Chapter X: Part II: Courtship (6)

Again, the wide extent of our country, the variety of our soils, our immense mineralogical resources, our mountains and rivers, our diversified geological phenomena, our canals, our rail roads, our immense improvements of all descriptions, open a wide and unlimited range for the research and practical skill of the physical and mathematical student, which will always stimulate the talent of the country sufficiently in this direction. Our past history too, confirms my remarks; and the great names in mathematics and physics, and the great and useful inventions in the arts, which have already shed a halo of glory around our infant institutions, point us to that brilliant prospect in the vista of the future, when our mathematical and natural philosophers, if not the very first, will certainly rank among the greatest of the world.]

But again, the state system of government, in all its details, awakens the genius and elicits the energies of the citizens, by the high inducement to exertion held out to all,--from the stimulating hope of influencing the {273} destinies of others, and becoming useful to mankind and an ornament to our country. Under the benign operation of the federative system, the hope of rising to some distinction in the commonwealth, is breathed into us all. From the highest to the lowest, we stand ready and anxious to step forth into the service of our country. This universal desire to be useful--this constant hope of rising to distinction--this longing after immortality, arouses the spirit of emulation, excites all the powers of reflection, calls forth all the energies of mind and body, and makes man a greater, nobler, and more efficient being, than when he moves on sluggishly in the dull routine of life, through the unvarying, noiseless calm of despotism. All the rewards, all the distinctions of arbitrary power, can never inspire that energy which arises from the patriotic hope of being useful, and weaving our name with the history of our country.

Philosophy is the most frivolous and shallow of employments in a country where it dares not penetrate into the institutions which surround it. When reflection durst not attempt to amend or soften the lot of mankind, it becomes unmanly and puerile. Look to the literature of those deluded beings, who immured within the walls of their monasteries, separated themselves from the great society of their country, and vainly imagined that they were doing service to their God, by running counter to those great laws which he has impressed upon his creatures, and by violating those principles which he has breathed into us all. What a melancholy picture is presented to our view--what waste of time, of intellect, and of labor, on subjects which true philosophy is almost ashamed to name! What endless discussions, what pointless wit, what inconsequential conclusions--in fine, what empty, useless nonsense, do we find in that absurd philosophy reared up in seclusion, and entirely unconnected with man and the institutions by which he is governed![12]

[Footnote 12: As a specimen, let us take the work of the celebrated St. Thomas Aquinas, with the lofty title of Summa Totius Theologiæ, 1250 pages folio. In this work there are 168 articles on Love, 358 on Angels, 200 on the Soul, 85 on Demons, 151 on Intellect, 134 on Law, 3 on the Catamenia, 237 on Sins, and 17 on Virginity. He treats of Angels, says D'Israeli, their substances, orders, offices, natures, habits, &c. as if he himself had been an old experienced Angel. When men are thus cut off from the active pursuits of life, it is curious to contemplate the very trifling character of their discussions and labors. D'Israeli tells us that the following question was a favorite topic for discussion, and thousands of the acutest logicians through more than one century, never resolved it. "When a hog is carried to market with a rope tied about its neck, which is held at the other end by a man, whether is the _hog_ carried to market by the _rope_ or the _man_?" The same writer too, tells us of a monk who was sedulously employed through a long life, in discovering more than 30,000 new questions concerning the Virgin Mary, with appropriate answers. And it was the same useless industry which induced the monks often to employ their time in writing very _minutely_, until they brought this worthless art to such perfection, as to write down the whole Iliad on parchment that might be enclosed in a nutshell. In the Imperial Library of Vienna, there is still preserved an extraordinary specimen of chirography by a Jew, who had no doubt imbibed the _in_-utilitarian spirit of the monks. On a single page, eight inches long by six and a half broad, are written without abbreviations and very legible to the naked eye, the Pentateuch and book of Ruth in German; Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew; the Canticles in Latin; Esther in Syriac; and Deuteronomy in French.]

Nothing so much animates and cheers the literary man in his intellectual labors, as the hope of being able to promote the happiness of the human race. Hence the custom among the ancients of blending together military, legislative, and philosophic pursuits, contributed greatly to the progress of mental activity and improvement. When thought may be the forerunner of action--when a happy reflection may be instantaneously transformed into a beneficent institution, then do the contemplations and reflections of a man of genius ennoble and exalt philosophy. He no longer fears that the torch of his reason will be extinguished without shedding a light along the path of active life. He no longer experiences that embarrassing timidity, that crushing shame, which genius, condemned to mere speculation, must ever feel in the presence of even an inferior being, when that being is invested with a power which may influence the destiny of those around him--which may enable him to render the smallest service to his country, or even to wipe away one tear from affliction's cheek.

