Speeches, Addresses, And Occasional Sermons Volume I Part 10

There is a strong temptation to use one's power of nature or position to the disadvantage of the weak. This may be done consciously or unconsciously. There are examples enough of both. Here the merchant deals in the labor of men. This is a legitimate article of traffic, and dealing in it is quite indispensable in the present condition of affairs. In the Southern States, the merchant, whether producer, manufacturer or trader, owns men and deals in their labor, or their bodies. He uses their labor, giving them just enough of the result of that labor to keep their bodies in the most profitable working state; the rest of that result he steals for his own use, and by that residue becomes rich and famous. He owns their persons and gets their labor by direct violence, though sanctioned by law. That is slavery. He steals the man and his labor. Here it is possible to do a similar thing: I mean it is possible to employ men and give them just enough of the result of their labor to keep up a miserable life, and yourself take all the rest of the result of that labor. This may be done consciously or otherwise, but legally, without direct violence, and without owning the person.

This is not slavery, though only one remove from it. This is the tyranny of the strong over the weak; the feudalism of money; stealing a man's work, and not his person. The merchants as a cla.s.s are exposed to this very temptation. Sometimes it is yielded to. Some large fortunes have been made in this way. Let me mention some extreme cases; one from abroad, one near at home. In Belgium the average wages of men in manufactories is less than twenty-seven cents a day. The most skilful women in that calling can earn only twenty cents a day, and many very much less.[23] In that country almost every seventh man receives charity from the public: the mortality of operatives, in some of the cities, is ten per cent. a year! Perhaps that is the worst case which you can find on a large scale even in Europe. How much better off are many women in Boston who gain their bread by the needle? yes a large cla.s.s of women in all our great cities? The ministers of the poor can answer that; your police can tell of the direful crime to which necessity sometimes drives women whom honest labor cannot feed!

I know it will be said, "Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest; get work at the lowest wages." Still there is another view of the case, and I am speaking to men whose professed religion declares that all are brothers, and demands that the strong help the weak.

Oppression of this sort is one fertile source of pauperism and crime.

How much there is of it I know not, but I think men seldom cry unless they are hurt. When men are gathered together in large ma.s.ses, as in the manufacturing towns, if there is any oppression of this sort, it is sure to get told of, especially in New England. But when a small number are employed, and they isolated from one another, the case is much harder.

Perhaps no cla.s.s of laborers in New England is worse treated than the hired help of small proprietors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is always a conservative element in society; yes, an element which resists the further application of Christianity to public affairs.

Once the fighters and their children were uppermost, and represented that element. Then the merchants were reformatory, radical, in collision with the n.o.bles. They were "Whigs"--the n.o.bles were "Tories." The merchants formed themselves into companies, and got power from the crown to protect themselves against the n.o.bles, whom the crown also feared. It is so in England now. The great revolution in the laws of trade lately effected there, was brought about by the merchants, though opposed by the lords. The anti-corn law league was a trades-union of merchants contending against the owners of the soil. There the lord of land, and by birth, is slowly giving way to the lord of money, who is powerful by his knowledge or his wealth. There will always be such an element in society. Here I think it is represented by the merchants. They are backward in all reforms, excepting such as their own interest demands.

Thus they are blind to the evils of slavery, at least silent about them.

How few commercial or political newspapers in the land ever seriously oppose this great national wickedness! Nay, how many of them favor its extension and preservation! A few years ago, in this very city, a mob of men, mainly from this cla.s.s, it is said, insulted honest women peaceably met to consult for the welfare of Christian slaves in a Christian land--met to pray for them! A merchant of this city says publicly, that a large majority of his brethren would kidnap a fugitive slave in Boston; says it with no blush and without contradiction.[24] It was men of this cla.s.s who opposed the abolition of the slave-trade, and had it guaranteed them for twenty years after the formation of the Const.i.tution; through their instigation that this foul blot was left to defile the Republic and gather blackness from age to age; through their means that the nation stands before the world pledged to maintain it.

