Chapter LII: Front Matter (52)

The more philosophical spirit of modern, compared with ancient times, is illustrated by what was then considered as the seven wonders of the world. They boasted of magnitude or costliness--of some enormous expenditure of human labor in a pyramid, a statue or temple, which was fitted to make a strong impression on the senses. But what are the objects which now fill men's minds with admiration and astonishment? They are such as are addressed to their powers of reflection--great moral changes like the American or French revolutions; the liberation of Greece or of Spanish America; or if they be of a physical character, then they are of some successful effort of science and art which directly conduces to the benefit of mankind; such, for instance, as the application of steam to manufactures and navigation--the New York Canal, the Manchester Rail Road, and the Thames Tunnel. These, and such as these, are the world's wonders in our day.

Such then, Mr. President, is the character of the changes which the mind of man has wrought on physical nature, as well as in the improvement of his own condition; and these in turn have effected an immense change in the character of his mind. _He has become less subjected to the dominion of his senses and more to that of his reason._ He is necessarily made to perceive an infinite number of new and intricate relations, which the progress of knowledge and civilization are ever adding to those which previously existed, and his reasoning faculties have acquired strength in proportion to their exercise. From particular facts he is continually deducing general laws; and from those general laws, laws still more comprehensive. The consequence of which is, that the elaborate deductions of one age become the obvious truths of that which succeeds it, and each succeeding generation is more capable of intricate processes of reasoning than its predecessor.

In the same proportion too, as reason acquires strength, the dominion of the passions becomes weaker. They are less likely to be excited by unworthy causes, and less violent when excited. Reason obviously tends to prevent those mental perturbations which arise from false views of things, as from mistaken notions of right--from the exaggerations of future good or evil, and {412} wrong estimates of their probability. Many objects which a more ignorant age has deemed important, the light of philosophy exhibits in their real insignificance. And in addition to all these direct causes, it seems not improbable that our minds being now so much more occupied in noticing causes and effects, and other important relations, will be less prone to strong emotions, except so far as they may have the sanction of reason. Let me not be understood to favor the dream of some speculatists, that philosophy will ever eradicate the passions. This result is neither possible nor desirable. It is in their proper indulgence that consists all that is called either happiness or virtue, and all that deserves to be so considered by a moral and intellectual being. They are

"The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and color of our life."

The passions have been aptly compared to the winds which impel the ship on the ocean of life,[4] but reason performs higher functions than "the card." It sits at the helm, and guides the course of the bark when the gale is not too strong, and takes in sail when it is.

[Footnote 4: On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.--_Pope_.]

One of the consequences of this growing ascendancy of reason is, that there will be less inequality in the civil condition of mankind; and happy are they whose political institutions enable them to accommodate themselves to the change, without going through the process of blood and violence. Whatever may be the advantages, real or supposed, of a difference of ranks, the institution originated in accident, and is supported by illusions, which natural enough in a certain stage of society, the light of philosophy tends to dissipate; and as ghosts, witches and other shadows of the night have vanished at the approaching dawn of reason, the further progress of day will extinguish hereditary rank, which, when it does not, like faux-fire, shine by its own corruption, emits an ineffectual ray at best.

If the preceding views are correct, it would follow that in our reasonings from the past to the future we must take these changes of the human character into account, and if we do, that they would sometimes lead us to expect different results hereafter from those which formerly took place under similar circumstances. The failure to make allowance for these changes, has produced much groundless _apprehension_, much _mistaken confidence_, and much _false vaticination_.

In thus speaking of the gradual progress of reason and philosophy, I do not mean to say that the advancement is uninterrupted. Far from it. Though the tide may be rising, each individual wave does not always reach as far as that which preceded it: so man, in his onward progress to a higher state of existence, does occasionally make oblique and even retrograde steps. By the influence of those prejudices which have not yet been dislodged from their strong holds--under the sway of our passions, which indeed may be regulated, but can never be extinguished, reason for awhile succumbs and philosophy disappears. Thus, in the Reformation, the struggle between those who sought to get rid of the ancient abuses, and those who endeavored to maintain them, was accompanied with ferocity, cruelty and injustice; and men were often hated and persecuted in proportion to their sincerity in avowing their real sentiments, and their firmness in maintaining them. Then too, we beheld those who had been the victims of oppression, when power changed hands, becoming persecutors in turn; and this, not on the principle of retaliation, but because the new persecutors were impelled by the same blind fury as their predecessors, in regarding a mere difference of opinion as synonymous with crime.

Philosophy had not then advanced far enough to teach them that men were responsible only to their own conscience and their God for their modes of faith; and that punishment tended to make hypocrites of the bad and martyrs of the good, but converts of none. They had yet to learn that the unadulterated common sense of that portion of mankind, who were less frenzied by zeal, revolted at such injustice; and that their sympathies acted more powerfully in favor of the sufferer, than their fears in favor of their persecutors; a truth which has suggested the maxim that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church."