I am not now dealing in vague conjecture; the history of the past will bear me out in the assertions which I have made. In casting a glance over the nations of antiquity, our attention is arrested by none so forcibly as by the little Democracies of Greece. I will not occupy the attention of this society by the details of that history which is graven upon the memory of us all. I will not stop here to relate the warlike achievements of that extraordinary system of governments which, covering an extent of territory not greater than that of our own state, even with division among themselves, was yet enabled to meet, with their small but devoted bands, the countless hosts of Persia, led on by their proud and vain-glorious monarch, and to roll back in disgrace and defeat, the mighty tide upon the East. Nor will I recount the trophies which they won in philosophy, or describe their beautiful and sublime productions in the arts, which they at once created and perfected. Nor will I detain you with an account of that matchless eloquence displayed in their popular assemblies, which the historian tells us drew together eager, gazing, listening crowds from all Greece, as if about to behold the most splendid spectacle which the imagination of man could conceive, or even the universe could present. The history of Greece is too well known to us all to require these details. A people with such historians as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, acquires a strange pre-eminence--a wonderful notoriety among the nations of the earth. The extraordinary power of this cluster of little states, the superiority of their literature, the resistless energy of the minds and bodies of their citizens, whether for weal or woe--in short, their real greatness, are acknowledged by all.

What then, we may well be permitted to ask, could have generated so much greatness of mind, so much energy and loftiness of character in this apparently secluded corner of Europe, scarcely visible on the world's map? It was not the superiority of her climate and soil. Spain--worn out and degenerate Spain, enjoys the genial climate of the Athenian, and possesses a soil more fertile. It was not the superior protection which her governments afforded to persons and property, which generated this wonderful character. Property was almost as unsafe amid the turbulent factions of Greece, as under the despotisms of the East; and the stroke of tyranny was as often inflicted upon {274} patriots and statesmen, by the ungrateful hand of a capricious and unbalanced democracy, as by the great monarchs of Persia, or by the barbarian kings of Scythia. No!--it was the system of independent state governments, which, badly organized as they were, without a proper system of representation and responsibility, and often shaken by faction and torn to pieces by discord, nevertheless extended their inspiring, animating influence over all, and drew forth from the shade of retirement or solitude the talent and energy of the people, wherever they existed. It was this system of state government which so completely identified each citizen of Greece with that little body politic with which his destiny was connected--which breathed into his soul that ardent patriotism which can sacrifice self upon the altar of our country's happiness, and which could make even an Alcibiades, or a Themistocles, whilst laboring under the bitter curse of their country, stop short in their vindictive career, amid their meditations of mischief and vengeance, and cast many a longing, lingering, pitying look back upon the distresses of that ungrateful city that had driven them forth from its walls.

The great moral which may be drawn from the history of Greece, is one which the patriot in no age or clime should ever forget. In looking over this little system of states, we find uniformly that each displayed genius, energy, and patriotism, while really free and independent; but the moment one was overawed and conquered by its neighbor, it lost its greatness, its patriotism--even its virtue. And when, at last, a great state arose in the north of Greece, and placed a monarch upon its throne, who substituted the obedient spirit of the mercenary soldier and crouching courtier, for the independent genius of liberty and patriotism--who overawed Greece by his armies, and silenced the Council of Amphictyon by his presence--then was it found that the days of Grecian greatness had been numbered, and that the glory of these republics was destroyed forever; then was it seen that the Spartan lost his patriotism, and the Athenian that energy of mind almost creative, which could lead armies and navies to battle and to victory, adorn and enrich the stores of philosophy and literature, agitate the public assemblies from the _Bema_, or make the marble and the canvass breathe. The battle of Cheronea overthrew at the same time the state governments, the liberties, the prosperity, and, worst of all, the virtue and the towering intellect of Greece.

With the destruction of the governments of her independent states, Greece lost the great animating principle of her system. Forming but an insignificant subject province of the great Macedonian kingdom, and afterwards of the still greater empire of Rome, her sons preserved for a time the books and the mere learning of their renowned ancestors; but the spirit, the energy, the principle of thought and reflection,--the mind,--were all gone. "For more than ten centuries, (says an eloquent historian) the Greeks of Byzantium possessed models of every kind, yet they did not suggest to them one original idea; they did not give birth to a copy worthy of coming after these masterpieces. Thirty millions of Greeks, the surviving depositaries of ancient wisdom, made not a single step, during twelve centuries, in any one of the social sciences. There was not a citizen of free Athens who was not better skilled in the science of politics than the most erudite scholar of Byzantium; their morality was far inferior to that of Socrates--their philosophy to that of Plato and Aristotle, upon whom they were continually commenting. They made not a single discovery in any one of the physical sciences, unless we except the lucky accident which produced the Greek fire. They loaded the ancient poets with annotations, but they were incapable of treading in their footsteps; not a comedy or a tragedy was written at the foot of the ruins of the theatres of Greece; no epic poem was produced by the worshippers of Homer; not an ode by those of Pindar. Their highest literary efforts do not go beyond a few epigrams collected in the Greek Anthology, and a few romances. Such is the unworthy use which the depositaries of every treasure of human wit and genius make of their wealth, during an uninterrupted course of transmission for more than a thousand years." And such will always be the destiny of states as soon as they are moulded into one consolidated empire, with a controlling despotism at the centre.

