!232 [Assembly 



Their political and physical strength under our free constitution, 

 enables them to control the destinies of the nation. They can secure 

 and improve the advantages of their present condition, if they will 

 exercise their legitimate power at elections, and take their proper 

 part in making the laws of the country, instead of having their legis- 

 lative business done by attorney, as is now too much the case. 

 When, heretofore, they have selected their representatives to make 

 laws for them from their own numbers, they have never been be- 

 trayed. We could refer with pride to numerous instances of distin- 

 guished legislators, who have acquired their property and supported 

 themselves and families by the labor of their hands. When has the 

 great, the working State of Pennsylvania, been more ably and more 

 failhlully represented in the national legislature, than by her Find- 

 lays, and her Smileys, and her Ingharas? 



Our laboring classes have power to secure for domestic industry 

 the advantages of our home market. This is all they ask; and this 

 they should have, and, I trust, will have. Domestic competition 

 would keep down prices of articles produced at rates which would 

 be no more than a just compensation for the labor of production; 

 and tins, the classes who never engage in productive labor should 

 not refuse to pay. 



The system of reducing compensation to the lowest minimum by 

 foreign competition, applies exclusively to productive labor. Those 

 who never engage in such labor, experience none of it, and too fre- 

 quently have no sympathy with those who do. 



But, from all this, it is not to be inferred that the chsses who 

 avoid productive labor, are to be considered as idle or useless. On 

 the contrary, a great portion of them are very industrious, and ab- 

 solutely necessary to the well-being of the republic; another portion 

 of them, however, do nothing, and are utterly useless to society; and 

 most of them have an interest, or think they have, in depressing the 

 wages of labor which they must sometimes pay for. This disposi- 

 tion is manifesting itself to an alarming degree in this country, and 

 never more so than at the present moment. It has created infinite 

 distress in Europe, and will do so in the United States, unless ar- 

 rested by the patriotism of our most virtuous and enlightened citi- 

 zens. 



This country will be great and prosperous, or otherwise, exactly 

 as our productive labor shall be increased or diminished. 



