and shops,--the greater shops and the less,--but to have men; men that
are conscious of their manhood, self-respectful, earnest men, that have
a faith in the living God. I do not think we have many men of genius. We
have very few that I call great men; I wish there were more; but I think
we have an intelligent, an industrious, and noble people here in
Massachusetts, which we may be proud of.
Let us go a step further. New England is like Massachusetts in the main,
with local differences only. All the North is like New England in the
main; this portion is better in one thing; that portion worse in another
thing. Our ideas are their ideas; our institutions are the same. Some of
the northern States have institutions better than we. They have added to
our experience. In revising their constitutions and laws, or in making
new ones, they go beyond us, they introduce new improvements, and those
new improvements will give those States the same advantage over us,
which a new mill, with new and superior machinery, has over an old mill,
with old and inferior machinery. By and by we shall see the result, and
take counsel from it, I trust.
All over the North we find the same industry and thrift, and similar
intelligence. Here attention is turned to agriculture, there to mining;
but there is a similar progress and zeal for improvement. Attention is
bestowed on schools and colleges, on academies and churches. There is
the same abundance of material comfort. Population advances rapidly,
prosperity in a greater ratio. Everywhere new swarms pour forth from the
old hive, and settle in some convenient nook, far off in the West. So
the frontier of civilization every year goes forward, further from the
ocean. Fifty years ago it was on the Ohio; then on the Mississippi; then
on the upper Missouri: presently its barrier will be the Rocky
Mountains, and soon it will pass beyond that bar, and the tide of the
Atlantic will sweep over to the Pacific--yea, it is already there! The
universal Yankee freights his schooner at Bangor, at New Bedford, and at
Boston, with bricks, timber, frame-houses, and other "notions," and by
and by drops his anchor in the smooth Pacific, in the Bay of St.
Francis. We shall see there, ere long, the sentiments of New England,
the ideas of New England, the institutions of New England; the
school-house, the meeting-house, the court-house, the town-house. There
will be the same industry, thrift, intelligence, morality, and religion,
and the idle ground that has hitherto borne nothing but gold, will bear
upon its breast a republic of men more precious than the gold of Ophir,
or the rubies of the East.
Here I wish I could stop. But this is not all. The North is not the
whole nation; New England is not the only type of the people. There are
other States differing widely from this. In the southern States you find
a soil more fertile under skies more genial. Through what beautiful
rivers the Alleghanies pour their tribute to the sea! What streams
beautify the land in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi! There
genial skies rain beauty on the soil. Nature is wanton of her gifts.
There rice, cotton, and sugar grow; there the olive, the orange, the
fig, all find a home. The soil teems with luxuriance. But there is not
the same wealth, nor the same comfort. Only the ground is rich. You
witness not a similar thrift. Strange is it, but in 1840, the single
State of New York alone earned over four million dollars more than the
six States of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and
Mississippi! The annual earnings of little Massachusetts, with her seven
thousand and five hundred square miles, are nine million dollars more
than the earnings of all Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina! The
little county of Essex, with ninety-five thousand souls in 1840, earned
more than the large State of South Carolina, with five hundred and
ninety-five thousand.
In those States we miss the activity, intelligence, and enterprise of
the North. You do not find the little humble school-house at every
corner; the frequent meeting-house does not point its taper finger to
the sky. Villages do not adorn the margin of the mountain, stream and
sea; shops do not ring with industry; roads of earth and iron are poorer
and less common. Temperance, morality, comfort are not there as here. In
the slave States, in 1840, there were not quite three hundred and two
thousand youths and maidens in all the schools, academies, and colleges
of the South; but in 1840, in the free States of the North there were
more than two million two hundred and twelve thousand in such
institutions! Little Rhode Island has five thousand more girls and boys
at school than large South Carolina. The State of Ohio alone has more
than seventeen thousand children at school beyond what the whole fifteen
slave States can boast. The permanent literature of the nation all comes
from the North; your historians are from that quarter--your Sparkses,
your Bancrofts, your Hildreths, and Prescotts, and Ticknors; the poets
are from the same quarter--your Whittiers, and Longfellows, and Lowells,
and Bryants; the men of literature and religion--your Channings, and
Irvings, and Emersons--are from the same quarter! Preaching--it is
everywhere, and sermons are as thick almost as autumnal leaves; but who
ever heard of a great or famous clergyman in a Southern State? of a
great and famous sermon that rang through the nation from that quarter?
No man. Your Edwards of old time, and your Beechers, old and young, your
Channing and Buckminster, and the rest, which throng to every man's
lips--all are from the North. Nature has done enough for the South;
God's cup of blessing runs over--and yet you see the result! But there
has been no pestilence at the South more than at the North; no
earthquake has torn the ground beneath their feet; no war has come to
disturb them more than us. The government has never laid a withering
hand on their commerce, their agriculture, their schools and colleges,
their literature and their church.