But while the states of Greece were thus sinking into insignificance, under the crushing weight of one great consolidated government,--in another part of Europe, almost as small and secluded as Greece, little confederacies or associations of independent states were rapidly developing a literature and a character equal to those of the ancient Greek, and affording perhaps a still more striking and beautiful illustration of the truth of the principles for which I have contended this night. It was Italy that first restored intellectual light to Europe, after the long and gloomy night of ignorance and barbarism, which the Goth, the Vandal and the Hun had shed over the western half of the Roman world. It was Italy which recalled youth to the study of laws and philosophy--created the taste for poetry and the fine arts--revived the science and literature of antiquity, and gave prosperity to commerce, manufactures and agriculture. And what was it, let me ask, which made this small peninsula the cradle of commerce, of the arts, sciences and literature--in one word, of the civilization of modern Europe? It was because the whole of this beautiful and interesting country was dotted over with little republics or democracies, which, like those of Greece, applied their stimulating power to every portion of the soil of Italy. These little states, it is true, were factious, turbulent and revolutionary, but they awakened the genius and stimulated the energies of the whole people.

The exertions of this people were truly wonderful. No nation in any age of the world has ever raised up in its cities, and even in its villages, so many magnificent temples,--which even now attract the stranger from every country and clime to the classic soil of Italy. We find throughout this land, whether on the extensive plains of Lombardy, or on the fertile hills of Tuscany and Romagna, or on the now deserted _campania_ of the Patrimony of St. Peter, towns of the most splendid character, reared during the palmy days of modern Italy; and in those cities we find long lines of once stately palaces now tumbling into ruins. Their gates, their columns, their architraves, says the eloquent historian of Italy, remain, but the wood is worm-eaten and decayed, the crystal glasses have been broken, the lead has been taken from the roofs, and the stranger from one end to the {275} other of this _monumental_ land, asks in mournful sadness in each town through which he passes,--Where now is the population which could have required so many habitations? Where is the commerce which could have filled so many magazines? Where are those opulent citizens who could have lived in so many palaces? Where now are those numerous crowds that bowed in reverential awe and devotion before the altars of Christ, of the Virgin and the Saints? Where now are the grandeur and magnificence of the living, which should have replaced that grandeur and magnificence of the dead, of which their monuments so eloquently tell? All are gone. While other nations have been growing in importance and multiplying the materials of their history as they approach the age in which we live, how different has been the mournful destiny of Italy! The present has well been called the epoch of death in that lovely land. When we observe, says the historian, the whole of Italy, whether we examine the physiognomy of the soil, or the works of man, or man himself, we always regard ourselves as being in the land of the dead; every where we are struck by the feebleness and degeneracy of the race that now is, compared with that which has been. The sun of Italy now sheds as warm and vivifying rays over the land as before--the earth remains as fertile--the Appenines present to our view the same varient smiling aspect--the fields are as abundantly watered by the genial showers of heaven, and all the lower animals of nature preserve here their pristine beauty and habits. Man too, at birth, seems in this delightful climate, to be endowed still with the same quick creative imagination, with the same susceptibility of deep, passionate feeling--with the same wonderful aptitude of mind--and yet man alone has changed here! In contrast with his fathers--

"As the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam,
That drives the sailor shipless to his home."

It is the change in government--the fatal change in the political destiny of the Italian, which has wrought this melancholy change in his whole nature. When this beautiful land was covered with leagues of independent states, inspired with the genius of liberty and political independence,--the stimulating influence of the government was felt every where--it animated and aroused all--it communicated the spirit of activity and enterprise, the love of home and the ardent love of country to all the citizens alike--from the proud lord of Venice, whose stately palace was lashed by the wave of the Adriatic, to the poor peasant whose thatched and humble cottage lay in some secluded solitary hollow of the Alps or the Appenines. Under this system of government there was no favored spot upon which the treasures of the nation were expended; there was no Thebes, no Babylon, no imperial Rome built up, adorned and beautified by the degradation and utter prostration of all the rest. We might almost say of Italy what has been affirmed of Omnipotence itself--its centre was every where, its circumference no where. Every little independent state, no matter how limited its area or small its population, had its great men, its thriving cities, its noble monuments. The little Florentine democracy with but eighty thousand souls, had more great men within its limits than any of the great kingdoms of Europe; and all were animated with the spirit of patriotism, of industry,[13] of learning.

[Footnote 13: "The habit of industry," says Sismondi, "was the distinctive characteristic of the Italians even to the middle of the 15th century. The first rank at Florence, Venice, and Genoa, was occupied by merchants; and the families who possessed the offices of the state, of the church or the army, did not for that reason give up their business. Philip Strozzi, brother-in-law of Leo X, the father of Mareschal Strozzi, and the grandfather of Capua, the friend of several sovereigns, and the first citizen of Italy, remained even to the end of his life chief of a banking house. He had seven sons, but in spite of his immense fortune, he suffered none of them to be brought up in idleness."]

