THE OLD AND THE NEW. 17 



home to harvest the crops on which the army, and the nation, 

 and the world, were fed. It is estimated by one authority, 

 that the reaping-machines scattered throughout the country 

 at the beginning of 1861 performed labor in harvest equal 

 to that of a million men with hand implements. 



One very remarkable circumstance that closely connects 

 the reaping-machine with the destiny of the nation came to 

 my knowledge not long ago. The fact is one that I have not 

 seen in print, and I doubt whether it is generally known. 



Just before the war, Mr. McCormick, one of the principal 

 manufacturers of reaping-machines, brought suit against some 

 of the other inventors for infringement of his patent. The 

 case was tried at Cincinnati, I think ; several of the rival 

 manufacturers combining to resist Mr. McCormick's claim. 

 If his suit had been successful, he would have had a practical 

 monopoly of the business, and the machines would have been 

 kept at a very high price. It was the interest not only of 

 the other manufacturers, but of the farmers, and of the coun- 

 try at large, that this monopoly should not be permitted, 

 unless the law clearly authorized it. The two principal law- 

 yers employed by the defence were men who were then 

 but little known: their names were Abraham Lincoln and 

 Edwin M. Stanton. They had never met before ; but during 

 this trial, in which they were successful, they formed a 

 friendship which led, no doubt, to the appointment, in 1862, 

 of Mr. Stanton as secretary of war. Thus this lawsuit about 

 a reaper not only broke a monopoly, and supplied the West- 

 ern farmers, just before the war, with these macliines at lower 

 prices ; but it also brought together the President who pro- 

 claimed emancipation, and the great war minister who organ- 

 ized victory for the armies of the North. Of coincidences 

 like this does Providence forge the links that make up the 

 chain of history. 



Into the record of material progress it is hardly necessary 

 to go any farther. Conceive, if you can, the life of a peo- 

 ple to whom so many of those things which to us are the 

 commonest necessaries of existence were unknown. A hun- 

 dred years ago there were no stoves, no furnaces, no friction- 

 matches (fires were struck with flint and tinder), no steel or 

 gold pens, no rubber over-shoes, no rubber goods of any de- 

 scription, no silver forks, no daguerrotypes, no photographs, 



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