378 



REVIEW. 



come under coercive restraint, or go to 

 pieces. The prediction would be true of 

 any other people. It would be true of us 

 if so large a portion of our new population 

 were not independent land-holders. They 

 are not like European peasants, trained to 

 work under the direction of other minds, 

 and made dizzy the moment they are left 

 to their own ; but are trained from boyhood 

 to act under the guidance of their own judg- 

 ment, without easing themselves by leaning 

 upon others. Excitement may make them 

 drunk for a night, but reason and repent- 

 ance come with the morning. That very 

 freedom which provokes to irregular action, 

 also limits its evils. A freshet only inun- 

 dates the level country, in which rivers have 

 a wide vale on either hand; but rends and 

 tears with irrepressible force when pent up 

 in narrow limits. It is not the loss of popu- 

 lar equilibrium that is dangerous, but the 

 want of elasticit}^ to recover it again. A 

 marble column, if bent by the tornado, 

 falls; the tree, springs back again. When 

 was there ever such a blow dealt upon a 

 people, as we have received from the com- 

 mercial embarrassments of the last ten 

 years ? Trade almost ceased. In many 

 portions of the land money was unknown 

 and barter was universal. There was sale for 

 almost nothing that the soil produced ; the 

 plow rusted, the fat ox, unyoked, wrought 

 no more, nor went bellowing to any market, 

 where nothing could be had for beef, bone, 

 hide, or tallow. It was during such a pros- 

 tration (as tornadoes are engendered in 

 barren and parched deserts,) that the po- 

 litical contests of singular power and ex- 

 citement were bred which swept over the 

 land. Close upon this, as if evoked from 

 the vast and gloomy cave of storms, came 

 stalking the gaunt and hideous spectre of 

 Repudiation. Its brood came too, stay laws, 

 bankrupt laws, valuation laws. What a 

 condiiion was this. In our vast agricultu- 

 ral basin were poured together the thou- 

 sands and millions of discordant, hetero- 

 geneous emigrants from every quarter of 

 the globe. Before they had taken root, in 

 the midst of half-cleared farms, upon vil- 

 lages of log-cabins, came in one storm, 

 commercial disasters, political convulsions, 

 state and personal bankruptcies. What 



has been the issue ? A night of horrid 

 storms has shut in upon a gallant ship, and 

 the last light disclosed her amid dangerous 

 currents and sinuous channels. We wait 

 for morning, sure that she has gone to 

 pieces. The storm has lulled, the sun comes 

 up clearly ; we hasten to the shore to find 

 the masts, spars, and drowned mariners; 

 when lo ! there she rides before our eyes, 

 some sails rent, some spars gone, but victo- 

 rious over the storm, and seeking with full 

 canvas the now open harbor. 



Out of all these fierce dangers our ru- 

 ral population have come forth, more in- 

 dustrious, more circumspect of debt, more 

 frugal, more independent and self-sustain- 

 ed. 



The exuberance and abundance of our 

 soil makes personal want, to any extent, a 

 result of gross criminality, and public suf- 

 fering from poverty almost impossible. 



So vast is our territory — stretching thro' 

 so many zones — that never is there a simi- 

 lar season common to all. If the winter is 

 rigorous in New-England, it is often mild 

 on the Mississippi. If drouth parches the 

 farms of the North, the streams of the South 

 are often overflowing with prodigal wa- 

 ters. In smaller territories, as in Great Bri- 

 tain, a season which dries up the resources 

 of one portion, cripples all. But with us, 

 the mischiefs of the worst season are par- 

 tial ; there is a good season in some part 

 of our domain ; and the abundance of other 

 latitudes in our own land, flows in by ready 

 commerce to relieve the want. 



Nor is it a matter unworthy of regard 

 that soil, climate, and the habits of our 

 people, multiply the varieties of product 

 on every farm, beyond what is elsewhere 

 known. In Ireland vast masses of people 

 lived upon one esculent, and that the cheap- 

 est. If any crisis occurred, being already 

 at the bottom of the scale, there was no 

 room for change. When a plague smote 

 the potato-field, there was nothing left ; 

 there was nothing so cheap ; nothing so 

 abundant as the potato ; no poorer food be- 

 low it ; no place of temporary retreat ; no- 

 thing but the abyss of starvation. 



But if our wheat fails, how many grains 

 stand ready to compensate. There are six 

 or eight staple articles leloio wheat (which 