The French revolution also furnished a signal instance of the retrograde steps of philosophy. The oppressions, the injustice, the absurdities of the French monarchy, and above all, the incongruities of many of its institutions with the state of knowledge and of private society in France, could not be corrected without calling forth all the strongest impulses of our nature--the worst passions of the worst men, as well as the nobler feelings of the best. The advanced state of reason and philosophy among the educated classes, acting on the sense of justice, indelibly stamped on the heart of man, made the mass of the nation see and feel the odium of their civil institutions, and determined them to attempt a remedy. They were prompted in their schemes, and quickened in their sensibility by the superior social condition of their neighbors, the English, and yet more by the American revolution and its happy issue. Before this great event, their notice of the defects or abuses of their government was confined to philosophical speculatists--to rhetorical declaimers--or to those who wielded the lighter, but no less efficient weapons of ridicule--to all of whom many of those classes who most profited by the existing {413} abuses, bowing to the resistless force of truth, and not foreseeing the danger to themselves, gave their cordial support. Public opinion was thus gradually gaining strength and unanimity; and when accident afforded a favorable occasion for the _reformers_ to act, every one was astonished at the rapidity and force with which they acted. But there were strong interests and passions arrayed on the other side, and the shock of the conflict was violent in proportion.

As soon as the cry of reform and change was sounded, every furious and ignoble passion--every sordid and profligate and depraved motive, hoping to profit by the confusion, entered into the strife, and corrupted the whole mass. Then it was that in the heart of Christendom, we saw a city, associated in our minds with every refinement of civilization--the emporium of science, literature and the arts--suddenly transformed into a moral desert. The annals of mankind had recorded no such metamorphosis. To the _senses_ indeed, all the monuments of science and art and social improvement remained, but they seemed to belong to other times. Every thing relative to the human character was forcibly overturned, or wrested from its natural position. Women without humanity or timidity, at one moment braving death, and at another thirsting for blood. Science and practical art employed in devising new modes of taking away life. Statesmen and legislators engrossed by the one great subject of how they might exterminate citizens no less than foreign enemies. Speculative minds racking their inventions to frame excuses for these enormities, or in making frivolous changes in the names of streets and provinces--of the months and days--while _Religion_, finding nothing congenial to her own mildness and purity, fled from the country, and the infuriated multitude hallooed and exulted in her retreat: and in the metropolis of fashion, which had given the laws of dress to all Europe, and one of whose most distinguished literati[5] had asserted that the apparel was a part of the man, an attention to outward appearance was deemed presumptive evidence of aristocracy. Nor was there a more certain mode of awakening suspicion of _incivism_, than to seem to be devout, or moral, or gentlemanly, unless these obnoxious qualities were redeemed by some accompaniment of crime.

[Footnote 5: The Count de Buffon.]

There have been those who would make philosophy responsible for these extravagances and excesses, because it had been assiduously cultivated in Paris, just before the Revolution, and some of its maxims were appealed to in justification of the excesses. But nothing can be more unjust. There was mingled with the enlightened part of the Paris population, a far larger portion which was immersed in the grossest ignorance. They had been brought up as it were in a prison house, into which the surrounding light of heaven could never penetrate; and, when set free from the restraints of law, they were powerful instruments of mischief in the hands of those who were at once skilful and unscrupulous in using them. There were also those who partook of the intellectual light of the age, but who from a faulty education, or accident, or the unjust institutions of society had not proportional moral improvement--men who saw the inequality with which the goods of life were distributed; that those who had the smallest share were the most numerous; and that they might be prompted to the inclination, as they already had the ability, to be their own carvers. An alliance was thus formed between cunning and ignorance--the cunning few and ignorant many--and no wonder that in a short time, all that was venerable and virtuous and generous, as well as all that had been tyrannical and oppressive, were furiously assailed and beaten to the ground. The progress of knowledge had no other agency in producing this result, than that a portion of society borrowed its _intellectual light_ without approaching near enough to profit by its _moral warmth_: and it is as unreasonable to blame philosophy for these outrages, as to blame religion for the bloody massacres and merciless persecutions which were perpetrated in her name. With far greater reason may the moderation observed by the mob of Paris, in the three day revolution of 1830, be ascribed to the influence of the liberal and philosophical spirit, which had been gaining ground throughout the civilized world, and particularly in France for twenty years before: and it deserves notice, that this moderation, as well as the occasion on which it would be exercised, was confidently predicted in this country, by a French gentleman,[6] now enjoying an elevated rank in France; and he founded his prediction on the improved character of the population of Paris.

[Footnote 6: General Bernard, whose anticipations of the leading events of that revolution, in a conversation with the author, had all the accuracy of history.]

Having thus taken a view of the past effects of the progress of philosophy, let us now look before us, and endeavoring to scan the future, learn what are hereafter to be its effects on the world, especially on that portion of it, in which we are most interested.