No wonder then that the citizens of Italy should have prospered amid their domestic broils, their factions, their revolutions--even amid the sanguinary conflicts of the Guelph and the Ghibeline. If the energy and elasticity of the mind be not destroyed by the pressure of despotism, it is curious to contemplate the wonderfully recuperative powers of man, and to behold the appalling difficulties which he can surmount, undismayed and unscathed. You may prostrate him to day, but the energy and vitality that is within him will raise him up on the morrow.[14] Of all sorts of destruction, of every kind of death, that is the worst, because the most productive of melancholy consequences, which reaches the mind itself. That system of government which slays the mind, is the system which, at the same time reaches the sanctuary of the heart, overthrows the purity of morals, and forges the fetters for the slave. And such a government as this have the Spaniard the Frenchman and the German rivetted but too fatally upon Italy. The day that saw those modern Goths and Vandals pouring their mercenary hordes over the Alps to rob and plunder, was a black day for Italy, and well might the friend of that lovely land have then exclaimed in the language of the poet,

"Oh! Rome, the spoiler or the spoil of France,
From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never
Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance,
But Tiber shall become a mournful river."

[Footnote 14: Whilst Italy was free, there was no country which could repair its losses with so much despatch; the town that was sacked and burnt to-day, would be built up and stored with wealth on the morrow, and the losses of one excited the sympathies and support of all those engaged in the same cause. When the Emperor Frederic carried fire and sword through the Milanese territory, and left the treasury of that state completely exhausted, we are told that the rich citizens soon replenished it from their private purses, contenting themselves in the mean time with coarse bread, and cloaks of black stuff. And at the command of their consuls they left Milan to join their fellow citizens in rebuilding _with their own hands_ the walls and houses of Tortona, Rosata, Tricate, Galiate, and other towns, which had suffered in the contest for the common cause.]

The independence of the little states of Italy is now gone, and with it all the real greatness of that country. The power that now sways the Italian, emanates from a nation situated afar off on the banks of the Danube. And can we wonder while the Austrian soldier stands sentinel in the Italian cities, that their citizens should

"Creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets."

But enough of a spectacle so sad as this![15]

[Footnote 15: Small states, if truly independent, are very favorable to the production of great characters, and even great virtues. "The regeneration of liberty in Italy," says Sismondi, "was signalized still more, if it were possible, by the development of the moral, than by that of the intellectual character of the {276} Italians. The sympathy existing among fellow-citizens, from the habit of living for each other, and by each other--of connecting every thing with the good of all, produced in those republics virtues which despotic states cannot even imagine." But the moment the independence of the small states is destroyed by the overshadowing and overawing influence of larger ones, then does the system work the most disastrous consequences upon the political, moral, and literary character of the citizens. A little state overawed by a large one, instantly has recourse to cunning, intrigue, and duplicity, to accomplish its ends. Cæsar Borgia in Italy, says Mr. Hume, had recourse to more villainy, hypocrisy, and meanness, to get possession of a few miles of territory, than was practised by Julius Cæsar, Zenghis, or Tamerlane for the conquest of a large portion of the world. Hence we are not to wonder that Italy should become the most infamous of all schools, in the production of subtile, intriguing, hypocritical politicians, and that the literature should soon become as corrupt as the political morals of the country. The Marini, the Achillini in poetry, and the Bernini in the arts, had a reputation similar to that of Concini, Mazarini, Catherine, and Mary di Medici in politics.]

Did the limits which I have prescribed to myself in this address allow it, I could easily adduce the history of the Swiss Cantons, the Netherlands and Holland, the Hanseatic League, the little states formerly around the Baltic, and even the Germanic Confederation, as confirmation strong of the truth of the positions which I have taken in favor of the federative system. Indeed I might go farther than this, and show that the feudal aristocracy of the middle ages, horrible as was its oppression, calamitous as were its petty wars, and feuds, and dissensions, intolerable as was that anarchical confusion which it generated in Europe towards the close of the tenth century, was nevertheless the instrument which kept alive the mind of man in the great nations of Christendom, by splitting up the powers of government among the Baronial Lords, and thereby preventing that fatal tendency to centralism and consolidation, which would inevitably have shrouded the mind of Europe in inextricable darkness. Far be from me that vain presumption which would dare to scan the mysterious plans of Providence; but I have always thought that the regeneration of the mind of Europe required that the barbarian should come from the North and the East--that an Alaric, a Genseric and an Attila, should pour out the vials of their wrath upon the Roman's head--that the monstrous, corrupt and gigantic fabric of his power might be broken to pieces by barbarian hordes, who had not the genius and political skill requisite to establish another great military despotism on its ruins.

After this review I turn with pleasure again to our own system of government. We have seen how stimulating were the little republics of Greece and of Italy, to the genius of those countries. But their systems were not made for peaceable endurance--they were too disunited, too turbulent, too prone to civil wars; hence they either fell a prey to some ambitious state in their own system, or invited by their reckless internal dissensions the foreigner into their land, who broke down their institutions, overthrew their liberty, and imposed upon their submissive necks the galling yoke of military despotism. But those venerated fathers of our republics, who framed the federal constitution, came forward to their task in full view of the history of the republics of the ancient and modern world, with that almost holy spirit of freedom and patriotism which gave them that undaunted courage and unremitting perseverance that enabled them to wade through the blood and turmoil of the revolution. They completed their task, and the wisdom and virtue of our confederacy did sanction their work, and long may that work endure if administered in that spirit of purity and virtue which inspired those who framed it.

