After this review I turn with pleasure again to our own system of government. We have seen how stimulating were the little republics of Greece and of Italy, to the genius of those countries. But their systems were not made for peaceable endurance—they were too disunited, too turbulent, too prone to civil wars; hence they either fell a prey to some ambitious state in their own system, or invited by their reckless internal dissensions the foreigner into their land, who broke down their institutions, overthrew their liberty, and imposed upon their submissive necks the galling yoke of military despotism. But those venerated fathers of our republics, who framed the federal constitution, came forward to their task in full view of the history of the republics of the ancient and modern world, with that almost holy spirit of freedom and patriotism which gave them that undaunted courage and unremitting perseverance that enabled them to wade through the blood and turmoil of the revolution. They completed their task, and the wisdom and virtue of our confederacy did sanction their work, and long may that work endure if administered in that spirit of purity and virtue which inspired those who framed it.
Our states are much larger than the little democracies of ancient Greece or of modern Italy—the new and improved principle of representation, combined with the modern improvements in the whole machinery of government, have rendered the republican form much better suited to large states than formerly. Some of our states may perhaps be too large, and others too small. But our ancestors very wisely avoided that geometrical policy, which would have divided our country into equal squares, like France in the dark days of her revolution. "No man ever was attached," says Burke, "by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a description of square measurement. He never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71, or to any other badge ticket. We begin our public affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighborhoods and our habitual provincial connections;" and these ties and habits were respected by our forefathers. No sovereign state, no matter how small, was disfranchised—the giant and the dwarf had their rights and liberties alike respected and secured in this new system, and all were bound together by a wise and beneficent plan of government, based upon the mutual interests and sympathies of all the members of the confederacy—a plan which was wisely framed to give lasting peace to our country, and to demonstrate the inapplicability to our portion of the western hemisphere at least, of the gloomy philosophy of the European statesman, that the natural condition of man is war. Thus organized, our system was calculated to apply the beneficial stimulus of government to every portion of our soil and every division of our population, and at the same time in the midst of profound peace and freedom of intercourse, both social and commercial, among the states, to secure that enlarged and extended theatre for action, which may stimulate and reward the exalted genius and talent of the country, and crown the pyramid of our greatness.
But I must turn from this view of my subject, which has ever been so delightful to my mind, to the contemplation always gloomy, of the dangerous evils which may beset us in our progress onwards. It is too true that there can be nothing pure in this world; good and evil are always intertwined. It has well been said that the wave which wafts to our shore the genial seed that may spring up and gladden our land with luxuriant vegetation, may unfold the deadly crocodile.
One of the most fatal evils with which the republican system of government is liable to be assailed, is the diffusion of a spirit of agrarianism among the indigent classes of society. This spirit is now abroad in the world—it is fearfully developing itself in the insurrectionary heavings and tumults of continental Europe, which, however ineffectual now, do nevertheless mark the great internal conflagration—"the march of that mighty burning, which however intangible by human vigilance, is yet hollowing the ground under every community of the civilized world." England's most eloquent and learned divine, tells us but too truly that "there now sits an unnatural scowl on the aspect of the population, a resolved sturdiness in their attitude and gait; and whether we look to the profane recklessness of their habits, or to the deep and settled hatred which rankles in their hearts, we cannot but read in these moral characteristics of this land, the omens of some great and impending overthrow."
In our own more happy country, the almost unlimited extension of suffrage in the most populous states, the frequent appeals made to the indigent and the destitute by demagogues for the purpose of inflaming their passions, and of exciting that most blighting and deadly hostility of all, the hostility of the poor against the rich—the tumults and riots at the elections in our great cities—the lawless mobs of the north which have already set the civil authority at defiance, and have pulled down and destroyed the property of the citizen—all are but premonitory symptoms of the approaching calamity—they are but the rumbling sound which precedes the mighty shock of the terrible earthquake. If these things happen now, what may we not expect hereafter? At present the great territorial resources of our country offer the most stimulating reward to labor and enterprise. The laborer of to-day looks forward, and hopes, yes, knows, that by his industry he is to be the capitalist of to-morrow. He feels a prospective interest in the defence of property. The little German farmer with a hundred acres of poor land in the Key Stone State, clad in the coarsest raiment, contented with the simplest food, and saving from his hard earnings the small sum of one hundred dollars a year, would not wish the property of the country to be thrown in jeopardy—he would shudder at the idea of a general scramble, lest he might lose that little patrimony around which the very affections of his heart have been twined.