Still, letting alone the South and the North as such, not considering
either exclusively, we are one nation. What is a nation? It is one of
the great parties in the world. It is a sectional party, having
geographical limits; with a party organization, party opinions, party
mottoes, party machinery, party leaders, and party followers; with some
capital city for its party head-quarters. There has been an Assyrian
party, a British, a Persian, an Egyptian, and a Roman party; there is
now a Chinese party, and a Russian, a Turkish, a French, and an English
party; these are also called nations. We belong to the American party,
and that includes the North as well as the South; and so all are
brothers of the same party, differing amongst ourselves--but from other
nations in this, that we are the American party, and not the Russian nor
the English.
We ought to look at the whole American party, the North and South, to
see the total condition of the people. Now at this moment there is no
lack of cattle and corn and cloth in the United States, North or South,
only they are differently distributed in the different parts of the
land. But still there is a great excitement. Men think the nation is in
danger, and for many years there has not been so great an outcry and
alarm amongst the politicians. The cry is raised, "The Union is in
danger!" and if the Union falls, we are led to suppose that every thing
falls. There will be no more Thanksgiving days; there will be anarchy
and civil war, and the ruin of the American people! It is curious to see
this material plenty, on the one side, and this political alarm and
confusion on the other. This condition of alarm is so well known, that
nothing more need be said about it at this moment.
* * * * *
Let me now come to the next point, and consider the Causes of our
present condition. This will involve a consideration of the cause of our
prosperity and of our alarm.
1. First, there are some causes which depend on God entirely; such as
the nature of the country, soil, climate, and the like; its minerals,
and natural productions; its seas and harbors, mountains and rivers. In
respect to these natural advantages, the country is abundantly favored,
but the North less so than the South. Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama,
certainly have the advantage over Maine, New Hampshire and Ohio. That I
pass by; a cause which depends wholly on God.
2. Then again, this is a wide and new country. We have room to spread.
We have not to contend against old institutions, established a thousand
years ago, and that is one very great advantage. I make no doubt that in
crossing the ocean, our fathers helped forward the civilization of the
world at least a thousand years; I mean to say, it would have taken
mankind a thousand years longer to reach the condition we have attained
in New England, if the attempt had of necessity been made on the soil of
the old world and in the face of its institutions.
3. Then, as a third thing, much depends on the peculiar national
character. Well, the freemen in the North and South are chiefly from the
same race, this indomitable Caucasian stock; mainly from the same
composite stock, the tribe produced by the mingling of Saxon, Danish and
Norman blood. That makes the present English nation, and the American
also. This is a very powerful tribe of men, possessing some very noble
traits of character; active and creative in all the arts of peace;
industrious as a nation never was before; enterprising, practical; fond
of liberty, fond also of law, capable of organizing themselves into
great masses, and acting with a complete concert and unity of action. In
these respects, I think this tribe, which I will call the English tribe,
is equal to any race of men in the world that has been or is; perhaps
superior to any race that has been developed hitherto. But in what
relates to the higher reason and imagination, to the affections and to
the soul, I think this tribe is not so eminent as some others have been.
North and South, the people are alike of Anglo-Norman descent.
4. Another cause of our prosperity, which depends a great deal on
ourselves, is this--the absence of war and of armies. In France, with a
population of less than forty millions, half a million are constantly
under arms. The same state of things prevails substantially in Austria,
Prussia, and in all the German States. Here in America, with a
population of twenty millions, there is not one in a thousand that is a
soldier or marine. In time of peace, I think we waste vast sums in
military preparations, as we did in actual war not long since. Still,
when I compare this nation with others, I think we have cause to
felicitate ourselves on the absence of military power.
5. Again, much depends on the past history of the race; and here there
is a wide difference between the different parts of the country. New
England was settled by a religious colony. I will not say that all the
men who came here from 1620 to 1650 were moved by religious motives; but
the controlling men were brought here by these motives, and no other.
Many who cared less for religious ideas, came for the sake of a great
moral idea, for the sake of obtaining a greater degree of civil freedom
than they had at home. Now the Pilgrims and the Puritans are only a
little ways behind us. The stiff ruff, the peaked beard, the
"Prophesying book" are only six or seven generations behind the youngest
of us. The character of the Puritans has given to New England much of
its present character and condition. They founded schools and colleges;
they trained up their children in a stern discipline which we shall not
forget for two centuries to come. The remembrance of their trials, their
heroism, and their piety affects our preaching to-day, and our politics
also. The difference between New England and New York, from 1750 to
1790, is the difference between the sons of the religious colony and the
sons of the worldly colony. You know something of New York politics
before the Revolution, and also since the Revolution; the difference
between New York and New England politics at that time, is the
difference between the sons of religious men and the sons of men who
cared very much less for religion.
