk of protection for the carpenter, or the bricklayer. I do not complain of that. I rejoice to see the poor wretches of the old world finding a home where our fathers found one before. Yet if we cared for men more than for money, and were consistent with our principles of protection, why, we should exclude all foreign workmen, as well as their work, and so raise the wages of the native hands. That would doubtless be very foolish legislation--but perhaps not, on that account, very strange. I know we are told that without protection, our hand-worker, whose capital is his skill, cannot compete with the operative of Manchester and Brussels, because that operative is paid but little. I know not if it be true, or a mistake. But who ever told us such men could not compete with the slave of South Carolina who is paid nothing? We have legislation to protect our own capital against foreign capital; perhaps our own labor against the "pauper of Europe;" why not against the slave labor of the Southern States? Because the controlling class prefers money and postpones man. Yet the slave-breeder is protected. He has, I think, the only real monopoly in the land. No importer can legally spoil his market, for the foreign slave is contraband. If I understand the matter, the importation of slaves was allowed, until such men as pleased could accumulate their stock. The reason why it was afterwards forbidden I think was chiefly a mercantile reason: the slave-breeder wanted a monopoly, for God knows and you know that it is no worse to steal grown men in Africa than to steal new born babies in Maryland, to have them born for the sake of stealing them. Free labor may be imported, for it helps the merchant-producer and the merchant-manufacturer. Slave labor is declared contraband, for the merchant-slave-breeders want a monopoly.

This same preference of money over men appears in many special statutes. In most of our manufacturing companies the capital is divided into shares so large that a poor man cannot invest therein! This could easily be avoided. A man steals a candlestick out of a church, and goes to the State Prison for a year and a day. Another quarrels with a man, maims him for life, and is sent to the common jail for six months. A bounty is paid, or was until lately, on every gallon of intoxicating drink manufactured here and sent out of the country. If we begin with taking care of the rights of man, it seems easy to take care of the rights of labor and of capital. To begin the other way is quite another thing. A nation making laws for the nation is a noble sight. The Government of all, by all, and for all, is a democracy. When that Government follows the eternal laws of God, it is founding what Christ called the kingdom of heaven. But the predominating class making laws not for the nation's good, but only for its own, is a sad spectacle; no reasoning can make it other than a sorry sight. To see able men prostituting their talents to such a work, that is one of the saddest sights! I know all other nations have set us the example, yet it is painful to see it followed, and here.

Our politics, being mainly controlled by this class, are chiefly mercantile, the politics of peddlers. So political management often becomes a trick. Hence we have many politicians, and raise a harvest of them every year, that crop never failing, party-men who can legislate for a class; but we have scarce one great statesman who can step before his class, beyond his age, and legislate for a whole nation, leading the people and giving us new ideas to incarnate in the multitude, his word becoming flesh. We have not planters, but trimmers! A great statesman never came of mercantile politics, only of politics considered as the national application of religion to life. Our political morals, you all know what they are, the morals of a huckster. This is no new thing; the same game was played long ago in Venice, Pisa, Florence, and the result is well known. A merely mercantile politician is very sharp-sighted and perhaps far-sighted, but a dollar will cover the whole field of his vision and he can never see through it. The number of slaves in the United States is considerably greater than our whole population when we declared Independence, yet how much talk will a tariff make, or a public dinner; how little the welfare of three million men! Said I not truly, our most famous politicians are, in the general way, only mercantile party-men? Which of these men has shown the most interest in those three million slaves? The man who in the Senate of a Christian Republic valued them at twelve hundred million dollars! Shall respectable men say, "We do not care what sort of a Government the people have, so long as we get our dividends." Some say so; many men do not say that, but think so and act accordingly! The Government, therefore, must be so arranged that they get their dividends.

This class of men buys up legislators, consciously or not, and pays them, for value received. Yes, so great is its daring and its conscious power, that we have recently seen our most famous politician bought up, the stoutest understanding that one finds now extant in this whole nineteenth century, perhaps the ablest head since Napoleon. None can deny his greatness, his public services in times past, nor his awful power of intellect. I say we have seen him, a Senator of the United States, pensioned by this class, or a portion thereof, and thereby put mainly in their hands! When a whole nation rises up and publicly throws its treasures at the feet of a great man who has stood forth manfully contending for the nation, and bids him take their honors and their gold as a poor pay for noble works, why that sight is beautiful, the multitude shouting hosanna to their King, and spreading their garments underneath his feet! Man is loyal, and such honors so paid, and to such, are doubly gracious; becoming alike to him that takes and those who give. Yes, when a single class, to whom some man has done a great service, goes openly and makes a memorial thereof in gold and honors paid to him, why that also is noble and beautiful. But when a single class, in a country where political doings are more public than elsewhere in the whole world, secretly buys up a man, in high place and world-famous, giving him a retaining fee for life, why the deed is one I do not wish to call by name! Could such men do this without a secret shame? I will never believe it of my countrymen.[28] A gift blinds a wise man's eyes, perverts the words even of the righteous, stopping his mouth with gold so that he cannot reprove a wrong! But there is an absolute justice which is neither bought nor sold! I know other nations have done the same and with like effect. Fight with silver weapons, said the Delphic oracle, and you'll conquer all. It has always been the craft of despots to buy up aspiring talent; some with a title; some with gold. Allegiance to the sovereign is the same thing on both sides of the water, whether the sovereign be an eagle or a guinea. Some American, it is said, wrote the Lord's Prayer on one side of a dime, and the Ten Commandments on the other. The Constitution and a considerable commentary might perhaps be written on the two sides of a dollar!