in those moments of fancied prosperity-like those of 1818, 1836, and 1856 which invariably precede the almost entire stoppage of the motion of society, the disappearance of commerce, and the complete predominance of trade.*

Instability thus causes waste of labor, and produces thirst for office, such as is so clearly obvious in all the trade-ridden countries of the Eastern hemisphere. It grows in England and in Ireland. In India, and in Turkey, public employment is the only road to wealth or power. Great as is that thirst in France and Germany, it is less than it was a century since. At no period has it here existed in less degree than it did in the periods of protection which ended in 1835 and 1847. At none, has it been so universal or so intense as it is at the present moment, at the close of the first decade of the system of 1846; and thus are we here presented with one of the most conclusive evidences of declining civilization.†

* The following, from the Richmond Enquirer, depicts the state of things in Virginia, but it is almost equally true in regard to the Union at large:"It is a misfortune that so many of our young men embrace the professions of law and medicine. They are both overdone in this State: they are crowded to surfeit. There is in this State a physician to every six hundred of the population, black and white. Now, if the practice were equally divided, it would only give about six hundred dollars to each. But that is not the case. Some few meet with success, but the larger number make a bare living, and many abandon the profession in despair, after having expended, perhaps, their little patrimony in obtaining it.

"There is a lawyer to every thousand of our population, black and white. In the present state of the law business, I do not suppose it would average more than two or three hundred dollars to each, if equally divided. But, as is the case with the physicians, a few obtain the larger share of the practice. Taking, however, both professions as a body, there are few, indeed, who suc ceed in acquiring a fortune by their pursuit, and the number of fortunate ones will lessen in the ratio of the increase of numbers in the ranks of the profession, Better, far better, will it be for our young men to engage in some other less crowded and more profitable pursuits."

Unfortunately, every pursuit that is open to the people is equally crowded. In the last ten years the population has increased at least seven millions, and yet the number of persons engaged in the great departments of manufacture to wit, those of iron, cotton, silk, wool, flax, and hemp is not, probably, any greater than it was then. This, again, prevents the growth of machine-shops, and forces the instructed youth of the country into trades, or into the professions, all of which are crowded to a degree never exceeded in any country.

Thirty years since, men were required to suit the offices to which they were appointed. Now, little is required but that the offices should suit the men. Then, the cry of va victis had not been heard in the political world. Now, it is an established maxim that "to the victors belong the spoils;" and as a consequence, proscription for difference of opinion has become extended through the whole range of employments, down even to the maker of fires in the smallest custom-house. The rapacity here exhibited by applicants for office can nowhere else be exceeded, and it increases from year to year as com

7. With increasing civilization, the value of land and of man becomes more stable enabling each and every person possessed of property or of talent, to determine by study of the past what will be his future. From year to year, the power of self-government becomes more perfect, with constant increase in the facilities for development of the individualities of the various members of society. With growing barbarism, the reverse of this is seen the value of property becoming from year to year more subject to exterior influences, with corresponding diminution in the power of man to determine for himself how he will appropriate his time or talents. At no period has the value of land and labor tended so much to acquire regularity as in that which closed in 1835, when the price of wheat throughout this country was wholly unaffected by the extraordinary changes in the price of English corn;* and in 1846-7, when the movement of the commerce of the Union continued perfectly regular throughout the English crisis which followed the Irish famine. Directly the reverse of this is seen in every period, in which trade is obtaining the mastery over commerce. In 1837, at the fiat of the Bank of England, payment of specie was suspended by all the banks of the Union. In 1838, the bank remitted money to this country, and in 1839 payment was resumed. Difficulty in England caused a further suspension in the following year; and in each and every of these cases there was a change in the value of labor and of property by means of which the poor were made poorer, while the rich were being still further enriched. At no period, however, has the subjection to exterior influence been so great as now-the value of all property, and the demand for labor, having become wholly dependent upon the chances and changes of European politics.

With the growth of commerce and the creation of local centres of action, towns and villages become more independent each moving in its own sphere, and preserving its own individuality,

merce declines, and as trade becomes more and more master of the fortunes of the people. From this it follows, necessarily, that elections have become in a great measure mere contests for the spoils of office; and that the party in power has always the advantage of an army of office-holders at its command, ready to work, and to pay, for a continuance of employment. Nothing more demoralizing than this is to be found in any part of the civilized world. The existing system dates back to the period when free trade was first adopted as the policy of the dominant party in the country.

* See ante, p. 229.

while respecting that of others. With the decline of commerce, towns and villages become more dependent on the distant city, and more and more controlled by it in all their actions. Thirty years since, the towns and villages of the United States were in reality self-governing; now, they are almost wholly governed by means of orders from the seat of the central government — the election of every constable having become associated with that of the Executive of the Union.