We are sometimes reproached with being more disposed to look at what our country will be, than at what it is; but when the changes are so rapid and great, we should not only betray a strange insensibility to our future destiny, but be grossly wanting in prudence, not to keep the fact constantly present to our minds. It should affect our policy, legislation, and even our individual contracts and schemes of profit; and while we do not object to other nations seeing, in the {414} mirror of the past, interesting memorials of their former glory, they may suffer us to look at ours, through the prism of hope, in which objects are a little distorted without being exaggerated, and appear in hues delightfully gay and diversified. Let us see then how the certain progress of population, and the probable progress of reason and philosophy are likely to affect us.

Of the rapid advancement of the United States in numbers, powers and wealth, we have now a moral certainty. After the lapse of forty years, we have seen that their population continues to double at the rate which Franklin long ago assumed, and we have full confirmation of the views taken by Malthus more than thirty years ago, and by Franklin long before him, that mankind continue thus to increase where the means of subsistence are easy. There will hardly be any change in this particular here, before our numbers have reached 60 persons to a square mile. Perhaps when we consider the remarkable fertility of the larger part, not before we have reached 100: but with the former limit, our country would contain 100 millions of inhabitants, in three periods of doubling, or in 75 years. Some doubts have been entertained whether our future increase will not diminish in an increasing ratio; and a very general error as to the rate of increase, exhibited at the last census, has favored that opinion. But in point of fact, the increase for the ten years ending in 1830, was a fraction more than 34 per cent., instead of a fraction more than 33 per cent., as our almanacs and other periodicals have stated, because they did not attend to the fact, that the last census shewed the increase only for nine years and ten months. This result is so unexampled and so great, that it requires an effort for us to conceive its reality; yet it rests upon as satisfactory grounds as any future event whatever: and it is not a remote improbability, that some who now hear me will live to see our population amount to 100 millions.

For our political organization we have nothing to desire, if our present government continues. The self-healing power, which more or less pervades all bodies, politic as well as natural, has unrestricted vigor here, and may be expected to bring an adequate remedy for every political disease likely to arise.

But one of the evils apprehended by some, is a dissolution of the Union; and it is asked, if this has already been seriously threatened, how will it be when the sources of collision and rivalship shall be multiplied--when all fear of foreign aggression, which now operates as a band to keep us together, shall be removed--when personal ambition shall seek, by a separation, that field for its enterprises which the Union does not afford--and the natural increase of an indigent and ignorant class shall furnish him with ready tools for his selfish projects?

But I do not see the probability that the proud hopes, which dictated a perpetual league among the states, are to be disappointed. It seems to me that the occasions in which their interests clash are few, compared with those in which they coincide, and that one of the strongest ligaments of union is the diversity of pursuits among the states, by which they are all benefited by a free commercial intercourse. Thus, some produce grain and cattle, others, fish, or sugar, or rice and cotton: some are exclusively agricultural in their pursuits, and are of course venders of raw produce, whilst others are manufacturing states, and purchasers of raw produce: some are largely concerned in navigation, whilst others are inland. Thus all are gainers by an interchange of their respective commodities and species of industry; and this mutual commerce, founded in mutual interests, will less and less require aid from the government.

We may, moreover, reasonably expect, that these sources of mutual benefit and intercourse will increase, and that new products of agriculture and manufactures will arise under some propitious accident or kindness of nature, will extend the mutual dependence of the states, and proportionally multiply the bonds of union. Each state will be important to the rest for its useful products, and they in turn will be valuable to it, both for affording a market, and for the products they give in exchange. The commerce, too, will be the more profitable, and likely to be the more extensive, by its being free from imposts or vexatious restrictions. Under the fostering care of this freedom, we may expect that wine, and silk, and the olive may be added to the products of the south--and that whenever labor shall fall to the point of merely earning a subsistence, tea may be also cultivated; as no doubt some part of our country is similar in climate to China, since it is not only in a correspondent latitude, but on the same side of its continent.

The time will come when most of our manufactures can be procured from the northern or middle states cheaper than from Europe, and when those states will also furnish a larger market for the products of the south. The time has already come when cotton, and rice, and tobacco, if that pernicious weed shall always constitute one of man's artificial wants, can be procured more cheaply from the southern states than elsewhere; and though there is not, within the present limits of the United States, as much land adapted to the cane as will supply its future inhabitants with sugar, without that increase of price which must greatly diminish its rate of consumption, yet the trade in this useful commodity will not therefore be less important, either to the states which sell, or those which purchase it.