They could end slavery at once, at least could end the national connection with it, but it is through their support that it continues; that it acquires new strength, new boldness, new territory, darkens the nation's fame and hope, delays all other reformations in Church and State and the ma.s.s of the people. Yes, it is through their influence that the chivalry, the wisdom, patriotism, eloquence, yea, religion of the free States, are all silent when the word slavery is p.r.o.nounced.

The Senate of Ma.s.sachusetts represents this more than any other cla.s.s.

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

This cla.s.s opposed abolis.h.i.+ng imprisonment for debt, thinking it endangered trade. They now oppose the progress of temperance and the abolition of the gallows. They see the evils of war; they cannot see its sin; will sustain men who help plunge the nation into its present disgraceful and cowardly conflict; will encourage foolish young men to go and fight in this wicked war. A great man said, or is reported to have said, that perhaps it is not an American habit to consider the natural justice of a war, but to count its cost! A terrible saying that!

There is a Power which considers its Justice, and will demand of us the blood we have wickedly poured out; blood of Americans, blood of the Mexicans! They favor indirect taxation, which is taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich; they continue to support the causes of poverty; as a cla.s.s they are blind to this great evil of popular ignorance--the more terrible evils of licentiousness, drunkenness and crime! They can enrich themselves by demoralizing their brothers. I wish it was an American habit to count the cost of that. Some "fanatic" will consider its justice. If they see these evils they look not for their cause; at least, strive not to remove that cause. They have long known that every year more money is paid in Boston for poison drink to be swallowed on the spot, a drink which does no man any good, which fills your asylums with paupers, your jails with criminals, and houses with unutterable misery in father, mother, wife and child,--more money every year than it would take to build your new aqueduct and bring abundance of water fresh to every house![26] If they have not known it, why it was their fault, for the fact was there crying to Heaven against us all. As they are the most powerful cla.s.s, the elder brothers, American n.o.bles if you will, it was their duty to look out for their weaker brother. No man has strength for himself alone. To use it for one's self alone, that is a sin. I do not think they are conscious of the evil they do, or the evils they allow. I speak not of motives, only of facts.

This cla.s.s controls the State. The effects of that control appear in our legislation. I know there are some n.o.ble men in political life, who have gone there with the loftiest motives, men that ask only after what is right. I honor such men--honor them all the more because they seem exceptions to a general rule; men far above the spirit of any cla.s.s. I must speak of what commonly takes place. Our politics are chiefly mercantile, politics in which money is preferred, and man postponed.

When the two come into collision, the man goes to the wall and the street is left clear for the dollars. A few years ago in monarchical France a report was made of the condition of the working population in the large manufacturing towns--a truthful report, but painful to read, for it told of strong men oppressing the weak.[27] I do not believe that such an undisguised statement of the good and ill could be tolerated in democratic America; no, not of the condition of men in New England; and what would be thought of a book setting forth the condition of the laboring men and women of the South? I know very well what is thought of the few men who attempt to tell the truth on this subject. I think there is no nation in Europe, except Russia and Turkey, which cares so little for the cla.s.s which reaps down its harvests and does the hard work.

When you protect the rights of all, you protect also the property of each and by that very act. To begin the other way is quite contrary to nature. But our politicians cannot say too little for men, nor too much for money. Take the politicians most famous and honored at this day, and what have they done? They have labored for a tariff, or for free trade; but what have they done for man? nay, what have they attempted?--to restore natural rights to men notoriously deprived of them; progressively to elevate their material, moral, social condition? I think no one pretends it. Even in proclamations for Thanksgiving and days of prayer, it is not the most needy we are bid remember. Public sins are not pointed out to be repented of. Slaveholding States shut up in their jails our colored seamen soon as they arrive in a southern port. A few years ago, at a time of considerable excitement here on the slavery question, a pet.i.tion was sent from this place by some merchants and others, to one of our Senators, praying Congress to abate that evil.