Our states are much larger than the little democracies of ancient Greece or of modern Italy--the new and improved principle of representation, combined with the modern improvements in the whole machinery of government, have rendered the republican form much better suited to large states than formerly. Some of our states may perhaps be too large, and others too small. But our ancestors very wisely avoided that geometrical policy, which would have divided our country into equal squares, like France in the dark days of her revolution. "No man ever was attached," says Burke, "by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square measurement. He never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71, or to any other badge ticket. We begin our public affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighborhoods and our habitual provincial connections;" and these ties and habits were respected by our forefathers. No sovereign state, no matter how small, was disfranchised--the giant and the dwarf had their rights and liberties alike respected and secured in this new system, and all were bound together by a wise and beneficent plan of government, based upon the mutual interests and sympathies of all the members of the confederacy--a plan which was wisely framed to give lasting peace to our country, and to demonstrate the inapplicability to our portion of the western hemisphere at least, of the gloomy philosophy of the European statesman, that the natural condition of man is war. Thus organized, our system was calculated to apply the beneficial stimulus of government to every portion of our soil and every division of our population, and at the same time in the midst of profound peace and freedom of intercourse, both social and commercial, among the states, to secure that enlarged and extended theatre for action, which may stimulate and reward the exalted genius and talent of the country, and crown the pyramid of our greatness.

But I must turn from this view of my subject, which has ever been so delightful to my mind, to the contemplation always gloomy, of the dangerous evils which may beset us in our progress onwards. It is too true that there can be nothing pure in this world; good and evil are always intertwined. It has well been said that the wave which wafts to our shore the genial seed that may spring up and gladden our land with luxuriant vegetation, may unfold the deadly crocodile.

One of the most fatal evils with which the republican system of government is liable to be assailed, is the diffusion of a spirit of agrarianism among the indigent classes of society. This spirit is now abroad in the world--it is fearfully developing itself in the insurrectionary heavings and tumults of continental Europe, which, however ineffectual now, do nevertheless mark the great internal conflagration--"the march of that mighty burning, which however intangible by human vigilance, is yet hollowing the ground under every community of the civilized world." England's most eloquent and learned divine, tells us but too truly that {277} "there now sits an unnatural scowl on the aspect of the population, a resolved sturdiness in their attitude and gait; and whether we look to the profane recklessness of their habits, or to the deep and settled hatred which rankles in their hearts, we cannot but read in these moral characteristics of this land, the omens of some great and impending overthrow."

In our own more happy country, the almost unlimited extension of suffrage in the most populous states, the frequent appeals made to the indigent and the destitute by demagogues for the purpose of inflaming their passions, and of exciting that most blighting and deadly hostility of all, the hostility of the poor against the rich--the tumults and riots at the elections in our great cities--the lawless mobs of the north which have already set the civil authority at defiance, and have pulled down and destroyed the property of the citizen--all are but premonitory symptoms of the approaching calamity--they are but the rumbling sound which precedes the mighty shock of the terrible earthquake. If these things happen now, what may we not expect hereafter? At present the great territorial resources of our country offer the most stimulating reward to labor and enterprise. The laborer of to-day looks forward, and hopes, yes, knows, that by his industry he is to be the capitalist of to-morrow. He feels a prospective interest in the defence of property. The little German farmer with a hundred acres of poor land in the Key Stone State, clad in the coarsest raiment, contented with the simplest food, and saving from his hard earnings the small sum of one hundred dollars a year, would not wish the property of the country to be thrown in jeopardy--he would shudder at the idea of a general scramble, lest he might lose that little patrimony around which the very affections of his heart have been twined.