This commercial intercourse will be greatly extended by the numerous canals and rail roads, {415} which are destined to intersect our country in every direction. By the greater cheapness of transportation, the commerce will be extended, not only because more distant points will be brought into connection, but also because there will be a greater number of articles which may be advantageously transported. All the canals and rail roads from one state to another, which shall be sufficiently used to compensate for their construction, will be so many sinews to knit together our wide spread and diversified republic. New York and Pennsylvania have already thus bound themselves to the west. Maryland and Virginia, and, without doubt, Georgia and the Carolinas, will follow the example.

When we shall be thus connected by the golden chain of mutual interests instead of the iron fetters of power, and by that homogeneousness of manners which an increased intercourse will produce, what will be likely to effect a separation? Let us suppose any state, considering itself aggrieved by some measure of the federal government, was to withdraw herself from the confederacy, and that the other states were to acquiesce in her course, either because they felt no interest in the matter, or because they were willing to surrender up those interests to a claim of right. It can scarcely be doubted that such seceding state would find the disadvantages of its new situation so great, surrounded by rival and hostile and taunting neighbors--attended with so much contingent danger and certain expense, that after the first irritation had passed away, it would sue to be re-admitted.

But when it is recollected that, in no distant day, every state will either be an outlet for other states to the ocean, or the medium of communication for those lying on each side of it, it would be according to all experience to presume that they will not regard a question thus directly affecting their _interests_, as one also affecting their _rights_, and will vindicate both, by an appeal to force, if necessary: and thus the question of _separation_ will always be a question of _war_. The _constitutional_ question, which may have been previously agitated, will be drowned in the din and tumult of arms, and finally decided by the issue of the war. _Victory_ is the great arbiter of right in national disputes, and that scale of justice on which she happens to light, is almost sure to preponderate.

I have been supposing the case of a single state, or even a small section of states to desire a separation. But it may be asked whether all the states may not voluntarily consent to a dissolution; or at least so large a portion as to make resistance on the part of the rest hopeless. I answer that I am not able to conceive any such general and powerful cause, nor do I know of any example of a similar voluntary disseverance in history. In every case in which an integral community, whether consolidated or confederate, has been separated, it has been by violence, and commonly external violence--either by one nation, subjugating another, or by some successful leader succeeding by his arts and talents in arraying one part against the rest: or the parts of a great empire have been partitioned among the descendants or legatees of the last occupant--none of which causes of separation can be expected to operate here. It is indeed a conceivable thing for some prominent and popular individual to excite a particular state to discontent, and finally to civil war; and although we have happily had no example of such flagitiousness, we have seen enough to make us think it possible: yet whatever may be the supposed success of such men at home, there will always be many counteractions to their influence in the adjoining states, and in the same degree that the agitator is a popular idol in his own state, he will be an object of suspicion in the adjoining states, who will judge of him by his actions, unaffected by his arts or the imposing lustre of his personal qualities.

Our own past history affords some confirmation of these views. It is, for example, now seen, since the veil which once concealed the acts of the Hartford Convention, has been partially raised, that the power of the agents in that combination to separate the union was far less than had been supposed, and that they could not have led on the states there represented to make that shew of resistance to the general government which excited apprehensions for the union, if they had professed any other than the moderate and legitimate objects of making their peculiar interests more respected, and of providing additional guards against the invasion of those interests in the time to come. It now appears, that however we may disapprove the _means_ used to effectuate their objects, the _ends_ were blameless; and there is much reason to believe that the moment the separation of the states had shewn itself to be the ultimate object of their leaders, that moment they would have been deserted by the larger part of their followers.

The case of him whose history has been so pregnant of instruction to lawless ambition, and who eighteen years ago was arraigned in this very capitol for the highest of all crimes, affords another instructive example. So long as his object was believed to be the settlement of the Washita lands, he may have ranked among his followers the most honest and patriotic of the land. So long as he merely proposed to emancipate the Mexicans from the Spanish yoke, the generous and enterprising youth of the west, as unsuspicious of guile in others as they were incapable of it themselves, might have flocked to his standard, and even gloried in the act of self-devotion: but no sooner was it known that the infatuated man was pursuing the phantom of individual aggrandizement, at the expense of his country's peace and in violation of her laws, than he was "left alone in his glory." {416} Most of his followers abandoned him from principle, and the few who were without principle, deserted him from cowardice. It is peculiarly gratifying that both of these examples so strikingly exhibit the attachment of the American people to the union, as it will probably be only in one or the other of these modes that its integrity will ever be assailed.

The event by which the union was still more seriously threatened, has been too recent for me to say much of it on the present occasion. Yet I may be permitted to remark, without opening wounds hardly yet cicatrized, that both those who apprehend disunion and those who dread consolidation may draw salutary lessons from that event; and that each party may, by a course of imprudence, promote the very evil of which it is most apprehensive. I will add, that it affords additional evidence of the strength of the ligaments which bind us together, for if those who felt themselves aggrieved by the general government, had been less sensible of the _value_--of the _necessity_ of the union--then the master pilot,[7] who at the critical moment seized the helm, and steered the ship of state through the breakers that threatened her on either side, had interposed his consummate skill in vain.

