274 [Assembly 



America. Attempts to rise above this state, to attain a position in 

 which man may have his honor as a man, and exercise a better in- 

 fluence upon the destiny of his own family, or his fellow men, far 

 from being considered a virtue which is to be encouraged, or a right 

 which is to be acknowledged, is a crime for which men are to be 

 shot. 



One beneficent operation of the first French Revolution, in the 

 midst of all the horrors of its spirit, and its march, has been to break 

 up this system of servile peasantry, and to multiply indefinitely the 

 owners of the soil. But even in the agriculture of France, the mil- 

 dew of the past is still thickly coated upon the efforts and hopes of 

 the present; and the minds of men, cramped in infancy like the feet 

 of the Chinese women, by an unnatural and detestable pressure from 

 without, are feeble and slow in all attempts to run in a new path, 

 however attractive and promising. 



In mechanical labor and skill, the absence of all honor as an 

 habitual attendant, is in Europe equally manifest. I know that luxu- 

 ry purchases, often at a great price, the beautiful results of handi- 

 craft and skill. I know that individuals of boldness and energy — 

 those irrepressible spirits whose elasticity no bounds can limit — have 

 occasionally forced their way through all this downward pressure, and 

 have compelled an acknowledgment of their greatness, and a res- 

 pect for their mighty developments of mental and moral power, 

 from those titled tribes who habitually fancy their interest to be in 

 widening the gulf of separation, and insulating their own condition 

 as completely as possible. But what are those among so many? 

 Their class are tradesmen and tradespeople still. And the habitual 

 fact in their history is, not only no encouragement to rise, but great 

 discouragement and jealousy of their possible ability to break the 

 shell of caste, whose accumulated scales ages have riveted over them. 

 European mechanics feel this fact of discouragement and dishonour, 

 and feel it deeply. 



I stood the other day by the bench of an English mechanic, whose 

 remarkable skill I was admiring, and the genius of whose youthful 

 son in his work I was noticing, when the father took from the drawer 

 some beautiful crayon and pencil sketches, which this working boy 

 had made. "Ah! sir," said the father, "this is America. My boy 

 was taught all this for nothing, at your public school. Had I stayed 

 at home, he would have lived and died unnoticed at the bench. Here 

 he may take a stand, and be honored and encouraged." Yes, and 



