No. 200.] 223 



extends over ihe whole land, and upon every ocean our connmerce 

 prevails. No class of men are so high in the social scale as to be 

 above its sphere of action. All ranks of society and all regions of the 

 world are impressed by its energy. The wealth of the nation rests 

 on its successful enterprise. If at once the avenues of commerce 

 should be closed and its ships dismantled, the whole land would be 

 stricken with paralysis. Each of the thousand channels through which 

 labor flows would be narrowed. These considerations justify the re- 

 gard in which the peaceful pursuits of commerce are held among us. 

 Peaceful they must be, for commerce resting 'upon contract presup- 

 poses peace. But if the prosperity of our country is based on its suc- 

 cessful commerce, that success is not self-dependent. Commerce 

 leans upon the farmer and the manufacturer, and while she enriches 

 them, draws from them her own support. The merchant exports, 

 buys and sells, but does not make. He uses what others have made, 

 and do not need. If the farmer did not produce or the manufacturer 

 create more tham he consumed, there could be no subject for com- 

 merce to act upon. The people that are unable to send abroad the 

 products of their soil or of their skill, to procure with them articles of 

 foreign growth or industry, must either be drained of their precious 

 metals, or live destitute of what may not be supplied by their own 

 strength. Accumulation, then, underlies com.merce, bjit that rests 

 upon labor. Here we have reached the foundation principle — labor, 

 human labor ! And better foundation need not be laid. It is of divine 

 appointment, and its uses are divine. 



" Man must labor, nought is sleeping 

 In the dimmest, brightest zone. 

 From the worm of painful creeping 

 To the cherub on his throne !" 



He that will not labor, or that may not so use his hand or his head 

 as to do somewhat toward the supply of some want, moral, mental or 

 physical, is a half-man at most. His horse is of more service in the 

 world than he. But it is not to be forgotten that head labor is as 

 worthy as hand labor. Commerce depends upon the one as much as 

 upon the other. And so does agriculture, and so do the arts. It is 

 the recognition of this truth, and its practical application to the condi- 

 tion of laboring men, that should constitute the present work of those 

 who from the laboring man derive their wealth, and those multiform 

 blessings which wealth throws around them. Here is detected the 

 great duty that has been all too much overlooked, which, by reason 