[Footnote 7: Henry Clay, who was thus thrice mainly instrumental in giving peace to his country.]

But when it is considered that the continuance of the union is indispensable to our peace, prosperity, and civil liberty--that on it rest our hopes of national greatness, it would hardly seem consistent with prudence to rely altogether on the natural securities I have mentioned. We should also sedulously guard against whatever may tend to weaken our attachment to it; and should therefore confine the functions of the general government to those objects which are most indispensable to the prosperity of the whole, and to which the powers of the separate governments are incompetent. And while it should exercise no power which was not clearly beneficial, as well as constitutional, it should forbear to exercise such powers as come under this description, when they may prove sources of discontent, or of collision with local feelings and interests. The advantages of such a course will be to give the federal government greater efficacy in the execution of its remaining powers, and especially in our foreign concerns; and it will afford us the best security, not only against disunion, but the opposite danger of consolidation. The continuance of our present complex system of government--the only one in which the highest degree of civil liberty can be reconciled with the greatest extent of territory--depends on its maintaining a just equipoise between the general government and the governments of the separate states; and that equipoise may be disturbed no less by enlarging the capacity of conferring favors than that of doing mischief--of appealing to the hopes no less than to the fears of the community.

There is another safeguard against both disunion and consolidation, to be found in the diffusion of instruction among all classes of people; to which object all the states have given encouragement. Besides the general moral effects which such mental culture is found to produce, wherever it has been tried, it will make the mischiefs of a single national government or of several disunited governments, which are already so obvious to those who have reflection and forecast, intelligible to all. The diffusion of intelligence will operate advantageously to the same end in another way. It will raise the self-respect and honest pride of the indigent classes, and these sentiments afford the best security against an over-crowded population and its deleterious consequences, for they naturally tend to raise the ordinary standard of comfort, and the higher _that_ is, the sooner do the checks to improvident marriages begin to operate.

Supposing our federal union to be thus enduring, the progress of philosophy may be expected to continue with our advancement in numbers and wealth, and to exhibit itself in the increased vigor of the reasoning faculties; the greater purity of religion; the better government of the passions; an enlarged dominion over physical nature; a deeper insight into the multifarious laws of mind and matter; and a general amelioration of our condition, social, intellectual, and moral. But dangers and evils are apprehended by some, when we shall have a large class of manufacturers. This must eventually be the condition of the greater part of the population of every civilized country, since in no other way can the greater part of a dense population find employment. A small proportion of the community is sufficient to cultivate the soil, especially with so fertile a territory as the greater part of the United States; and the rest must be employed in manufactures, or starve. Besides, the products of this species of industry are as essential to our comfort and enjoyment, if not to our subsistence, as raw produce. We must have clothes, furniture, utensils, and books, as well as food: and when our numbers shall be sufficiently great to consume the whole of our raw produce, as in time it certainly will be, we shall cease to export; and the great mass of its consumers here, must fulfil the inevitable ultimate destiny of man--he must labor for his subsistence, either in tilling the earth, or in giving to its products some new form, which by ministering to the wants of others, may enable him to satisfy his own. The people of the United States must therefore become a manufacturing people, as well as their progenitors, and that too at no very remote period. At present, most of our citizens are agriculturists, {417} because they find a ready sale for their redundant products; but while it may be easy to obtain a market for the surplus produce of fourteen millions of people, it may not be equally easy to find a vent abroad for the products of the one hundred millions before spoken of; or even of the fifty millions which our numbers will certainly reach in less than another half century. It must be recollected that while we increase at the rate of three per cent. per annum, our customers do not increase beyond the rate of one per cent., and some scarcely increase at all. Those therefore, who will be thus spared from agriculture, must be employed in manufactures.

The political effects of so large a class of manufacturers in our country, has suggested two very opposite theories. According to one, the influence of property will be increased by the change; according to the other, its rights will be endangered. The advocates of the first opinion say, that capital has the same relation to manufactures that land has to agricultural labor; for it is only large capitals that can be advantageously employed in the principal manufactures; and that the laborers in both species of industry, will feel their dependence on their employers. It will therefore happen that the votes given immediately by the laboring class, will be substantially the votes of the rich landlord or capitalist.

But on the other hand, it has been apprehended, and not without some show of reason, that the working class, having the power in their own hands, by the preponderance of numbers, need only to act in concert, to control the course of legislation. It is further urged, that if the means of popular instruction can become general, or though that should be found impracticable, if the intelligence of the community should increase with the progress of society, that this class will more readily feel its power, have stronger inducements to exercise it, and be better able to devise the means. Admitting concerted action practicable, as it would be obviously desirable, what, it is asked, is to hinder these men from ridding themselves of their proportion of the taxes?--of appropriating to themselves the property of the rich by various legislative devices, as in limiting the prices of provisions, in planning expensive schemes in which the utility would be exclusively to themselves, or not in proportion to the cost,--or even in some moment of madness and reckless injustice, of passing an Agrarian law? It is vain to urge that as such a violation of the rights of property would have the ultimate effect of injuring all classes, or at least a far greater number than it would benefit, it is contrary to the general instinct of self interest to suppose the greater portion of the community would pursue it; for these remote interests might not be perceived, and though they were, they would not prevail against the force of present temptation.