For a long time that Senator could find no opportunity to present the pet.i.tion. You know how much was said and what was done! Had the South demanded every tenth or twentieth bale of "domestics" coming from the North; had a pet.i.tion relative to that grievance been sent to Congress, and a Senator unreasonably delayed to present it--how much more would have been said and done; when he came back he would have been hustled out of Boston! When South Carolina and Louisiana sent home our messengers--driving them off with reproach, insult, and danger of their lives--little is said and nothing done. But if the barbarous natives of Sumatra interfere with our commerce, why, we send a s.h.i.+p and lay their towns in ruins and murder the men and women! We all know that for some years Congress refused to receive pet.i.tions relative to slavery; and we know how tamely that was borne by the cla.s.s who commonly control political affairs! What if Congress had refused to receive pet.i.tions relative to a tariff, or free trade, to the s.h.i.+pping interest, or the manufacturing interest? When the rights of men were concerned, three million men, only the "fanatics" complained. The political newspapers said "Hus.h.!.+"

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

This same preference of money over men appears in many special statutes.

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

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

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

Allegiance to the sovereign is the same thing on both sides of the water, whether the sovereign be an eagle or a guinea. Some American, it is said, wrote the Lord's Prayer on one side of a dime, and the Ten Commandments on the other. The Const.i.tution and a considerable commentary might perhaps be written on the two sides of a dollar!

This cla.s.s controls the Churches, as the State. Let me show the effect of that control. I am not to try men in a narrow way, by my own theological standard, but by the standard of manliness and Christianity.

As a general rule, the clergy are on the side of power. All history proves this, our own most abundantly. The clergy also are unconsciously bought up, their speech paid for, or their silence. As a cla.s.s, did they ever denounce a public sin? a popular sin? Perhaps they have. Do they do it now and here? Take Boston for the last ten years, and I think there has been more clerical preaching against the abolitionists than against slavery; perhaps more preaching against the temperance movement than in its favor. With the exception of disbelieving the popular theology, your evangelical alliance knows no sin but "original sin," unless indeed it be "organic sins," which no one is to blame for; no sinner but Adam and the devil; no saving righteousness but the "imputed." I know there are exceptions, and I would go far to do them honor, pious men who lift up a warning, yes, bear Christian testimony against public sins. I am speaking of the ma.s.s of the clergy. Christ said the priests of his time had made a den of thieves out of G.o.d's house of prayer. Now they conform to the public sins and apologize for popular crime. It is a good thing to forgive an offence: who does not need that favor and often? But to forgive the theory of crime, to have a theory which does that, is quite another thing. Large cities are alike the court and camp of the mercantile cla.s.s, and what I have just said is more eminently true of the clergy in such towns. Let me give an example. Not long ago the Unitarian clergy published a protest against American slavery. It was moderate, but firm, and manly. Almost all the clergy in the country signed it. In the large towns few: they mainly young men and in the least considerable churches. The young men seemed not to understand their contract, for the essential part of an ecclesiastical contract is sometimes written between the lines and in sympathetic ink. Is a steamboat burned or lost on the waters, how many preach on that affliction! Yet how few preached against the war? A preacher may say he hates it as a man, no words could describe his loathing at it, but as a minister of Christ, he dares not say a word! What clergymen tell of the sins of Boston,--of intemperance, licentiousness; who of the ignorance of the people; who of them lays bare our public sin as Christ of old; who tells the causes of poverty, and thousand-handed crime; who aims to apply Christianity to business, to legislation, politics, to all the nation's life? Once the church was the bride of Christ, living by his creative, animating love; her children were apostles, prophets, men by the same spirit, variously inspired with power to heal, to help, to guide mankind. Now she seems the widow of Christ, poorly living on the dower of other times. Nay, the Christ is not dead, and 'tis her alimony, not her dower. Her children--no such heroic sons gather about her table as before. In her dotage she blindly shoves them off, not counting men as sons of Christ. Is her day gone by? The clergy answer the end they were bred for, paid for. Will they say, "We should lose our influence were we to tell of this and do these things?"[29] It is not true. Their ancient influence is already gone! Who asks, "What do the clergy think of the tariff, or free trade, of annexation, or the war, of slavery, or the education movement?" Why no man. It is sad to say these things.

Would G.o.d they were not true. Look round you, and if you can, come tell me they are false.

