902 [Assembly 



tloiig'5 and its eternal hopes, and unspeakably glorious destiny, 

 is imi:easurably more important than mere material wealth. 



Yet even the accumulation of national wealth is now found to 

 follow with rapid steps upon the path, of a people, whose ener- 

 gies and capacities are trained to all the employments by which 

 their wants can be supplied. Only for a brief time, if at all, ev- 

 en if we take the narrow economic view of the Subject, does ex- 

 perience show tliat a nation's wealth is increased by buying in 

 the foreign, 'bee vuse it is the cheapest market. A people whose 

 capacities are ^b -^rpened and developed by the labor and the skill 

 necessary to ])rr.(iuce every thing required by its wants, and whose 

 sentiments are fit v;- ted and enobled by the consciousness of Na- 

 tional Independence, cannot fail to increase in wealth. Such a 

 people will cover the land they inh;)bit with churches, and schools, 

 and commodious dwellings, which shall be the homes of educa- 

 tion and refinement. How shall you make such a people? This 

 should be your great question, gentlemen, not how shall you buy 

 your cloth and iron in the cheapest market. The money aspect 

 of this question is tlie le^st important. I believe that even in 

 that aspect it is far better for our country to depend on its own la- 

 bor for the supply of its own chief wants. But I do not desire 

 to dwell on that view. Tolitical e<'onomists may prove if they 

 please that our hope of industrial independence can only be real- 

 ized at a pecuniary loss. I believe the eontrary — but what if it 

 were true"? The common practice of mankind shows tJiat liigher 

 considerations than the question of mere pecuniary profit govern 

 their conduct. How many things are we constantly doing to el- 

 evate and enoble humanity, at an apparent pecuniary loss ? Our 

 sehools are sui)ported by a dead outlay : our churches declare no 

 semi-annual dividends'; our parks and fountains are not solid in- 

 vestments ; our rational amusements, and our public festivals, 

 •and fairs, and exhibitions, and monuments, and sailing yaclits that 

 beat John Bull, and sieamships that beat the world, are all mere 

 "/ara/-i(*." Yet they repay to the nation a richer dividend than 

 ik'd most fortunate placer in golden California — they repay it in 

 oJiitivat'fd intellects, and religioo.3 sentunents, aaJ happy hearts, 