But the argument assumes that there will be a majority of the community who will feel a present interest in such violations of the rights of property, and this proposition may well be questioned. In our country, where industry and capital are free to exercise themselves in any way, there will always be a gradation of classes from the richest to the poorest, so as to make the line which separates them an imperceptible one. We have no political institutions, and few prejudices to make such a separation. Every one is estimated according to his individual merits, little affected by those of his ancestors: and although somewhat of the honor or discredit of parents attaches to the child, yet it is probably little more than is warranted by the presumption that there is a resemblance between them. We are not distinguished into castes as in India, where one portion of society engrosses all the more honorable and agreeable employments of life, and the other is allotted to its most irksome and debasing offices; nor into Patrician and Plebeian, as in Rome; nor into lords and commons, as in England; nor _noblesse_ and _canaille_, as formerly in France and the rest of Europe; distinctions which at once provoke combination and make it more practicable.

Nor is the indigent class likely to be as large in this country as in most others. Our institutions, in many ways, favor both the acquisition and the diffusion of property. In the first place, by their being more exempt from restrictions. No trade or occupation is fettered by monopolies or corporation laws, or laws of apprenticeship, so that industry and talent being free to act, wherever and however they please, are likely to find the situations in which they can be most profitably exerted.

In the next place, all offices and professions which are means of acquiring property, or are of themselves a valuable property, while they last, are thrown open to the competition of all; and we see them as often, or more often, won by those who were born in poverty, and who have been accustomed to rely on their own resources, than by the pampered sons of wealth and luxury.

And lastly, the diffusion of property is the greater by the practice of dividing an estate among all the children of a family; which, either by the act of law, or the will of the deceased proprietor, has become almost universal. The law of primogeniture, by artificially damming up property to prevent its natural diffusion, must increase the number of the poor in the same degree that it increases the number of the rich. The estate which remains in the same family in England for three generations, and continues throughout the property of a single individual, is here distributed among twenty or thirty, and often a far greater number. _This single change_ in our municipal law, would necessarily have the effect of converting the {418} property holders into a majority of the community.

Whenever, then, the line between the rich and the poor is drawn in this country, it will always comprehend a far smaller proportion of the last class than in any other, so long as our civil institutions retain their present character; and the number of people who have property to some amount, and who have the hope of acquiring it, will always be much greater than those who have none. When it is further recollected that those who have made their own fortunes--a very numerous class in all free countries--are likely to possess energy and intelligence; they may also be expected to possess an influence more than proportionate to their numbers. To these considerations we may add the connections which arise from favors received or expected, by the poor from the rich; the influence of habit; the protection of the laws; the restraints of morality, of indolence, and fear, and they seem sufficient to assure us that apprehensions of a mischievous combination of the poor against the rich, are groundless; and that all which the indigent class can effect for their own advantage by combination, may not prove a sufficient antagonist to the influence the rich will be able to exert over them.

I know of no instance of a successful combination of the indigent classes, except in the case of the Agrarian laws at Rome. But this subject has been greatly misunderstood, and there never was a more well founded complaint than that which the poor made against the rich, on that occasion. Modern historians seem to have followed up the injustice, by misrepresenting the facts, and assailing the character of those who had been previously defrauded of their property. The diligent researches of German scholars[8] have shewn incontestibly that the Agrarian laws, for which the Gracchi lost their lives, concerned only the _public_ lands, which had been obtained by conquest, and not those which formed part of the territory of the ancient republic. As these public lands were charged with a very moderate,--merely nominal rent,--it was necessary to impose some limit upon the portion which a single individual could obtain, which was accordingly fixed at 500 _jugera_--equal to about 312 of our acres. But the Patrician class soon found means to evade this law, and having engrossed these lands, the purposes for which they were set apart--of affording the means of support to the poor, and of rewarding those by whose bravery and toils they had been won--was thus completely defeated: and the redundant population, unprovided with the means of subsistence, were obliged to become the bondsmen of the rich. Tiberius Gracchus endeavored to have this flagrant wrong, which was a political mischief, as well as a moral injustice, corrected: and whatever may have been his motives, he so evidently had right on his side, that he finally prevailed. But because he succeeded in defending the unquestioned rights of the injured party, does it follow that he would have had equal success in defending injustice? Because he was able to sustain the violated rights of property, would he have been also able to destroy them? Certainly not: For he with difficulty succeeded, even at the cost of his life: and success would have been impossible but for the dauntless intrepidity and the zealous support which the goodness of his cause inspired.

