As the chief desire of the individual calls out appetites and passions, which are the machinery of that desire, and reconstructs the man in its image; so the desire of a nation, transient or permanent, becoming the master-motive of the people, calls out certain classes of men, who become its exponents, its machinery, and they make the constitution, institutions, and laws to correspond thereto.
As with one man, so with the millions, there may be fluctuations of purpose for a time. I cannot expect that one man, or many men, will always pursue an object without at some time violating fundamental principles. I might have thought so once. But as I live longer, and see the passion and the ambition of men, see the force of circumstances, I know better. No ship sails across the ocean with a straight course, without changing a sail: it frequently leaves its direct line, now "standing" this way, now that; and the course is a very crooked one, although, as a whole, it is towards the mark.
America is a young nation, composite, not yet unified; and it is, therefore, not quite so easy to say what is the chief desire of the people; but, if I understand American history, this desire is the Love of Individual Liberty. Nothing has been so marked in our history as this. We are consciously, in part, yet still more unconsciously, aiming at democracy,—at a government of all the people, by all the people, and for the sake of all the people. Of course that must be a government by the higher law of God, by the Eternal Justice to which you and I and all of us owe reverence. We all love freedom for ourselves; one day we shall love it for every man,—for the tawny Indian and the sable Negro, as much as for you and me. This love of freedom has appeared in the ideas of New England,—and New England was once America; it was once the soul, although not the body of America. It appeared in its political action and its ecclesiastical action, in the State and in the church, and in all the little towns. In general, every change in the constitution of a free State makes it more democratic; every change in local law is for democracy, not against it. We have broken with the old feudal tradition,—broken forever with that. I think this love of individual liberty is the specific desire of the people. If we are proud of any thing, it is of our free institutions. I know there are men who are prouder of wealth than of any thing else: by and by I shall have a word to say of them. But in Massachusetts, New England, in the North, if we should appeal to the great body of the people, and "poll the house," and ask of all what they were proudest of, they would not say, of our cattle, or cotton, or corn, or cloth; but it is of our freedom, of our men and women. Leaving out of the calculation the abounding class, which is corrupt everywhere, and the perishing class, which is the vassal as it is the creature of the abounding class, and as corrupt and selfish here as everywhere, we shall find that seven-eighths of the people of New England are eminently desirous of this one thing. This desire will carry the day in any fifty years to come, as it has done in two hundred and fifty years past. The great political names of our history are all on its side: Washington, the Adamses—both of them, God bless them!—Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, these were all friends of liberty. I know the exceptions in the history of some of these men, and do not deny them. Other American names, dear to the people, are of the same stamp. The national literature, so far as we have any national literature, is democratic. I know there is what passes for American literature, because it grows on American soil, but which is just as far from being indigenous to America as the orange is from being indigenous to Cape Cod. This literature is a poor, miserable imitation of the feudal literature of old Europe. Perhaps it is now the prominent literature of the time. One day America will take it and cast it out from her. The true American literature is very poor, is very weak, is almost miserable now; but it has one redeeming quality,—it is true to freedom, it is true to democracy.
In the Revolution this desire of the nation was prominent, and came to consciousness. It was the desire of the most eminent champions of liberty. At one time in the history of the nation, the platform of speakers was in advance of the floor that was covered by the people at large, because at that time the speakers became conscious of the idea which possessed the hearts of the people. That is the reason why John Hancock, the two Adamses, and Jefferson, came into great prominence before the people. They were more the people than the people themselves; more democratic than the democrats. I know, and I think it must be quite plain in our history, that this has been the chief desire of the people. If so, it determines our political destination.
However, with nations as with men, there are exceptional desires; one of which, with the American nation at present, is the desire for wealth. Just now, that is the most obvious and preponderate desire in the consciousness of the people. It has increased surprisingly in fifty years. It is the special, the chief desire of the controlling class. By the controlling class, I mean what are commonly called "our first men." I admit exceptions, and state the general rule. With them every thing gives way to money, and money gives way to nothing, neither to man nor to God.