Just now, when I said that all the North is like New England, I meant
substantially so. The West is our own daughter. New England has helped
people the western part of the State of New York; and the best elements
of New England character mingling with others, its good qualities will
appear in the politics of that mighty State.
The South, in the main, had a very different origin from the North. I
think few if any persons settled there for religion's sake; or for the
sake of freedom in the State. It was not a moral idea which sent men to
Virginia, Georgia and Carolina. "Men do not gather grapes of thorns."
The difference of the seed will appear in the difference of the crop. In
the character of the people of the North and South, it appears at this
day. The North is not to be praised, nor the South to be blamed for
this; they could not help it: but certainly it is an advantage to be
descended from a race of industrious, moral and religious men; to have
been brought up under their training, to have inherited their ideas and
institutions,--and this is a circumstance which we make quite too little
account of. I pass by that.
6. There are other causes which depend on ourselves entirely. Much
depends on the political and social organization of the people. There is
no denying that government has a great influence on the character of the
people; on the character of every man. The difference between the
development of England and the development of Spain at this day, is
mainly the result of different forms of government; for three centuries
ago the Spaniards were as noble a race as the English.
A government is carried on by two agencies: the first is public opinion,
and the next is public law,--the fundamental law which is the
Constitution, and the subsidiary laws which carry out the ideas of the
Constitution. In a government like this, public opinion always precedes
the laws, overrides them, takes the place of laws when there are none,
and hinders their execution when they do not correspond to public
opinion. Thus the public opinion of South Carolina demands that a free
colored seaman from the North shall be shut up in jail, at his
employer's cost. The public opinion of Charleston is stronger than the
public law of the United States on that point, stronger than the
Constitution, and nobody dares execute the laws of the United States in
that matter. These two things should always be looked at, to understand
the causes of a nation's condition--the public opinion, as well as the
public law. Let me know the opinions of the men between twenty-five and
thirty-five years of age, and I know what the laws will be.
Now in public opinion and in the laws of the United States, there are
two distinct political ideas. I shall call one the Democratic, and the
other the Despotic idea. Neither is wholly sectional; both chiefly so.
Each is composed of several simpler ideas. Each has enacted laws and
established institutions. This is the democratic idea: That all men are
endowed by their Creator with certain natural rights, which only the
possessor can alienate; that all men are equal in these rights; that
amongst them is the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness; that the business of the government is to preserve for every
man all of these rights until he alienates them.
This democratic idea is founded in human nature, and comes from the
nature of God who made human nature. To carry it out politically is to
execute justice, which is the will of God. This idea, in its
realization, leads to a democracy, a government of all, for all, by all.
Such a government aims to give every man all his natural rights; it
desires to have political power in all hands, property in all hands,
wisdom in all heads, goodness in all hearts, religion in all souls. I
mean the religion that makes a man self-respectful, earnest, and
faithful to the infinite God, that disposes him to give all men their
rights, and to claim his own rights at all times; the religion which is
piety within you, and goodness in the manifestation. Such a government
has laws, and the aim thereof is to give justice to all men; it has
officers to execute these laws, for the sake of justice. Such a
government founds schools for all; looks after those most who are most
in need; defends and protects the feeblest as well as the richest and
most powerful. The State is for the individual, and for all the
individuals, and so it reverences justice, where the rights of all, and
the interests of all, exactly balance. It demands free speech; every
thing is open to examination, discussion, "agitation," if you will.
Thought is to be free, speech to be free, work to be free, and worship
to be free. Such is the democratic idea, and such the State which it
attempts to found.
The despotic idea is just the opposite:--That all men are _not_ endowed
by their Creator with certain natural rights which only the possessor
can alienate, but that one man has a natural right to overcome and make
use of some other men for his advantage and their hurt; that all men are
_not_ equal in their rights; that all men have _not_ a natural right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that government is _not_
instituted to preserve these natural rights for all.
This idea is founded on the excess of human passions, and it represents
the compromise between a man's idleness and his appetite. It is not
based on facts eternal in human nature, but on facts transient in human
nature. It does not aim to do justice to all, but injustice to some; to
take from one man what he ought not to lose, and give to another what he
ought not to get.
This leads to aristocracy in various forms, to the government of all by
means of a part and for the sake of a part. In this state of things
political power must be in few hands; property in few hands; wisdom in
few heads; goodness in few hearts, and religion in few souls. I mean the
religion which leads a man to respect himself and his fellow men; to be
earnest, and to trust in the infinite God; to demand his rights of other
men and to give their rights to them.