[Footnote 8: Heeren and Niebuhr.]

To the progress of our literature and science we may look with unalloyed hopes. In many branches, both ornamental and useful, we are still behind the country from which we are descended; and we fall as far short of her in the quantity of original productions as in the quality. But this, we confidently trust, is but a temporary inferiority. Our whole faculties are now engaged in cultivating the choicest fruits of civilization, and by and by we shall turn our attention to its flowers. Our late rapid advancement in letters affords a sure presage of future excellence, and symptoms of this gratifying change gladden our eyes in every direction. As soon as the more imperious wants of the country shall be satisfied, and men of superior powers and attainments shall have filled the learned professions, and offices requiring science and talent, then we shall begin to form a class of men of letters, who will devote their leisure and genius to minister to our intellectual wants: And they will find here a wide field both for speculation and description, political, physical and moral. We are justified in pronouncing that our literature will have freshness, boldness, richness and variety, and I would fain hope, the crowning grace of simplicity. Poetry, though not destined again to receive divine honors, or even the same profound homage as in a later day, will always occupy a high place in the world of letters: for the pleasure which can be conveyed to the mind by rhythm, imagery and fervid sentiment combined, are immutable; but the higher province of intellect will be to instruct and convince; to aid us in the arduous duties of life--whether as members of a profession, as citizens of the state, or as moral and responsible beings. Until that day arrives, let us cherish those institutions which best serve to preserve and diffuse a knowledge of science and letters, as well as to increase a taste for them; and never relax in our exertions until we are at least upon a level with the highest. Next to an elevated moral character, this is the most proper object of national ambition: and while I should be content that this country may never give birth to a Phidias, or Canova, a Raphael or Titian--that it should not produce as good musicians as Italy or Germany--as beautiful millinery as Paris--as cheap or good cutlery as {419} Sheffield--I should be mortified to think that we should never be able to boast of such poets as Byron or Pope, such historians as Hume or Gibbon, such moralists as Johnson, such novelists as Walter Scott, or such mathematicians as La Place.

In looking into our future destiny, I have not allowed myself to travel into the regions of fancy, but have confined my attention to those results which seemed fairly deducible from causes now visibly operating; and which are in conformity with the past experience of mankind. I have not indulged in those overstrained speculations with which some have contemplated the future progress of philosophy, but have endeavored to avoid on the one hand, those views of future evil, which it is the nature of gloomy tempers to entertain, and on the other, those visions of future excellence or perfection incompatible with our past experience; such, for example, as the dreams, first of Condorcet, and afterwards of Godwin. Of a similar character, I fear, are the predictions of those who think that war may be banished from the civilized world. Without doubt it is the tendency of the progress of reason and philosophy, to lessen the chances of war: in the same way as refinement of manners checks personal conflicts among individuals. But it will, probably, no more put an end to them in one case, than in the other; and the time may never come, when the interests of nations will not clash, when they will not differ in opinion about their respective rights; when they will not be willing to resent supposed injustice, and hazard their lives to gratify their resentment. Nor can occasions be wanting at any time to call forth these motives to war. Nations may have rivalship in trade; rivalship in fisheries; they may differ about boundaries, or the construction of treaties; or they may be involved in the disputes of others. These causes must be regarded as inseparable from the condition of man, even if he should no longer be exposed to the danger of war, from mere differences of opinion on some speculative points in religion, politics or morals. It may then prove in all future time, as it has proved in all time past, that it is man's nature to quarrel and fight, no less than to love or to hate, and the only difference may be as to the occasions of war, and the mode of carrying it on: in short, that this ultimate argument of republics as well as kings, will continue to be appealed to, as it always has been, when all others have failed.

If this is to be regarded as a part of man's inevitable destiny, let us not indulge in vain repinings at it--but endeavor to prevent it as far as we can, by a course of justice, and moderation, and forbearance: and if, nevertheless, our efforts should be unavailing, let the philosophic and patriotic mind find consolation in the fact, that though war is the cause of much human misery, it calls forth many virtues, and affords occasion for the display of some of the noblest traits of our character--courage, patriotism, generosity, disinterestedness and every form of virtuous self-denial. It gives a stimulus to all the more elevated and severer virtues. It breaks up the icy frost of selfishness, which in the still times of peace may congeal about the heart. The love of country never burns with a purer or stronger flame than in the bosom of the patriotic soldier: nor can any thing but war enable a citizen to make the same sacrifices, or so prove his self devotion to his country. It may then be among the dispensations of the ruler of the universe, that war, as well as peace, is necessary for the development and the preservation of some of our highest qualities, and to fulfil our destiny. Nor let us vainly hope to extinguish national more than individual resentment, but merely to regulate it--to reserve it for those occasions which a sense of justice prompts and reason sanctions: and although it is but a blind arbiter of disputes, it is the only one, in some circumstances, that can be appealed to.