But the time must come when the powerfully elastic spring of our rapidly increasing numbers shall fill up our wide spread territory with a dense population--when the great safety valve of the west will be closed against us--when millions shall be crowded into our manufactories and commercial cities--then will come the great and fearful pressure upon the engine--then will the line of demarkation stand most palpably drawn between the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the laborer--then will thousands, yea, millions arise, whose hard lot it may be to labor from morn till eve through a long life, without the cheering hope of passing from that toilsome condition in which the first years of their manhood found them, or even of accumulating in advance that small fund which may release the old and infirm from labor and toil, and mitigate the sorrows of declining years. Many there will be even, who may go to and fro and be able to say in the melancholy language of Holy Writ, "the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air their nest, but the son of man has not where to lay his head." When these things shall come--when the millions, who are always under the pressure of poverty, and sometimes on the verge of starvation, shall form your numerical majority, (as is the case now in the old countries of the world) and universal suffrage shall throw the political power into their hands, can you expect that they will regard as sacred the tenure by which you hold your property? I almost fear the frailties and weakness of human nature too much, to anticipate confidently such justice. When hunger is in the land, we can scarcely expect, by any species of legerdemain, to turn the eyes and thoughts of the sufferers from the flesh pots of Egypt. The old Roman populace demanded a regular distribution of corn from the public granaries; the Grecian populace received bribes, fined and imprisoned their wealthy men, or made them build galleys, equip soldiers, give public feasts, and furnish the victims for the sacrifices at their own expense.[16] The mode of action in modern times may be changed, but the result will be the same if the spirit of agrarianism shall once get abroad in our land. France has already furnished us with the great moral. First comes disorganization and legislative plunder, then the struggle of factions and civil war, and lastly a military despotism, into whose arms all will be driven by the intolerable evils of anarchy and rapine. I fondly hope that the future may bring along with it a sovereign remedy for these evils, but what that remedy may be, it is past perhaps the sagacity of man now to determine. We can only say in the language of Kepler upon a far different subject,--"Hæc et cetera hujusmodi latent in pandectis œvi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam librum hunc deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus."

[Footnote 16: When an individual was tried before an Athenian tribunal, his wealth was generally a serious disadvantage to his cause, and there was nothing which the defence labored harder to establish than the poverty of the accused. "I know," says the orator Lisias, in his defence of Nicophemus, "how difficult it will be effectually to refute the report of the great riches of Nicophemus. The present scarcity of money in the city, and the wants of the treasury which the forfeiture has been calculated upon to supply, will operate against me." In the celebrated dialogue of Xenophon, called the Banquet, he makes a rich man who has suddenly become poor, congratulate himself upon his poverty; "inasmuch," he says, "as cheerfulness and confidence are preferable to constant apprehension, freedom to slavery, being waited upon, to waiting upon others. When I was a rich man in this city, I was under the necessity of courting the sycophants, knowing it was in their power to do me mischief which I could little return. Nevertheless, I was continually receiving orders from the people, to undertake some expenses for the commonwealth, and I was not allowed to go any where out of Attica. But now I have lost all my foreign property, and nothing accrues from my Attic estate, and all my goods are sold, I sleep any where fearless; I am considered as faithful to the government; I am never threatened with prosecutions, but I have it in my power to make others fear; as a freeman I may stay in the country or go out of it as I please; the rich rise from their seats for me as I approach, and make way for me as I walk; I am now like a tyrant, whereas I was before an absolute slave; and whereas before I paid tribute to the people, now a tribute from the public maintains me." This picture, though perhaps overwrought, marks still but too conclusively the agrarian spirit in Greece.]

In the mean time I may boldly assert that the frame work of our southern society is better calculated to ward off the evils of this agrarian spirit, which is so destructive to morals, to mind and to liberty, than any other mentioned in the annals of history. Domestic slavery, such as ours, is the only institution which I know of, that can secure that spirit of equality among freemen, so necessary to the true and genuine feeling of republicanism, without propelling the body politic at the same time into the dangerous vices of agrarianism, and legislative intermeddling between the laborer and the capitalist. The occupations which we follow, necessarily and unavoidably create distinctions in society. It is {278} said that all occupations are honorable. This is certainly true, if you mean that no honest employment is disgraceful. But to say that all confer equal honor, if well followed even, is not true. Such an assertion militates alike against the whole nature of man and the voice of reason. But whatever may be the vain deductions of mere theorists upon this subject, one thing is certain--Reason informed me of its truth long before experience had shown it to me in actual life--The hirelings who perform all the menial offices of life, will not and cannot be treated as equals by their employers. And those who stand ready to execute all our commands, no matter what they may be, for mere pecuniary reward, cannot feel themselves equal to us in reality, however much their reason may be bewildered by the voice of sophistry.

Now, let us see what is likely to be the effect of universal suffrage in a state where there are no slaves. Either the dependant classes, the laborers and menial servants, will be driven forward by the dictation of their employers and the bribery of the man of property, thus giving the government a proclivity towards an aristocracy of wealth;[17] or they become discontented with their condition, and ask why these differences among beings pronounced equal--they look with eyes of cupidity upon the fortunes of the rich. The demagogue perceives their ominous sullenness, and marks the hatred which is rankling in their hearts--then the parties of the rich and the poor are formed--then come the legislative plunder and the dark train of evils consequent on the spirit of equality, which is in fact, in such a community, the spirit of agrarianism.

[Footnote 17: Men whose impulses are all communicated by the expectation of small pecuniary rewards, quickly acquire that suppleness of conscience, which renders them peculiarly liable to bribery. Take, for example, the waiter in an hotel--it is the hope of little gains that moves him in any direction which you may dictate, and which makes him a ready tool for the execution of any project whatever. His motto is, _I take the money and my employer the responsibility_. Bring this man to the polls, and offer him money for his vote, and the probability is that he would not refuse that which the whole education and training of his life would impel him to receive.]

