respect, around the thrones and under the shades of the most absolute despotisms. It may even be true, that these examples of the highest culture, owe their excellence to the patronage of princes, and to the influence of a.concentrated power, the means of which were wrung by the few from the hard and servile toil of the millions. It may also be true, that the refinements of civilization, in such circumstances, and under these concentrated influences, shall be in excess of what they would otherwise have been, in a given time, if education had been more general and comprehensive, and if the chances of high culture had been open to all. Great bodies can not move with so much rapidity in a given direction, as small ones, when the same amount of force is applied to each.

But it need not be said that this is not the intended economy, the plan of American society. It was not devised for the few, but for the many; not for a select and privileged corps, but for the millions. General, popular education, is the great scheme laid out for this republican empire. If there be any feature more distinct, more prominent, and more observable, in the social structure of this great commonwealth, than any other, it is that of equal chances in life to all; that a child shall not be born to ignorance, for want of opportunities to acquire knowledge; that he shall not be doomed to a low condition because such was the lot of his parents; and that there shall be no insuperable impediments of a social and moral nature to his advancement in the social state, to any elevation, not excepting the highest within the scope of a just and laudable ambition.

The system of common schools, early set up in this country, coeval indeed with American civilization, handed down from generation to generation, provided for as the first care of the state, watched over with paternal solicitude, nurtured, endowed, edified, and never suffered to decline, but always put forward with vigor and efficiency, is the cradle of those chances of which we speak. On this broad foundation, common to all, has been erected a system of select and higher schools, up to the college and university, which are also within the reach of all, by reason of a system of public economy, which it is our special purpose in this chapter to notice; not, indeed, so much within the reach of all, as the common schools, but yet not excluding any, nor presenting insuperable obstacles to any. The poorest and meanest born of the land, prompted by innate ambition, and developing hopeful talent, can, and do often, pass through all the stages of education, from the

common school till they have graduated with honor at the highest seminaries, and entered upon the graver responsibilities of life, to contend, in open and fair field, with the best born, for the highest prizes of the social state, whether of wealth or of influence. And it is an attribute of American society and institutions, to favor and help forward merit that emerges from obscurity and strives to rise. The common school is the basis of all; the genius of the government is the parent of all; and the joint operation of the two crowns all.

We come, then, to the main point which now claims to be considered, viz., that a protective system, as expounded and illustrated in other parts of this work, in its indissoluble connexion with the ability of the people, imparting and securing that ability, to avail themselves of all these advantages, is the only means by which this great end of American society can be realized.

It has been seen, that, as a general truth, the American people WORK for their living; that they depend on LABOR, in one form or another; and that their fortune is vested in the rewards of their own personal exertions. The difference between the condition of American and that of European labor, the former as an independent agent, and the latter as an agent of power, is elsewhere pointed out. It will be seen, that the only provision made for labor by European society, and by the Adam Smith school of economists, is that of a mere physical existence, as in the case of a slave, which dooms the laborers, as a class, to live and die, like slaves, in the condition in which they are born, or in which they begin to work. Without education themselves, they are unable to educate their children, except for their tasks. Whereas the condition of American labor is that of independence. If American free laborers are uneducated, it is not because they have had no opportunity to improve themselves; and if they do not educate their children, it is not because they are unable. Indeed, in the common school, which most of the states provide, especially in New England, it costs them nothing, except their rate of assessment as to property, which throws the burden on the rich, and exempts the poor; or if the schools are endowed, as well as free, as in some places they are, they are a tax to nobody; or partly endowed, as in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and we believe some other states, the tax is so much lighter to those who have to pay. But the system is designed to provide education for all, the poorest as well

as those who are better off in life. It is a part of the economy of American society.

The proposition, therefore, which we here assert and propose to maintain, is, that a protective system is the great power that sustains, and the only cause that can secure, general and popular education in the United States; and consequently, that it is the only power that is capable of preserving the liberties of the country. The second part of this proposition has been before considered, under its commercial aspects. Its moral features also claim attention, although both views of the subject are so intimately blended, that it is not easy to separate them even in discussion; much less in their practical operation.