Having thus, Mr. President, brought to your notice, with less of condensation than I could have wished, the great and rapid strides which human reason is now making in the civilized world, as exhibited in every field of intellectual exercise: having noticed the unequivocal signs that this progress will yet continue, that we cannot assign to it any precise limits, and that in all estimates of the future, we must take it into consideration: having endeavored to infer its probable effects on our condition, taken in connection with the other changes to which we are destined, I have discharged my main purpose. Yet I do not feel that I have entirely fulfilled my duty as a member of the Society, unless I say something of its particular objects.

One of these objects was to collect and preserve the perishable memorials of the past history of Virginia, from the time it was a colony to the present day. While this is a subject which must always be one of lively interest to her citizens, it is also one in which diligence will be amply rewarded. Our early colonial history more abounds in events of a striking and diversified character, than that of any of the other colonies; and this state, moreover, has a sort of parental relation to nearly all the states to the south and west. Full justice has never yet been done to this subject. There are indeed points in the history of the settlement of the colony, which require elucidation, and for which the materials are to be found, if at all, only in the archives of England. But on our later history much light has been thrown by a diligent examination of the laws of the colony; and somewhat may be further gleaned from a search into those records of the county courts, which have yet escaped the ravages of war and time. The records of these courts, whose duties were always of a very miscellaneous character, may communicate much information {420} concerning the state of society, the habits, manners and ways of thinking of the people. The authentic details of the public offences and their punishment, is no insignificant portion of a nation's history. Much has been done in this way by Hening's Collection of the Statutes at Large; and though a large portion of the treasure has already been drawn from this mine, it has not been exhausted. After paying a just tribute to the industry and general accuracy of that work, it also suggests a caution to future inquirers against a spirit of skepticism towards preceding narratives, merely because some inaccuracies have been discovered. Of this I may be allowed to mention one or two examples, as in the endeavor to shew (in which Burke concurs,) that the account of all preceding historians of the loyalty of Virginia towards the House of Stuart, immediately before and after the Commonwealth, was erroneous--and that because Robertson in his posthumous historical sketch was plainly mistaken in saying that no man suffered capitally "for his participation in Bacon's rebellion," he is not entitled to credit: or, when Bacon, according to all previous accounts, had, during a wet spell, at the most sickly season of the year, in the county of Gloucester, been seized with a dysentery which proved mortal, to suggest that a death so little violating probability, should be deemed mysterious, and warranted the _suspicion of poison by his enemies_.

The history of the settlements of the west exists only in tradition or family letters, and its materials ought to be collected and preserved, while it is not too late. The contest between the pioneer of civilization and the native savage, is full of daring adventure and romantic interest. If the command of gunpowder, and the use of iron ultimately gave victory to the former, it was one always dearly bought. The Indians defended their native rights with desperate valor and consummate address, and it was only inch by inch that they yielded their native soil to the invaders.

The origin of some anomalous enactments in the statute book, also invite inquiry. Thus in the year 1647, lawyers were forbidden to take any fees whatever, and in 1658 they were excluded from the legislature. For this uncourteous act, it must be confessed that their descendants have made the _amende honorable_. The medical profession seemed also an object of jealousy with the planter; as by another law,[9] physicians were required to swear to the value of their drugs.

[Footnote 9: Passed in 1646.]

There is too, a good deal of uncertainty and inconsistency in the statistical accounts of the state. On the duty of the present generation to collect and preserve every thing relative to the revolution, I need not lay any stress. There are still numerous papers in many families, of no sort of value to them, that may yet shed light on that interesting era.

In all that concerns the other object of this Society, the physical history of the state, every thing is yet to be done. The records here are before us, and are indestructible in any reasonable term of time; but we must first labor to remove the rubbish which conceals them, and then study to decipher them. This is a tempting field of research, as it may not only add to our stock of information, but also to our store of worldly wealth. The great Appalachian chain of mountains, which traverses the United States from Maine to Alabama, is broader no where than in Virginia, or consists of a greater number of distinct ridges, and no where has it given as clear indications of abounding in mineral wealth. We have found in it already gold, copper, lead, iron, manganese, gypsum, salt, coal, nitre, alum, marble in great variety, besides other minerals that are useful in the arts; and a more diligent and scientific search than has yet been made, may by increasing their number increase the profit of those canals and roads that are now projected, and give rise to others not yet contemplated. Our demand for fossil coal is of growing importance; for our increasing population at once increases the demand for fuel, and diminishes the supply of wood. I was happy to see last evening, the specimen of anthracite coal from the county of Augusta; and the value of that mineral deserved the high eulogy it received. We may form some idea of the importance of fossil coal, from the fact that steam engines in England are now computed to perform annually, the work of four hundred millions of men! a number nearly double to that now living on the whole globe.