348 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
vanced, till it counts 40,000,000 instead of 3,000,000, bears witness, 
not to be disparaged or gainsayed, to the general congruity of our 
social and civil institutions with the happiness and prosperity of 
man. But if we consider further the variety and magnitude of for¬ 
eign elements to which we have been hospitable, and their ready 
fusion with the earlier stocks, we have new evidence of strength 
and vivid force in our population, which we may not refuse to ad¬ 
mire. The disposition and the capacity thus shown give warrant of 
a powerful society. “All nations,” says Lord Bacon, “that are 
liberal of naturalization are fit for empire.” 
Wealth in its mass, and still more in its tenure and diffusion, is 
a measure of the condition of a people which touches both its en- 
ergy and morality. Wealth has no source but labor. “Life has 
given nothing valuable to man without great labor.” This is as 
true now as when Horace wrote, it. The prodigious growth of 
wealth in this country is not only, therefore, a signal mark of pros¬ 
perity, but proves industry, persistency, thrift, as the habits of the 
people. Accumulation of wealth, too, requires and imports security, 
as well as unfettered activity; and thus it is a fair criterion of so¬ 
briety and justice in a people, certainly, when the laws and their 
execution rest wholly in their hands. A careless observation of the 
crimes and frauds which attack prosperity, in the actual condition 
of our society, and the imperfection of our means for their preven¬ 
tion and redress, leads sometimes to an unfavorable comparison be¬ 
tween the present and the past, in this country, as respects the 
probity of the people. No doubt covetousness has not ceased in 
the world, and thieves still break through and steal. But the bet¬ 
ter test upon this point is the vast profusion of our wealth and the 
infinite trust shown bv the manner in which it is invested. It is 
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not too much to say that in our times, and conspicuously in our 
country, a large share of every man’s property is in other men’s 
keeping and management, unwatched and beyond personal control 
This confidence of man in man is ever increasing, measured by our 
practical conduct, and refutes these disparagements of the general 
morality. 
Knowledge, intellectual activity, the mastery of nature, the disci¬ 
pline of life — all that makes up the education of a people — are 
developed and diffused through the masses of our population, in so 
ample and generous a distribution as to make this the conspicuous 