A cursory glance at the physical, moral, and social condition of the laboring classes of Europe, will cast the light of a strong contrast on the condition of American free laborers, in the same aspects; and it need not be said, that these classes here, include nearly all—are the people. First, the laboring classes of Europe are abject in their social position. Few of them have any political rights, even nominal; none, to speak of, more than this, which is of no account in its beneficial results to themselves. And they feel their abject condition; and along with this feeling, as a fruit, comes an abject, hopeless state of their minds. This oppressive sense of social degradation, is that which unmans man-divests him of pride, of ambition, of aspiring views, of self-respect, of all great and noble purposes, and makes him a slave—a mere tool of those for whom he lives and toils. Along with this social degradation, comes moral debasement- abandonment to vice and crime. Where there is no reward of virtue, man will not be virtuous; and with the blight of his prospects, his passions are corrupted. Hence the low tone of moral feeling, and the increase of crime, among the degraded classes of Europe. Uninstructed, and unambitious of moral and social elevation, man is as much more brutal than the brutes, as his faculties are more inventive; and out of his prolific nature, thus perverted and abused, grow savage propensities, and diabolical deeds. The apology for forcing and keeping him down, springs from the wrong of having deprived him of the means of education, and of incentives to better conduct. How could he do better, in the physical condition of a slave, and forced, for want of time and means of improvement, to grow up and live in ignorance? Two thirds of the fair reward of his labor, being that which was

necessary to make a man of him, to raise and put him forward in moral and social existence, has been, as shown in this work, usurped and absorbed by his oppressors, to create that great chasm, that impassable gulf, that lies between him and them.

Turn now to the condition of the American people, who, as the people, are also the laborers of the country. In the first place, their physical condition is one of comfort, of independence, and of thrift, because they work for themselves, and have the reward of their own labor. In the next place, being in such a condition, they have time to think; and their fathers having been in a like condition, they were sent to school, and qualified to think. Seeing the worth of knowledge, and enjoying its satisfactions, they, in turn, send their children to school, because they love them. All-one generation after another-are educated. They are brought up in comfort, taste and realize the blessings of intellectual and moral culture which they have enjoyed, and are not only constantly improving in knowledge by books, that captivating employment of leisure and independence, and by the periodical emanations of the press, but they are able to educate and prepare their children. for any position in life which they choose to assign to them, as none are barred to any class. By industry and economy, they can not only live in this way, and in this way bring up their families, but they can acquire wealth, enlarge their estates, and extend their influence by a career of exemplary morals and conduct. Every stage of life is one of increasing interest to them, presenting more powerful incentives to virtue, to moral and social eminence, and to leave behind them an independence for their children, and a good name for themselves. All along, in the progress of their lives, they find themselves free and independent members of a political commonwealth, in the government of which they share, and which secures to them all these blessings. Withal-not the least, but the greatest they are not only educated for time, but for eternity.

What is it, that has given to the American people a position, and secured to them a condition and destiny, so widely different from the same things with the toiling millions of the European world? The answer to this great question, is simply this: The former enjoy the reward of their labor, while the latter are robbed of it. The whole truth of this subject is embraced in this single and brief sentence. It is impossible to find anything appertaining to the question, which is not comprehended in this answer.

It is seen, and abundantly proved, in the progress of this work,

that a protective system is the only shield of this position and condition of the American people; and that the direct and inevitable tendency of Free Trade, is to put American and European labor to work on the same platform, in the same field, for the same market, on the same terms, with a like result in the physical, intellectual, moral, and social condition of both. This result is inevitable, because it comes from the operation of a great commercial principle, which governs the whole commercial world; and about which there can be no uncertainty, because it is a result told by figures, in connexion with the moral certainty, that buyers will always trade as cheap as they can, and sellers as dear as they can. Universal Free Trade makes one market of the wide world, and no laborers for that market can have better chances than others; but all will be on the same level.

But it would be impossible, by such a concession, to elevate the condition of the laboring classes of Europe. Their oppressors would still have the same hold upon them; and with that grasp, on a basis of Free Trade, they would draw into their power, and under their hand, the whole American people, to the loss of all the treasure, agony, and blood, that have been spent for a rescue.