But in our slaveholding country the case is far different. Our laboring classes and menials are all slaves of a different color from their masters--the source of greatest distinction among the freemen is taken away; and the spirit of equality, the true spirit of genuine republicanism may exist here,--without leading on to corruption on the one side or agrarianism on the other.[18] Political power is thus taken from the hands of those who might abuse it, and placed in the hands of those who are most interested in its judicious exercise. Our law most wisely ordains that the slaves "shall not be sought for in public council, nor sit high in the congregation: they shall not sit high on the judges' seats nor understand the sentence of judgment; they cannot declare justice and judgment; and they shall not be found where parables are spoken. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen and is occupied in their labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?" Lycurgus, more than two thousand years ago, in his celebrated system of laws, was so well aware of the aristocratic feeling generated by diversity of occupation, that he decreed in order that a perfect spirit of equality might reign among the Spartans, that slaves alone should practice the most laborious arts, or fill the menial stations. And in this particular he showed perhaps as much sagacity as in any other law of the whole system. We want no legislation in the south to secure this effect--it flows spontaneously from our social system.

[Footnote 18: I will take leave here to introduce a short extract from my Essay on Slavery, in corroboration of the assertions which I have made. "The citizen of the north will not shake hands familiarly with his servant, and converse, and laugh, and dine with him, no matter how honest and respectable he may be. But go to the south, and you will find that no white man feels such inferiority of rank as to be unworthy of association with those around him. Color alone is here the badge of distinction, the true mark of aristocracy; and all who are white are equal, in spite of the variety of occupation. The same thing is observed in the West Indies. 'Of the character common to the white resident of the West Indies,' says B. Edwards, 'it appears to me that the leading feature is an independent spirit, and a display of _conscious equality_ throughout all ranks and conditions. The poorest white person seems to consider himself nearly on a level with the condition of the richest; and emboldened by this idea, he approaches his employer with extended hand, and a freedom which, in the countries of Europe, is seldom displayed by men in the lower orders of life towards their superiors.'"]

But whilst the political effects of our social system are so peculiarly beneficial, the moral effects are no less striking and advantageous. I have no hesitation in affirming that the relation between capitalist and laborer in the south is kinder, and more productive of genuine attachment, than exists between the same classes any where else on the face of the globe. The slave is happy and contented with his lot, unless indeed the very demons of Pandemonium shall be suffered to come among us and destroy his happiness by their calumnious falsehoods and hypocritical promises. He compares himself with his own race and his own color alone, and he sees that all are alike--he does not covet the wealth of the rich man, nor envy that happiness which liberty imparts to the patriot, but he identifies all his interests with those of his master--free from care--free from that constant feeling of insecurity which continually haunts the poor man of other countries, he moves on in the round of his existence, cheerful, contented and grateful.[19] We have no Manchester and Smithfield riots here--no breaking of machinery--no scowl of discontent or sullenness hovering over the brow--no midnight murders for the money which we have in our houses--no melancholy forebodings of that agrarian spirit which calls up the very demon of wrath to apply the torch to the political edifice. The statistics of the slaveholding population prove that it is the most quiet and secure population in the world--there are fewer great crimes and murders among them than in any other form in which society can exist. I defy the world too, to produce a parallel to the rapid improvement of the slave on our continent since the period of his landing from the shores of his forefathers. And when the philanthropist tells us to plant our colonies on the coast of that benighted region, that the tide of civilization may be rolled back on Africa, the very enthusiasm of his {279} language marks the inappreciable improvement which slavery has here wrought upon the character of the negro. On the other hand the master is attached to his slaves by every tie of interest and sympathy, generated by a connection that sometimes lasts for life. He does not work them to-day for sixteen hours, reducing them to mere bread and water, and capriciously discharge them to-morrow from his employment, and turn them adrift without money or resource, upon a cold and inhospitable world. When their labor will not support themselves, the master is bound to consume his capital for their sustenance. There are evils, no doubt, incidental to this relation--but where is the relation of life exempt from them?[20]

[Footnote 19: Any one who has ever seen the negro at hard labor by the side of the white man, or who has noticed him while performing menial services along with his white associate, has marked no doubt the striking difference. The negro is all gaiety and cheerfulness--his occupation seems to ennoble him. His companion, on the contrary, whom the world calls a freeman, but really treats as a slave, is seen sullen and discontented, and feels himself degraded for the very reason that he is called a freeman.]

