CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
Riches have wings. In no country is this more strikingly true than in our own. The social history of the world presents no era, nor any people, in which, and among whom, such sudden and remarkable changes in the possession of property have taken place. The man who is worth a million to-day, has no surety that he will be worth a thousand to-morrow. Children who are raised amid all the luxuries that money can procure, too often, when they become men and women, are doomed to hopeless poverty; while the offspring of the poor man, who grew up, perhaps, in the hovel beside their princely mansion, is the money lordling of their darker day.
The causes for this are various: mainly it depends upon our negation, in the beginning of our national existence, of the law of primogeniture and entailment of property. A man cannot be rich here in spite of himself. He may be born to great possessions, but has the full liberty to part with them upon almost any terms that please him; and such alienations are things of every-day occurrence. One result of this is, that property and possessions of all kinds are continually changing hands, and thus placed within the reach of nearly all who have the ability, as well as the desire, to struggle for their attainment. To superior judgment, skill, and industry, when applied to the various pursuits in life, comes the reward of wealth; while the supine and self-indulgent, or those who lack a sound judgment and business acumen, remain in moderate circumstances, or lose the property that came into their hands at majority.
There are no privileged classes here, made such by arbitrary national preferences of one over another. In the eye of the nation, every man is born free and equal. The son of the humble artisan or day-laborer can enter the same course, and start for the same goal, with the son of the wealthiest and most distinguished in the land—and beat him in the race if he be swifter of foot, and possess greater endurance.
The consequence of all this is, that wealth becomes a less and less stable thing every day; for, in the fierce struggle that is ever going on for its possession, as an end, and not as a means to a higher end, men become more and more absorbed in the desire for its attainment, and, as a natural result, more and more acute in their perception of the means of attaining it. And the most eager and acute are not always the most conscientious in regard to the use of means, nor the most careful lest others sustain an injury when they secure a benefit.
Great instability in the tenure of wealth must flow from the operation of these causes; for the balance of trade must ever be suffering disturbance by the inordinate action, at some point, of those engaged in commercial and business pursuits. This disturbance we see almost every day, in the dishonest spirit of speculation and overreaching that prevails to a melancholy extent. Business is not conducted, in this country, on the permanent, healthy, honest, and only true basis of demand and supply; but is rendered ever fluctuant and unsafe, from the reasons just given.
The apparent causes of the instability alleged, are mainly those that we have stated. But, as every thing that meets the eye is an effect of something interior to it and invisible, so, in this case, the things we have set forth are merely the effects of a spiritual cause, or, in other words, of a perverted state of the mind of the whole nation viewed as one man; for the truth that a nation is only a man in a larger form is undeniable. This perversion lies in the almost universal estimation of wealth as a means of selfish gratification, and not as a means of promoting and securing the general good; and from this it arises, that nearly every man seeks to secure wealth to himself, utterly regardless of his neighbor; and far too many not only covet their neighbors’ goods, but actually seek to defraud them of their possessions.
Every man is regenerated through temptations to evil, by means of which he comes into a knowledge of his hereditary perversions; and it often happens, that he is not only tempted of his evil lusts, but yields to the temptation, and thus, in suffering the consequences that follow, is made more clearly to see the nature and ultimate tendencies of the false principles from which he had acted. And this is just as true of a body of individuals (as a nation) as it is of an individual himself. The law of primogeniture and entailment of property, which is not a just law, lays, with its disabilities, upon the mind and ultimate energies of the nation farthest advanced in civilization, because to have abolished it would have resulted in a worse evil, even the utter destruction of that nation by the fierce intestine struggle that would have resulted therefrom, while there was no conservative spirit strong enough to sustain it. But, in the fullness of time, this American Republic sprang into independent existence, an outbirth of Anglo-Saxon civilization, and prepared to take an advancing step. The law that held in iron-bound consistency the English nation, was abolished, and all the strong energies, eager impulses, and natural lust of wealth and power, that distinguished the people of that nation, were allowed full scope here.
In the history of the world’s regeneration, the time had come for this, and there was virtue enough in the people to meet the consequences that have flowed therefrom. These consequences, externally disastrous to individuals as they have proved, have not been severe enough to check the onward advancement of the nation. They are, in fact, a reaction, upon individuals, of consequences flowing from their own acts, and showing them that their acts were evil. The love of wealth, for its own sake, needed to be regenerated. It was a great evil, fraught with unhappiness. Its regeneration could only be effected in rational light and mental freedom. That is, men must see it to be an evil, and freely put it away. But, so long as a man secures the gratification of every lust, just so long he sees it to be good instead of evil. It is only when he is deprived of its gratification, through consequences growing out of its indulgence, that he is enabled to perceive its true quality. And this is just the effect produced upon the general mind by the instability that attends the possession of wealth in this country. A man who loves money for its own sake, and looks upon it as the greatest good, is not at all likely to have his false view corrected, while all is sunshine and prosperity; but, in reverses, he sees with a more purified vision.