We are not singular in this. In all lands the clergy favors the controlling cla.s.s. Bossuet would make the monarchy swallow up all other inst.i.tutions, as in history he sacrificed all nations to the Jews. In England the established clergy favors the n.o.bility, the crown, not the people; opposes all freedom of trade, all freedom in religion, all generous education of the people: its gospel is the gospel for a cla.s.s, not Christ's gospel for mankind. Here also the sovereign is the head of the church, it favors the prevailing power, represents the morality, the piety which chances to be popular, nor less nor more; the Christianity of the street, not of Christ.

Here trade takes the place of the army, navy, and court in other lands.

That is well, but it takes also the place in great measure of science, art and literature. So we become vulgar, and have little but trade to show. The rich man's son seldom devotes himself to literature, science, or art; only to getting more money, or to living in idleness on what he has inherited. When money is the end, what need to look for any thing more? He degenerates into the cla.s.s of consumers, and thinks it an honor. He is ashamed of his father's blood, proud of his gold. A good deal of scientific labor meets with no reward, but itself. In our country this falls almost wholly upon poor men. Literature, science and art are mainly in their hands, yet are controlled by the prevalent spirit of the nation. Here and there an exceptional man differs from that, but the ma.s.s of writers conform. In England, the national literature favors the church, the crown, the n.o.bility, the prevailing cla.s.s. Another literature is rising, but is not yet national, still less canonized. We have no American literature which is permanent. Our scholarly books are only an imitation of a foreign type; they do not reflect our morals, manners, politics, or religion, not even our rivers, mountains, sky. They have not the smell of our ground in their breath.

The real American literature is found only in newspapers and speeches, perhaps in some novel, hot, pa.s.sionate, but poor, and extemporaneous.

That is our national literature. Does that favor man--represent man?

Certainly not. All is the reflection of this most powerful cla.s.s. The truths that are told are for them, and the lies. Therein the prevailing sentiment is getting into the form of thought. Politics represent the morals of the controlling cla.s.s, the morals and manners of rich Peter and David on a large scale. Look at that index, you would sometimes think you were not in the Senate of a great nation, but in a board of brokers, angry and higgling about stocks. Once in the nation's loftiest hour, she rose inspired and said: "All men are born equal, each with unalienable rights; that is self-evident." Now she repents her of the vision and the saying. It does not appear in her literature, nor church, nor state. Instead of that, through this controlling cla.s.s, the nation says: "All dollars are equal, however got; each has unalienable rights.

Let no man question that!" This appears in literature and legislation, church and state. The morals of a nation, of its controlling cla.s.s, always get summed up in its political action. That is the barometer of the moral weather. The voters are always fairly represented.

The wicked baron, bad of heart, and b.l.o.o.d.y of hand, has pa.s.sed off with the ages which gave birth to such a brood, but the bad merchant still lives. He cheats in his trade; sometimes against the law, commonly with it. His truth is never wholly true, nor his lie wholly false. He overreaches the ignorant; makes hard bargains with men in their trouble, for he knows that a falling man will catch at red-hot iron. He takes the pound of flesh, though that bring away all the life-blood with it. He loves private contracts, digging through walls in secret. No interest is illegal if he can get it. He cheats the nation with false invoices, and swears lies at the custom-house; will not pay his taxes, but moves out of town on the last of April.[30] He oppresses the men who sail his s.h.i.+ps, forcing them to be temperate, only that he may consume the value of their drink. He provides for them unsuitable bread and meat. He would not engage in the African slave-trade, for he might lose his s.h.i.+ps and perhaps more; but he is always ready to engage in the American slave-trade, and calls you a "fanatic" if you tell him it is the worse of the two. He cares not whether he sells cotton or the man who wears it, if he only gets the money; cotton or negro, it is the same to him.