[Footnote 20: Whatever philanthropists may say upon the subject, I believe the history of the world will bear me out in the assertion that slavery is certainly the most efficient and perhaps the only means by which the contact of the civilized man with the barbarian can contribute to the advantage and civilization of the latter. The relation of master and slave is the only means which has ever yet been devised by the wisdom of man, capable of bringing the element of civilization into close union with that of barbarism, without either dragging down the civilized man to a level with the barbarian, or corrupting and then exterminating the latter in the attempt to elevate him. Every one who is acquainted with the condition of society in our southern country, will bear witness to the truth of the assertion, that whilst slavery by producing the closest and most constant intercourse between the whites and blacks, elevates the character, purifies the morals, and speeds on the civilization of the latter, it has not the slightest tendency to introduce their barbarism or their vices among the former. It is for this very reason, while virtue and knowledge may travel downwards, and vice and barbarism cannot move upwards, that the institution of such slavery as ours becomes the greatest security for virtue, and the most certain preservative of morals. It is this inestimable feature in this most slandered institution, which keeps the upper stratum of the social fabric in the healthiest and soundest state, which makes the character of the slaveholder so lofty, generous, chivalrous, and sternly incorruptible wherever we find him. It is this same feature too which contributes most to elevate and adorn the character of the mistress of slaves--which enshrines her heart in the very purity and constancy of the affections, and makes her the ornament and immaculate blessing of that delightful domestic sanctuary, which is never to be polluted by the vile and wicked arts of the base designing corrupter of the female heart.

What then, in presence of these facts, must we think of the slanderous tongues that would dare asperse the character of southern females--that would endeavor to blacken that almost spotless purity of heart, which I hope will forever remain the proud characteristic of southern women? Ignorance does not excuse such calumniators. The men who can attack, without having taken even the trouble to ascertain the facts, that class whose virtue constitutes their greatest ornament, and whom the usages and customs of the world have driven from the active bustling arena of life into the shade of retirement, there to be loved, honored, and protected by all who are noble and generous, show to the world the real hollowness of their hearts and the reckless impurity of their intentions. But when they cannot even plead such ignorance, their past lives should not be suffered to shield them from the imputation of crime, and the mantle of that pure and beautiful religion, preached by the meek Saviour of mankind, was never designed to cover the canting hypocrisy of the insidious calumnious slanderer. It is Sterne who says that the man who is capable of doing _one dirty trick_ can do another--he thus at once unmasks his real character, and stands forth confessed in all his naked deformity before the world. And we may perhaps but too truly assert, that those whose minds are incapable of comprehending the purity, whilst they maliciously asperse the innocence of female character, are the beings who are most apt at last to be displayed as the true Tartuffes of the world.]

I would say then, let us cherish this institution which has been built up by no sin of ours--let us cleave to it as the ark of our safety. Expediency, morality and religion, alike demand its continuance; and perhaps I would not hazard too much in the prediction, that the day will come when the whole confederacy will regard it as the sheet anchor of our country's liberty.

I will now conclude my long address, by a brief notice of two results which may happen to our system of government, either of which would be fatal to the system--dismemberment on the one side, or consolidation, on the other. The evils of dismemberment may be quickly told. Separate governments, or confederacies, would of course have rivalries and jealousies and wars. Our militia would be found inadequate to our defence; standing armies and navies would be established: and all history has shown that these will trample upon the civil authority. War with their concomitant establishments, navies and armies, entail the heaviest expense on nations.[21] These expenditures require taxation; and heavy taxation in an extensive range of country, whether levied on imports or on native productions, would be sure to lead on to partial and vicious legislation, to the intolerable oppression of one part for the benefit of another. And all the guards and checks which constitutional charters would impose on government, could not prevent the rapid concentration of power into the hands of the executive, in most of our independent states, amid wars, armies, navies, taxation, expenditures and increasing patronage of the governments. We should, I fear, exhibit the picture of Europe to the world, with governments perhaps less balanced[22] and more sanguinary in their wars. It is more than probable, then, that if ever disunion shall come, as has been said by a distinguished statesman,--we shall close the book of the republics, and open that of the kings, not in name perhaps--but in reality.

[Footnote 21: It may perhaps be affirmed with truth, that there is scarcely a nation in Europe, with a population equal to that of the United States, whose army does not cost more than the whole expenses of our federal government. The military statistics of Europe are truly formidable. Great Britain keeps at home an army of 100,000 men, and 250,000 in India. France has a standing army of 280,000; Austria 271,000; Prussia 162,000; and Russia 800,000. The United States have 6,000, with a population more than the half of Austria, and greater than that of Prussia. Even the kingdom of Sardinia, with a population of a little more than one-fourth of ours, has an army more than seven times as great; and Spain, with a population not so great as ours, has an army fifteen times as great. Comment is unnecessary.]

[Footnote 22: If a nation must have monarchy, I have no hesitation in saying that it should not be isolated. It should be "buttressed by establishments." If we must have Kings, it would be better that the Lords and Commons should follow. Kings, Lords, and Commons are perhaps the nearest approach which the monarchical form of government can make towards liberty. When there is no intermediate power between the king and the people, every dispute between the parties, for want of a conciliatory compromise, brings the nation at once to blows; and the immediate issue is necessarily either a despotism established, or a dynasty overthrown. The chances against a perfect balance are infinite. But in our country we can never have a regular nobility. Antiquity is absolutely necessary to such an establishment. Bonaparte tried the experiment of a suddenly created nobility, and it entirely failed; although his nobles were much more talented and efficient than the ancient noblesse. Bonaparte's nobles besides were the most unprincipled, and the most remorselessly rapacious of modern Europe; and this perhaps is the almost necessary character of an upstart nobility.]