But the time must come when the powerfully elastic spring of our rapidly increasing numbers shall fill up our wide spread territory with a dense population—when the great safety valve of the west will be closed against us—when millions shall be crowded into our manufactories and commercial cities—then will come the great and fearful pressure upon the engine—then will the line of demarkation stand most palpably drawn between the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the laborer—then will thousands, yea, millions arise, whose hard lot it may be to labor from morn till eve through a long life, without the cheering hope of passing from that toilsome condition in which the first years of their manhood found them, or even of accumulating in advance that small fund which may release the old and infirm from labor and toil, and mitigate the sorrows of declining years. Many there will be even, who may go to and fro and be able to say in the melancholy language of Holy Writ, "the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air their nest, but the son of man has not where to lay his head." When these things shall come—when the millions, who are always under the pressure of poverty, and sometimes on the verge of starvation, shall form your numerical majority, (as is the case now in the old countries of the world) and universal suffrage shall throw the political power into their hands, can you expect that they will regard as sacred the tenure by which you hold your property? I almost fear the frailties and weakness of human nature too much, to anticipate confidently such justice. When hunger is in the land, we can scarcely expect, by any species of legerdemain, to turn the eyes and thoughts of the sufferers from the flesh pots of Egypt. The old Roman populace demanded a regular distribution of corn from the public granaries; the Grecian populace received bribes, fined and imprisoned their wealthy men, or made them build galleys, equip soldiers, give public feasts, and furnish the victims for the sacrifices at their own expense.16 The mode of action in modern times may be changed, but the result will be the same if the spirit of agrarianism shall once get abroad in our land. France has already furnished us with the great moral. First comes disorganization and legislative plunder, then the struggle of factions and civil war, and lastly a military despotism, into whose arms all will be driven by the intolerable evils of anarchy and rapine. I fondly hope that the future may bring along with it a sovereign remedy for these evils, but what that remedy may be, it is past perhaps the sagacity of man now to determine. We can only say in the language of Kepler upon a far different subject,—"Hæc et cetera hujusmodi latent in pandectis œvi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam librum hunc deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus."
16 When an individual was tried before an Athenian tribunal, his wealth was generally a serious disadvantage to his cause, and there was nothing which the defence labored harder to establish than the poverty of the accused. "I know," says the orator Lisias, in his defence of Nicophemus, "how difficult it will be effectually to refute the report of the great riches of Nicophemus. The present scarcity of money in the city, and the wants of the treasury which the forfeiture has been calculated upon to supply, will operate against me." In the celebrated dialogue of Xenophon, called the Banquet, he makes a rich man who has suddenly become poor, congratulate himself upon his poverty; "inasmuch," he says, "as cheerfulness and confidence are preferable to constant apprehension, freedom to slavery, being waited upon, to waiting upon others. When I was a rich man in this city, I was under the necessity of courting the sycophants, knowing it was in their power to do me mischief which I could little return. Nevertheless, I was continually receiving orders from the people, to undertake some expenses for the commonwealth, and I was not allowed to go any where out of Attica. But now I have lost all my foreign property, and nothing accrues from my Attic estate, and all my goods are sold, I sleep any where fearless; I am considered as faithful to the government; I am never threatened with prosecutions, but I have it in my power to make others fear; as a freeman I may stay in the country or go out of it as I please; the rich rise from their seats for me as I approach, and make way for me as I walk; I am now like a tyrant, whereas I was before an absolute slave; and whereas before I paid tribute to the people, now a tribute from the public maintains me." This picture, though perhaps overwrought, marks still but too conclusively the agrarian spirit in Greece.
In the mean time I may boldly assert that the frame work of our southern society is better calculated to ward off the evils of this agrarian spirit, which is so destructive to morals, to mind and to liberty, than any other mentioned in the annals of history. Domestic slavery, such as ours, is the only institution which I know of, that can secure that spirit of equality among freemen, so necessary to the true and genuine feeling of republicanism, without propelling the body politic at the same time into the dangerous vices of agrarianism, and legislative intermeddling between the laborer and the capitalist. The occupations which we follow, necessarily and unavoidably create distinctions in society. It is said that all occupations are honorable. This is certainly true, if you mean that no honest employment is disgraceful. But to say that all confer equal honor, if well followed even, is not true. Such an assertion militates alike against the whole nature of man and the voice of reason. But whatever may be the vain deductions of mere theorists upon this subject, one thing is certain—Reason informed me of its truth long before experience had shown it to me in actual life—The hirelings who perform all the menial offices of life, will not and cannot be treated as equals by their employers. And those who stand ready to execute all our commands, no matter what they may be, for mere pecuniary reward, cannot feel themselves equal to us in reality, however much their reason may be bewildered by the voice of sophistry.
Now, let us see what is likely to be the effect of universal suffrage in a state where there are no slaves. Either the dependant classes, the laborers and menial servants, will be driven forward by the dictation of their employers and the bribery of the man of property, thus giving the government a proclivity towards an aristocracy of wealth;17 or they become discontented with their condition, and ask why these differences among beings pronounced equal—they look with eyes of cupidity upon the fortunes of the rich. The demagogue perceives their ominous sullenness, and marks the hatred which is rankling in their hearts—then the parties of the rich and the poor are formed—then come the legislative plunder and the dark train of evils consequent on the spirit of equality, which is in fact, in such a community, the spirit of agrarianism.
17 Men whose impulses are all communicated by the expectation of small pecuniary rewards, quickly acquire that suppleness of conscience, which renders them peculiarly liable to bribery. Take, for example, the waiter in an hotel—it is the hope of little gains that moves him in any direction which you may dictate, and which makes him a ready tool for the execution of any project whatever. His motto is, I take the money and my employer the responsibility. Bring this man to the polls, and offer him money for his vote, and the probability is that he would not refuse that which the whole education and training of his life would impel him to receive.