Neither the democratic nor the despotic idea is fully made real anywhere
in the world. There is no perfect democracy, nor perfect aristocracy.
There are democrats in every actual aristocracy; despots in every actual
democracy. But in the Northern States the democratic idea prevails
extensively and chiefly, and we have made attempts at establishing a
democratic government. In the Southern States the despotic idea
prevails extensively and chiefly, and they have made attempts to
establish an aristocratic government. In an aristocracy there are two
classes: the people to be governed, and the governing class, the
nobility which is to govern. This nobility may be movable, and depend on
wealth; or immovable, and depend on birth. In the Southern States the
nobility is immovable, and depends on color.
In 1840, in the North there were ten million free men, and in the South
five million free men and three million slaves. Three eighths of the
population have no human rights at all--privileges as cattle, not rights
as men. There the slave is protected by law, as your horse and your ox,
but has no more human rights.
Here, now, is the great cause of the difference in the condition of the
North and South; of the difference in the material results, represented
by towns and villages, by farms and factories, ships and shops. Here is
the cause of the difference in schools, colleges, churches, and in the
literature; the cause of the difference in men. The South, with its
despotic idea, dishonors labor, but wishes to compromise between its
idleness and its appetite, and so kidnaps men to do its work. The North,
with its democratic idea, honors labor; does not compromise between its
idleness and its appetite, but lays its bones to the work to satisfy its
appetite; instead of kidnapping a man who can run away, it kidnaps the
elements, subdues them to its command, and makes them do its work. It
does not kidnap a freeman, but catches the winds, and chains them to its
will. It lays hands on fire and water, and breeds a new giant, which
"courses land and ocean without rest," or serves while it stands and
waits, driving the mills of the land. It kidnaps the Connecticut and the
Merrimac; does not send slave-ships to Africa, but engineers to New
Hampshire; and it requires no fugitive slave law to keep the earth and
sea from escaping, or the rivers of New England from running up hill.
This is not quite all! I have just now tried to hint at the causes of
the difference in the condition of the people, North and South. Now let
me show the cause of the agitation and alarm. We begin with a sentiment;
that spreads to an idea; the idea grows to an act, to an institution;
then it has done its work.
Men seek to spread their sentiments and ideas. The democratic idea tries
to spread; the despotic idea tries to spread. For a long time the nation
held these two ideas in its bosom, not fully conscious of either of
them. Both came here in a state of infancy, so to say, with our fathers;
the democratic idea very dimly understood; the despotic idea not fully
carried out, yet it did a great mischief in the State and church. In the
Declaration of Independence, writ by a young man, only the democratic
idea appears, and that idea never got so distinctly stated before. But
mark you, and see the confusion in men's minds. That democratic idea was
thus distinctly stated by a man who was a slaveholder almost all his
life; and unless public rumor has been unusually false, he has left some
of his own offspring under the influence of the despotic and not the
democratic idea; slaves and not free men.
In the Constitution of the United States these two ideas appear. It was
thought for a long time they were not incompatible; it was thought the
great American party might recognize both, and a compromise was made
between the two. It was thought each might go about its own work and let
the other alone; that the hawk and the hen might dwell happily together
in the same coop, each lay her own eggs and rear her own brood, and
neither put a claw upon the other.
In the mean time each founded institutions after its kind; in the
Northern States, democratic institutions; in the Southern, aristocratic.
What once lay latent in the mind of the nation has now become patent.
The thinking part of the nation sees the difference between the two.
Some men are beginning to see that the two are completely incompatible,
and cannot be good friends. Others are asking us to shut our eyes and
not see it, and they think that so long as our eyes are shut, all things
will go on peacefully. Such is the wisdom of the ostrich.
At first the trouble coming from this source was a very little cloud,
far away on the horizon, not bigger than a man's hand. It seemed so in
1804, when the brave senator from Massachusetts, a Hartford Convention
Federalist, a name that calls the blood to some rather pale cheeks
now-a-days, proposed to alter the Constitution of the United States, and
cut off the North from all responsibility for slavery. It was a little
cloud not bigger than a man's hand; now it is a great cloud which covers
the whole hemisphere of heaven, and threatens to shut out the day.
In the last session of Congress, ten months long, the great matter was
the contest between the two ideas. All the newspapers rung with the
battle. Even the pulpits now and then alluded to it; forgetting their
decency, that they must preach "only religion," which has not the least
to do with politics and the welfare of the State.
Each idea has its allies, and it is worth while to run our eye over the
armies and see what they amount to. The idea of despotism has for its
allies:
1. The slaveholders of the South with their dependents; and the servile
class who take their ideas from the prominent men about them. This
servile class is more numerous at the South than even at the North.