How do we not suspend our judgment on the merits of the native artist, be he dancer, singer, actor, limner, or sculptor, and even of the native author, inventor, orator, bishop or statesman, until by. flattering those who habitually depreciate his country, he passes safely the ordeal of foreign criticism, and so commends himself to our own most cautious approbation. How do we not consult foreign mirrors, for our very virtues and vices, not less than for our fashions, and think ignorance, bribery, and slavery, quite justified at home, if they can be matched against oppression, pauperism and crime in other countries!

On occasions too, we are bold in applauding heroic struggling for freedom abroad; and we certainly have hailed with enthusiasm every republican revolution in South America, in France, in Poland, in Germany and in Hungary. And yet how does not our sympathy rise and fall, with every change of the political temperature in Europe? In just this extent, we are not only not independent, but we are actually governed by the monarchies and aristocracies of the Old World.

You may ask impatiently, if I require the American citizen to throw off all submission to law, all deference to authority, and all respect to the opinions of mankind, and that the American Republic shall constantly wage an aggressive war against all foreign systems? I answer, no. There is here, as everywhere, a middle and a safe way. I would have the American citizen yield always a cheerful acquiescence, and never a servile adherence, to the opinions of the majority of his countrymen and of mankind, whether they be engrossed in the forms of law or not, on all questions involving no moral principle; and even in regard to such as do affect the conscience, I would have him avoid not only faction, but even the appearance of it. But I demand, at the same time, that he shall have his own matured and independent convictions, the result not of any authority, domestic or foreign, on every measure of public policy, and so, that while always temperate and courteous, he shall always be a free and outspeaking censor, upon not only opinions, customs and administration, but even upon laws and constitutions themselves. What I thus require of the citizen, I insist, also, that he shall allow to every one of his fellow-citizens. I would have the nation also, though moderate and pacific, yet always frank, decided and firm, in bearing its testimony against error and oppression; and while ab

staining from forcible intervention in foreign disputes, yet always fearlessly rendering to the cause of republicanism everywhere, by influence and example, all the aid that the laws of nations do not peremptorily, or, in their true spirit, forbid.

Do I propose in this a heretical, or even a new standard of public or private duty? All agree that the customary, and even the legal standards in other countries are too low. Must we then abide by them now and forever? That would be to yield our independence, and to be false towards mankind. Who will maintain that the standard established at any one time by a majority in our country is infallible, and therefore final? If it be so, why have we reserved, by our constitution, freedom of speech, of the press, and of suffrage, to reverse it? No, we may change everything, first complying, however, with constitutional conditions. Storms and commotions must indeed be avoided, but the political waters must nevertheless be agitated always, or they will stagnate. Let no one suppose that the human mind will consent to rest in error. It vibrates, however, only that it may settle at last in immutable truth and justice. Nor need we fear that we shall be too bold. Conformity is always easier than contention; and imitation is always easier than innovation. There are many who delight in ease, where there is one who chooses, and fearlessly pursues, the path of heroic duty.

Moreover, while we are expecting hopefully to see foreign customs and institutions brought, by the influence of commerce, into conformity with our own, it is quite manifest that commerce has reciprocating influences, tending to demoralize ourselves, and so to assimilate our opinions, manners and customs, ultimately to those of aristocracy and despotism. We cannot afford to err at all on that side. We exist as a free people only by force of our very peculiarities. They are the legitimate peculiarities of republicanism, and, as such, are the test of nationality.

Nationality! It is as just as it is popular. Whatever policy, interest or institution is local, sectional, or foreign, must be zealously watched and counteracted; for it tends directly to social derangement, and so to the subversion of our democratic constitution.

But it is seen at once that this nationality is identical with that very political independence which results from a high tone of individuality on the part of the citizen. Let it have free play, then, and so let every citizen value himself at his just worth, in body and soul; VOL. IV.

20

namely, not as a serf or a subject of any human authority, or the inferior of any class, however great or wise, but as a freeman, who is so because "Truth has made him free;" who not only, equally with all others, rules in the republic, but is also bound, equally with any other, to exercise designing wisdom and executive vigor and efficiency in the eternal duty of saving and perfecting the state. When this nationality shall prevail, we shall no more see fashion, wealth, social rank, political combination, or even official proscription, effective in suppressing the utterance of mature opinions and true convictions; and so enforcing for brief periods, with long reactions, political conformity, at the hazard of the public welfare, and at the cost of the public virtue.

Let this nationality prevail, and then, instead of keenly watching, not without sinister wishes, for war or famine, the fitful skies, or the evermore capricious diplomacy of Europe; and instead of being hurried into unwise commercial expansion by the rise of credit there, and then back again into exhausting convulsions and bankruptcy by its fall, we shall have a steady and a prosperous, because it will be an independent, internal commerce.