He would not keep a drink-hole in Ann Street, only own and rent it. He will bring or make whole cargoes of the poison that deals "d.a.m.nation round the land." He thinks it vulgar to carry rum about in a jug, respectable in a s.h.i.+p. He makes paupers, and leaves others to support them. Tell not him of the misery of the poor, he knows better; nor of our paltry way of dealing with public crime, he wants more jails and a speedier gallows. You see his character in letting his houses, his houses for the poor. He is a stone in the lame man's shoe. He is the poor man's devil. The Hebrew devil that so worried Job is gone; so is the brutal devil that awed our fathers. n.o.body fears them; they vanish before c.o.c.k-crowing. But this devil of the nineteenth century is still extant. He has gone into trade, and advertises in the papers; his name is "good" in the street. He "makes money;" the world is poorer by his wealth. He spends it as he made it, like a devil, on himself, his family alone, or worse yet, for show. He can build a church out of his gains, to have his morality, his Christianity preached in it, and call that the gospel, as Aaron called a calf--G.o.d. He sends rum and missionaries to the same barbarians, the one to d.a.m.n, the other to "save," both for his own advantage, for his patron saint is Judas, the first saint who made money out of Christ. Ask not him to do a good deed in private, "men would not know it," and "the example would be lost;" so he never lets a dollar slip out between his thumb and finger without leaving his mark on both sides of it. He is not forecasting to discern effects in causes, nor skilful to create new wealth, only spry in the scramble for what others have made. It is easy to make a bargain with him, hard to settle.

In politics he wants a Government that will insure his dividends; so asks what is good for him, but ill for the rest. He knows no right, only power; no man but self; no G.o.d but his calf of gold.

What effect has he on young men? They had better touch poison. If he takes you to his heart, he takes you in. What influence on society? To taint and corrupt it all round. He contaminates trade; corrupts politics, making abusive laws, not asking for justice but only dividends. To the church he is the Anti-Christ. Yes, the very Devil, and frightens the poor minister into shameful silence, or, more shameless yet, into an apology for crime; makes him pardon the theory of crime! Let us look on that monster--look and pa.s.s by, not without prayer.

The good merchant tells the truth and thrives by that; is upright and downright; his word good as his Bible-oath. He pays for all he takes; though never so rich he owns no wicked dollar; all is openly, honestly, manfully earned, and a full equivalent paid for it. He owns money and is worth a man. He is just in business with the strong; charitable in dealing with the weak. His counting-room or his shop is the sanctuary of fairness, justice, a school of uprightness as well as thrift. Industry and honor go hand in hand with him. He gets rich by industry and forecast, not by slight of hand and shuffling his cards to another's loss. No men become the poorer because he is rich. He would sooner hurt himself than wrong another, for he is a man, not a fox. He entraps no man with lies, active or pa.s.sive. His honesty is better capital than a sharper's cunning. Yet he makes no more talk about justice and honesty than the sun talks of light and heat; they do their own talking. His profession of religion is all practice. He knows that a good man is just as near heaven in his shop as in his church, at work as at prayer; so he makes all work sacramental; he communes with G.o.d and man in buying and selling--communion in both kinds. He consecrates his week-day and his work. Christianity appears more divine in this man's deeds than in the holiest words of apostle or saint. He treats every man as he wishes all to treat him, and thinks no more of that than of carrying one for every ten. It is the rule of his arithmetic. You know this man is a saint, not by his creed, but by the letting of his houses, his treatment of all that depend on him. He is a father to defend the weak, not a pirate to rob them. He looks out for the welfare of all that he employs; if they are his help he is theirs, and as he is the strongest so the greater help. His private prayer appears in his public work, for in his devotion he does not apologize for his sin, but asking to outgrow that, challenges himself to new wors.h.i.+p and more piety. He sets on foot new enterprises which develop the nation's wealth and help others while they help him. He wants laws that take care of man's rights, knowing that then he can take care of himself and of his own, but hurt no man by so doing. He asks laws for the weak, not against them. He would not take vengeance on the wicked, but correct them. His justice tastes of charity. He tries to remove the causes of poverty, licentiousness, of all crime, and thinks that is alike the duty of Church and State. Ask not him to make a statesman a party-man, or the churches an apology for his lowness. He knows better; he calls that infidelity. He helps the weak help themselves. He is a moral educator, a church of Christ gone into business, a saint in trade. The Catholic saint who stood on a pillar's top, or shut himself into a den and fed on gra.s.s, is gone to his place--that Christian Nebuchadnezzar. He got fame in his day. No man honors him now; n.o.body even imitates him. But the saint of the nineteenth century is the good merchant; he is wisdom for the foolish, strength for the weak, warning to the wicked, and a blessing to all.