See some proofs of this. There are two ways of getting money; one is by trade, the other is by political office. The pursuit of money, in one or the other of these ways, is the only business reckoned entirely "commendable" and "respectable." There are other callings which are very noble in themselves, and deemed so by mankind; but here they are not thought "commendable" and "respectable," and accordingly you very seldom see young men, born in what is called "the most respectable class of society," engaged in any thing except the pursuit of money by trade or by office. There are exceptions; but the sons of "respectable men," so called, seldom engage in the pursuit of any thing but money by trade or office. This is the chief desire of a majority of the young men of talent, ambition, and education. Even in colleges more respect is paid to money than to genius. The purse is put before the pen. In the churches, wealth is deemed better than goodness or piety. It names towns and colleges; and he is thought the greatest benefactor of a university who endows it with money, not with mind. In giving name to a street in Boston, you call the wealthy end after a rich man, and only the poor end after a man that was good and famous. Money controls the churches. It draws veils of cotton over the pulpit window, to color "the light that cometh from above." As yet the churches are not named after men whose only virtue is metallic, but the recognized pillars of the churches are all pillars of gold. Festus does not tremble before Paul, but Paul before Festus. The pulpit looks down to the pews for its gospel, not up to the eternal God. Is there a rich pro-slavery man in the parish? The minister does not dare read a petition from an oppressed slave asking God that his "unalienable rights" be given him. He does not dare to ask alms for a fugitive. St. Peter is the old patron saint of the Holy Catholic Church. St. Hunker is the new patron saint of the churches of commerce, Catholic and Protestant.
Money controls the law as well as the gospel. The son of a great man and noble is forgotten if the father dies poor; but the mantle of the rich man falls on the son's shoulders. If the son be only half so manly as his sire, and twice as rich, he is sure to be doubly honored. Money supplies defects of character, defects of culture. It is deemed better than education, talent, genius, and character, all put together. Was it not written two thousand years ago in the Proverbs, it "answereth all things?" Look round and see. It does not matter how you get or keep it. "The end justifies the means." Edmund Burke, or somebody else, said "Something must be pardoned to the spirit of liberty." Now it is "Something must be pardoned" to the love of money, nothing "to the spirit of liberty." We find that rich men will move out of town on the last day of April, to avoid taxation on the first day of May. That is nothing. It is very "respectable," very "honorable," indeed! I do not believe that there is any master-carpenter or master-blacksmith in Boston who would not be ashamed to do so. But men of the controlling classes do not hesitate! No matter how you get money. You may rent houses for rum-shops and for brothels; you may make rum, import rum, sell rum, to the ruin of the thousands whom you thereby bring down to the kennel and the almshouse and the jail. If you get money by that, no matter: it is "clean money," however dirtily got.
A merchant can send his ships to sea, and in the slave-trade acquire gold, and live here in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia; and his gold will be good sterling gold, no matter how he got it! In political office, if you are a Senator from California or Oregon, you may draw "constructive mileage," and pay yourself two or three thousand dollars for a journey never made from home, and two or three thousand more back to your home. So you filch thousands of dollars out of the public purse, and you are the "Honorable Senator" just as before. You have got the money, no matter how. You may be a Senator from Massachusetts, and you may take the "trust fund," offered you by the manufacturers of cotton, and be bound as their "retained attorney," by your "retaining fee," and you are still "the Honorable Senator from Massachusetts," not hurt one jot in the eyes of the controlling classes. If you are Secretary of State, you may take forty or fifty thousand dollars from State Street and Wall Street, and suffer no discredit at all. At one end of the Union they will deny the fact as "too atrocious to be believed" at this end they admit it, and say it was "honorable in the people to give it," and "honorable in the Secretary to take it."
"Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the master, but undoes the scribe."
It would sound a little strange to some people, if we should find that the judges of a court had received forty or fifty thousand dollars from men who were plaintiffs in that Court. You and I would remember that a gift blindeth the eyes of the prudent, how much more of the profligate! But it would be "honorable" in the plaintiffs to give it; "honorable" in the judges to take it!