Let this nationality prevail, and then we shall cease to undervalue our own farmers, mechanics, and manufacturers, and their productions; our own science, and literature, and inventions; our own orators and statesmen; in short, our own infinite resources and all-competent skill, our own virtue, and our own peculiar and justly envied freedom.

Then, I am sure that, instead of perpetually levying large and exhausting armies, like Russia, and without wasting wealth in emulating the naval power of England, and without practising a servile conformity to the diplomacy of courts, and without captiously seeking frivolous occasions for making the world sensible of our importance, we shall, by the force of our own genius and virtue, and the dignity of freedom, take, with the free consent of mankind, the first place in the great family of nations.

Gentlemen of the Institute: From the earnestness with which the theory of free trade is perpetually urged in some quarters, one might suppose that it was thought that the cardinal interest of the country lay in mere exchanging of merchandise. On the contrary, of the three great wheels of national prosperity, agriculture is the main one, manufacture second, and trade is the last. The cardinal interest of

this and every country is, and always must be, production. It is not traffic, but labor alone, that converts the resources of the country into wealth. The world has yet to see any state become great by mere trade. It has seen many become so by the exercise of industry.

Where there are diversified resources, and industry is applied to only a few staples, three great interest are neglected, viz.: natural resources, which are left unimproved; labor, that is left unemployed; and internal exchanges, which a diversity of industry would render necessary. The foreign commerce, which is based on such a narrow system of production, obliges the nation to sell its staples at prices reduced by competition in foreign markets; and to buy fabrics at prices established by monopoly in the same markets.

This false economy crowds the culture of the few staples with excessive industry; thus rendering labor dependent at home, while it brings the whole nation tributary to the monopolizing manufacturer abroad. When all, or any of the nations of Europe shall, as well as ourselves, be found successfully competing with England in manufactures, then, and not till then, will the free trade she recommends, be as wise for others, as she now insists. But, when that time shall come, I venture to predict that England will cease to inculcate that dogma.

The importance of maintaining such a policy as will result in a diversified application of industry, seems to rest on these impregnable grounds, viz.: 1st. That the use of indigenous materials does not diminish, but on the contrary, increases the public wealth. 2d. That society is constituted so, that individuals voluntarily classify themselves in all, and not in a few, departments of industry, by reason of a distributive congeniality of tastes and adaptation of powers; and that while labor so distributed is more profitable, the general contentment and independence of the people is secured and preserved, and their enterprise is stimulated and sustained.

I think it must be confessed now, by all candid observers within our country, that manufactures have become in a degree the exclusive employment of the citizens of the Eastern States; and yet they are precarious, and comparatively unprofitable, because our own patronage, so generously discriminating in favor of European manufactures, enables them to make the desired fabrics sometimes at less cost: that the citizens of the Middle and Western States, are confined chiefly to the raising of staple breadstuffs, for which, while

they have a great excess above the home consumption, resulting from the neglect of domestic manufactures, they find a market almost overstocked with similar productions, raised in countries as peculiarly agricultural as our own; and that the citizens of the Southern States restrict themselves chiefly to the culture of cotton, of which, practically, they have the monopoly; that the annual enlargement of the cotton culture tends to depress its price, and that they pay more dearly for the fabrics which they use, than would be necessary if our own manufactures could better maintain a competition with those of Europe.

These inconveniences would indeed become intolerable evils, if they were not compensated in some measure by the great increase of wealth resulting from the immigration of foreign labor; and by the establishment of a new and prosperous gold trade between the Atlantic States and California.

Why should these inconveniences be endured? Certainly not because we do not know that they are unnecessary. We jealously guard our culture of breadstuffs and sugar against the competition of the foreign farmer and planter in our own markets. Practically, our gold mining is equally protected. We also give an exclusive preference in our internal commerce to our own shipping. No one questions the advantages derived from these great departments of production. But it is not easy to see how the equally successful opening of other domestic resources should not be equally beneficial.

Why should it be less profitable to supply ourselves with copper, iron, glass and paper from our own resources, and by our own industry, than it is to supply ourselves in the same way with flour, sugar and gold? Why should it not be as economical to manufacture our own cotton, wool, iron and gold, as it is to manufacture our own furniture, wooden clocks and ships? If mining and manufactures generally were not profitable in England, they would not be prosecuted there. If they are profitable there, they would be profitable here. You reply that manufacturing labor is cheaper there. Yes, because you leave it there. If you offer inducements, it will come here just as freely as agricultural labor now comes. The ocean is reduced to a ferry. If you must depend on foreign skill for fabrics, I pray you bring that skill here, where you can sustain it with greater economy.