With the growth of individuality among the people and the towns, that of the central government becomes more perfect. With the decline of the former, the latter becomes from year to year less able to determine for itself what shall be its course of action, or what will be the means at its command for carrying out the policy upon which it may have determined. At no period has the control of the Federal government over its own course of action been so complete as it was in 1832, when it voluntarily relinquished the duties on tea, coffee, and other commodities—leaving the revenue still so large as finally to extinguish the national debt in 1834-5. At none has the absence of self-control, consequent upon the extension of the dominion of trade, been so complete as when, in the period from 1838 to 1842, the Federal government was compelled to depend upon the use of irredeemable paper-money for the means with which to carry on its operations. At none has the change from trade to commerce produced such marked effects as when, in the autumn of 1842, it found its credit so instantly restored. At none has the want of individuality been more clearly manifested than it is at the present moment, when, as in 1836, there is a large surplus revenue from which it cannot free itself, except by means of a total change of policy on one hand, or the certainty of bankruptcy of the treasury, as in 1842, on the other.

8. Commerce grows with the development of individuality, as well in that of towns and cities as in that of the men of whom society is composed. The more pig iron there is made in Tennessee, the more steam-engines are required from New York and Philadelphia. The more coarse cottons are made in Georgia, the larger is the demand for fine ones made in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Under the system of 1842, local development

was rapidly advancing, and mills and furnaces were being built in all the Southern and Western States. Under that of 1846, local action has gradually declined, and the iron manufacture has again been centralized in Pennsylvania, while the cotton and woollen ones have again become almost altogether limited to the country within fifty miles of Boston. Commerce was rapidly producing, in 1846, an entire harmony of interests and of feeling between the North and the South; but with the repeal of the act of 1842, Southern manufacturing development was brought to a close, and the result is seen in the deplorable scenes that are being enacted in 1856.*

Commerce tends, likewise, to produce harmony among individual Five-and-twenty years since, the stranger, whether Protestant or Catholic, was always welcomed. Until then, however, the number of immigrants had never exceeded 30,000, and it was not until the country had felt the beneficial effects of the tariff of 1828, in increasing the demand for labor, that it reached a single

Among the active and influential men of the South is Mr. Barnwell Rhett, and among the most remarkable prophecies of Southern men is one that is referred to in the recent interesting "Life and Correspondence of Amos Lawrence," in the following words:

"I do earnestly desire your State to carry out your prophecy, that in ten years you will spin all your crop of cotton; for we of Massachusetts will gladly surrender to you the manufacture of coarse fabrics, and turn our industry to making finer articles. In short, we could now, if you were ready, give up to you the coarse fabrics, and turn one-half of our machinery into spinning and weaving cotton hose; and nothing will help us all so much as specific duties. The whole kingdom of Saxony is employed at this moment in making cotton hose for the United States from yarns purchased in England, and made of your cotton. How much better would it be for you and for us to save these treble profits and transport, by making up the cotton at home! Think of these matters, and look at them without the prejudice that prevails so extensively in your State. A few years ago, I asked our kinsman, General of your State, how the forty-bale theory was esteemed at that time? His answer was: We all thought it true when it was started, and it had its effect, but nobody is of that mind now.' Still, I believe that when an error gets strong hold of the popular mind, it is much more difficult to eradicate it than to supply truth in its place. If I know myself, I could not mete out to you any different excuse from what I would ask of you; and I must say to you, that your State and people have placed themselves in a false position, which will be as apparent to them in a few years as the sun at noonday."

This letter is now just seven years old, being dated December 12, 1849; and it refers, as we see, to a prophecy of Mr. Rhett, that his State was, before 1859, to convert all its cotton into yarns or cloth-having done which it could have direct trade with the Saxons, who needed yarn, and the Brazilians, who required cloth. That prophecy was a consequence of the four years' action of the tariff of 1842. The failure to realize it is a consequence of the tariff of 1846.

hundred thousand. Scarcely, however, had the effect been felt in Europe, before the system was changed-before mills ceased to be built, and mines ceased to be opened. A brief period of specu lation being followed by a rapid decline of commerce, the demand for labor died away; and then it was that, for the first time, there was exhibited that feeling of jealousy which was indicated by the creation of a political party having for its object, the exclusion of foreigners from the rights of citizenship. The policy was changed again, and as the demand for labor grew, the party died away, to spring again into existence under the system of 1846, and on a larger scale than at any time before. Look where we may, we see discord following in the trader's wake.

§ 9. With the growth of commerce, the necessity for moving commodities back and forth steadily declines, with constant improvement in the machinery of transportation, and diminution in the risk of losses of the kind that are covered by insurance against dangers of the sea, or those of fire. The treasures of the earth then become developed, and stone and iron take the place of wood in all constructions, while the exchanges between the miner of coal and of iron-of the man who quarries the granite, and him who raises the food-rapidly increase in quantity, and diminish the necessity for resorting to the distant market. The men of Turkey are forced to look to England for supplies of iron, and for markets for their corn; and the effects of this are seen in the extraordinary amount of property that is there so frequently destroyed by fire. In Russia, according to M. Haxthausen, "every village is consumed either wholly or in part in every thirty years." So is it in these United States. In no civilized country do fires so much abound, and in none is so large an amount required to pay for the loss that is thus produced. That the proportion increases is evident from the fact, that the rates of insurance now steadily rise; whereas, were civilization advancing, they would as regularly decline. The loss thus resulting from the absence of power to develop the mineral treasures of the earth, and from the consequent waste of property and of labor,* is more than the total

Every mill that is burnt throws hundreds of persons out of employment, and stops the circulation of its neighborhood. At the present time, the destruction of mills is, probably, little less than one per week, while few, if any, are built.