Build him a shrine in bank and church, in the market and the exchange, or build it not, no saint stands higher than this saint of trade. There are such men, rich and poor, young and old; such men in Boston. I have known more than one such, and far greater and better than I have told of, for I purposely under-color this poor sketch. They need no word of mine for encouragement or sympathy. Have they not Christ and G.o.d to aid and bless them? Would that some word of mine might stir the heart of others to be such; your hearts, young men. They rise there clean amid the dust of commerce and the mechanic's busy life, and stand there like great square pyramids in the desert amongst the Arabians' s.h.i.+fting tents. Look at them, ye young men, and be healed of your folly. It is not the calling which corrupts the man, but the men the calling. The most experienced will tell you so. I know it demands manliness to make a man, but G.o.d sent you here to do that work.

The duty of this cla.s.s is quite plain. They control the wealth, the physical strength, the intellectual vigor of the nation. They now display an energy new and startling. No ocean is safe from their canvas; they fill the valleys; they level the hills; they chain the rivers; they urge the willing soil to double harvests. Nature opens all her stores to them; like the fabled dust of Egypt her fertile bosom teems with new wonders, new forces to toil for man. No race of men in times of peace ever displayed so manly an enterprise, an energy so vigorous as this cla.s.s here in America. Nothing seems impossible to them. The instinct of production was never so strong and creative before. They are proving that peace can stimulate more than war.

Would that my words could reach all of this cla.s.s. Think not I love to speak hard words, and so often; say not that I am setting the poor against the rich. It is no such thing. I am trying to set the strong in favor of the weak. I speak for man. Are you not all brothers, rich or poor? I am here to gratify no vulgar ambition, but in Religion's name to tell their duty to the most powerful cla.s.s in all this land. I must speak the truth I know, though I may recoil with trembling at the words I speak; yes, though their flame should scorch my own lips. Some of the evils I complain of are your misfortune, not your fault. Perhaps the best hearts in the land, no less than the ablest heads, are yours. If the evils be done unconsciously, then it will be greatness to be higher than society, and with your good overcome its evil. All men see your energy, your honor, your disciplined intellect. Let them see your goodness, justice, Christianity. The age demands of you a development of religion proportionate with the vigor of your mind and arms. Trade is silently making a wonderful revolution. We live in the midst of it, and therefore see it not. All property has become movable, and therefore power departs from the family of the first-born, and comes to the family of mankind. G.o.d only controls this revolution, but you can help it forward, or r.e.t.a.r.d it. The freedom of labor, and the freedom of trade, will work wonders little dreamed of yet; one is now uniting all men of the same nation; the other, some day, will weave all tribes together into one mighty family. Then who shall dare break its peace? I cannot now stop to tell half the proud achievements I foresee resulting from the fierce energy that animates your yet unconscious hearts. Men live faster than ever before. Life, like money, like mechanical power, is getting intensified and condensed. The application of science to the arts, the use of wind, water, steam, electricity, for human works, is a wonderful fact, far greater than the fables of old time. The modern Cadmus has yoked fire and water in an iron bond. The new Prometheus sends the fire of heaven from town to town to run his errands. We talk by lightning. Even now these new achievements have greatly multiplied the powers of men. They belong to no cla.s.s; like air and water they are the property of mankind. It is for you, who own the machinery of society, to see that no cla.s.s appropriates to itself what G.o.d meant for all. Remember it is as easy to tyrannize by machinery as by armies, and as wicked; that it is greater now to bless mankind thereby, than it was of old to conquer new realms. Let men not curse you, as the old n.o.bility, and shake you off, smeared with blood and dust. Turn your power to goodness, its natural transfiguration, and men shall bless your name, and G.o.d bless your soul. If you control the nation's politics, then it is your duty to legislate for the nation,--for man. You may develop the great national idea, the equality of all men; may frame a government which shall secure man's unalienable rights. It is for you to organize the rights of man, thus balancing into harmony the man and the many, to organize the rights of the hand, the head, and the heart. If this be not done, the fault is yours. If the nation play the tyrant over her weakest child, if she plunder and rob the feeble Indian, the feebler Mexican, the Negro, feebler yet, why the blame is yours. Remember there is a G.o.d who deals justly with strong and weak. The poor and the weak have loitered behind in the march of man; our cities yet swarm with men half-savage. It is for you, ye elder brothers, to lead forth the weak and poor! If you do the national duty that devolves on you, then are you the saviors of your country, and shall bless not that alone, but all the thousand million sons of men. Toil then for that. If the church is in your hands, then make it preach the Christian truth. Let it help the free development of religion in the self-consciousness of man, with Jesus for its pattern. It is for you to watch over this work, promote it, not r.e.t.a.r.d. Help build the American church. The Roman church has been, we know what it was, and what men it bore; the English church yet stands, we know what it is. But the church of America--which shall represent American vigor aspiring to realize the ideas of Christianity, of absolute religion,--that is not yet. No man has come with pious genius fit to conceive its litany, to chant its mighty creed, and sing its beauteous psalm. The church of America, the church of freedom, of absolute religion, the church of mankind, where Truth, Goodness, Piety, form one trinity of beauty, strength, and grace--when shall it come?

