No. 244.] 277 



American skill. He will feel a pride in his country, I think — a view of 

 her elevation, a confidence in her glory, a perception of her real pros- 

 perity, which fallen Mexico, and battered Monterey, would fail to 

 give him. Here, in the nourishing of the arts of peace, is the true 

 criterion of our national glory. To foster this whole system of moral 

 and mental elevation for your country, is the object for which your 

 Institute is established. With a truly American spirit, you acknowl- 

 edge and honor the moral dignity of peaceful labor. And whenever 

 righteous rewards for human labors are distributed, in the judgment 

 of posterity, it must be said of you, Mr. President, and your asso- 

 ciates, that you have deserved well of your country. 



This moral dignity of labor is a lesson which America is now 

 teaching to the world. That Europe has been learning important 

 practical lessons from us, during the last half century, cannot be 

 justly doubted. Among the people of all nations the popularity of 

 America has been great, and her influence has been constantly in- 

 creasing. The corrupt aristocracies and titled governments of the 

 older nations may hate and revile the influence which undermines 

 the foundations of their power; a pensioned tribe of reviewers may 

 combine to misrepresent the whole aspect and operations of our in- 

 stitutions and country; caustic Sidney Smiths may play their ana- 

 grams with Punica fides and Pennsylvania funds; parliaments may 

 resound with slurs and sneers, and warnings against the fearful an- 

 archy of democracy; bayonets may bristle around the gates of the 

 capitols, and a tinselled soldiery may be hired to murder the multi- 

 tudes who cry for bread; and yet notwithstanding all this, Europe is 

 learning instructions from America which can neither be rejected 

 nor forgotten. The people are acquiring information of their rights 

 and dignity as men, which no other school than ours on earth can 

 teach them, and with which every thing in their future prosperity and 

 exaltation is to be connected. Undoubtedly this will produce great 

 unquietness under monarchical rule, and will lead to serious revolu- 

 tions in the orders of society. But the fact abides; and no intelli- 

 gent man can deny, that the present crisis of the world is the lifting 

 up of the industrious and laboring classes of men to a new position, 

 and bestowing upon them a new relation to mankind. If it be in 

 its commencement an occasion of disturbance, in its process it is a 

 course of peace and order. What has been the conservative element 

 in France amidst its late agitations — an element sufficiently power- 

 ful, thus far, to restrain and control the whole — but the influence of 

 the exalted labor and arts of the very classes who, before the first 

 Revolution, were mere laborers in trades, but, in the interval, have 