Soon as we will. It is yours to help it come.

For these great works you may labor; yes, you are laboring, when you help forward justice, industry, when you promote the education of the people; when you practise, public and private, the virtues of a Christian man; when you hinder these seemingly little things, you hinder also the great. You are the nation's head, and if the head be wilful and wicked, what shall its members do and be? To this cla.s.s let me say: Remember your Position at the head of the nation; use it not as pirates, but Americans, Christians, men. Remember your Temptations, and be warned in time. Remember your opportunities--such as no men ever had before.

G.o.d and man alike call on you to do your duty. Elevate your calling still more; let its n.o.bleness appear in you. Scorn a mean thing. Give the world more than you take. You are to serve the nation, not it you; to build the church, not make it a den of thieves, nor allow it to apologize for your crime, or sloth. Try this experiment and see what comes of it. In all things govern yourselves by the eternal law of right. You shall build up not a military despotism, nor a mercantile oligarchy, but a State, where the government is of all, by all, and for all; you shall found not a feudal theocracy, nor a beggarly sect, but the church of mankind, and that Christ which is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever, will dwell in it, to guide, to warn, to inspire, and to bless all men. And you, my brothers, what shall you become? Not knaves, higgling rather than earn; not tyrants, to be feared whilst living, and buried at last amid popular hate; but men, who thrive best by justice, reason, conscience, and have now the blessedness of just men making themselves perfect.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] I gather these facts from a Review of Major Poussin's _Belgique et les Belges, depuis 1830_, in a foreign journal. The condition of the merchant manufacturer I know not.

[24] Subsequent events (in 1850 and 1851) show that he was right in his statement. What was thought calumny then has become history since, and is now the glory and boast of Boston.

[25] Mr. _Robert J. Walker_ published a letter in favor of the annexation of Texas. In it he said: "Upon the refusal of re-annexation ... THE TARIFF AS A PRACTICAL MEASURE FALLS WHOLLY AND FOR EVER, and we shall thereafter be compelled to resort to direct taxes to support the Government." Notwithstanding this foolish threat, a large number of citizens of Ma.s.sachusetts remonstrated against annexation. The House of Representatives, by a large majority, pa.s.sed a resolve declaring that Ma.s.sachusetts "announces her uncompromising opposition to the further extension of American slavery," and "declares her earnest and unalterable purpose to use every lawful and const.i.tutional measure for its overthrow and entire extinction," etc. But the Senate voted that the resistance of the State was already sufficient! The pa.s.sage in the text refers to these circ.u.mstances.

[26] It was then thought that the aqueduct would cost but $2,000,000.

[27] I refer to the Report of M. Villerme, in the _Memoires de l'Inst.i.tut, Tom._ lxxi.

[28] This was printed in 1846. In 1850, and since, these men have publicly gloried in a similar act even more atrocious.