FUTURE OF THE FREEDMEN.

315

many incidents which, from a speculative point of view, might raise alarm will quietly settle themselves.

Now that slavery is at an end, or near its end, the greatness of its evil, in the point of view of public economy, becomes more and more apparent. Slavery was essentially a monopoly of labor, and as such locked the States where it prevailed against the incoming of free industry. Where labor was the property of the capitalist, the white man was excluded from employment, or had but the second best chance of finding it; and the foreign emigrant turned away from the region where his condition would be so precarious. With the destruction of the monopoly, free labor will hasten from all parts of the civilized world to assist in developing various and immeasurable resources which have hitherto lain dormant. The eight or nine States nearest the Gulf of Mexico have a soil of exuberant fertility, a climate friendly to long life, and can sustain a denser population than is found as yet in any part of our country. And the future influx of population to them will be mainly from the North, or from the most cultivated nations in Europe. From the sufferings that have attended them during our late struggle, let us look away to the future which is sure to be laden for them with greater prosperity than has ever before been known. The removal of the monopoly of slave labor is a pledge that those regions will be peopled by a numerous and enterprising population, which will vie with any in the Union in compactness, inventive genius, wealth and industry.

Our government springs from and was made for the people-not the people for the government. To them it owes allegiance; from them it must derive its courage, strength and wisdom. But while the government is thus bound to defer to the people, from whom it derives its existence, it should, from the very consideration of its origin, be strong in its power of resistance to the establishment of inequalities. Monopolies, perpetuities and class legislation are contrary to the genius of free government, and ought not to be allowed. Here, there is no room for favored classes or monopolies; the principle of our government is that of equal laws and freedom of industry. Wherever monopoly attains a foothold, it is sure to be a source of danger, discord and trouble. We shall but fulfil our duties as legislators by according "equal and exact justice to all men," special privileges to none. The government is subordinate to the people; but, as the agent and the representative of the people, it

must be held superior to monopolies, which, in themselves, ought never to be granted, and which, where they exist, must be subordinate and yield to the government.

Ex. CCX.-NATURE AND DESTINY OF OUR GOVERNMENT.*

66

ANDREW JOHNSON.

WHEN, on the organization of our government, under the Constitution, the President of the United States delivered his inaugural address to the two Houses of Congress, he said to them, and through them to the country and to mankind, that "the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican form of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the American people." And the House of Representatives answered WASHINGTON, by the voice of MADISON: We adore the invisible hand which has led the American people, through so many difficulties, to cherish a conscious responsibility for the destiny of republican liberty." More than seventy-six years have glided away since these words were spoken; the United States have passed through severer trials than were foreseen; and now, at this new epoch in our existence as one nation, with our Union purified by sorrows, and strengthened by conflict, and established by the virtue of the people, the greatness of the occasion invites us once more to repeat, with solemnity, the pledges of our fathers to hold ourselves answerable before our fellow men for the success of the republican form of government. Experience has proved its sufficiency in peace and in war; it has vindicated its authority through dangers, and afflictions, and sudden and terrible emergencies, which would have crushed any system that had been less firmly fixed in the hearts of the people. At the inauguration of WASHINGTON the foreign relations of the country were few, and its trade was repressed by hostile regulations; now all the civilized nations of the globe welcome our commerce, and their governments profess toward us amity. Then our country felt its way hesitatingly along an untried path, with States so little bound together by rapid means of communication as to be hardly known to one an

* Conclusion of the Inaugural Address

NATURE AND DESTINY OF OUR GOVERNMENT.

317 other, and with historic traditions extending over very few years; now intercourse between the States is swift and intimate; the experience of centuries has been crowded into a few generations, and has created an intense, indestructible nationality. Then our jurisdiction did not reach beyond the inconvenient boundaries of the territory which had achieved independence; now, through cessions of lands, first colonized by Spain and France, the country has acquired a more complex character, and has for its natural limits the chain of Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the east and the west the two great oceans. Other nations were wasted by civil wars for ages before they could establish for themselves the necessary degree of unity; the latent conviction, that our form of government is the best ever known to the world, has enabled us to emerge from civil war within four years, with a complete vindication of the constitutional authority of the General Government, and with our local liberties and State institutions unimpaired. The throngs of emigrants that crowd to our shores are witnesses of the confidence of all peoples in our permanence. Here is the great land of free labor, where industry is blessed with unexampled rewards, and the bread of the workingman is sweetened by the consciousness that the cause of the country "is his own cause, his own safety, his own dignity." Here every one enjoys the free use of his faculties and the choice of activity as a natural right. Here, under the combined influence of a fruitful soil, genial climes and happy institutions, population has increased fifteen-fold within a century. Here, through the easy development of boundless resources, wealth has increased with twofold greater rapidity than numbers, so that we have become secure against the financial vicissitudes of other countries, and, alike in business and opinion, are self-centred and truly independent. Here more and more care is given to provide educa tion for every one born on our soil. Here religion, released from political connection with the civil government, refuses to subserve the craft of statesmen, and becomes, in its independence, the spiritual life of the people. Here toleration is extended to every opinion, in the quiet certainty that truth needs only a fair field to secure the victory. Here the human mind goes forth unshackled in the pursuit of science, to collect stores-of knowledge and acquire an ever-increasing mastery over the forces of nature. Here the national domain is offered and held in millions of separate freeholds, so that our fellow-citizens, beyond the occupants of any other parts of

the earth, constitute in reality a people. Here exists the democratic form of government; and that form of government, by the confession of European statesmen, “gives a power of which no other form is capable, because it incorporates every man with the State, and arouses everything that belongs to the soul."

Where, in past history, does a parallel exist to the public happiness which is within the reach of the people of the United States? Where, in any part of the globe, can institutions be found so suited to their habits or so entitled to their love as their own free constitution? Every one of them, then, in whatever part of the land he has his home, must wish its perpetuity. Who of them will not now acknowledge, in the words of WASHINGTON, that "every step by which the people of the United States have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of Providential agency?" Who will not join with me in the prayer, that the invisible hand which has led us through the clouds that gloomed around our path, will so guide us onward to a perfect restoration of fraternal affection, that we of this day may be able to transmit our great inheritance, of State Governments in all their rights, of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, to our posterity, and they to theirs through countless generations?

Ex. CCXI.-DIALOGUE-THE OLD CONTINENTAL.

Characters-CAPTAIN, a veteran soldier of the Revolution. NATHAN, & school-boy.

Nathan. Good morning, Captain.

the hot weather?

How do you stand

Captain. Lord bless you, boy, it's a cold bath to what we had at Monmouth. Did I ever tell you about that 'ere

battle?

N. I have always understood that it was dreadful hot that day!

Capt. Lord bless you, boy, it makes my crutch sweat to think on't-and if I didn't hate long stories, I'd tell you things about that 'ere battle sich as you would'nt believe,

DIALOGUE-THE OLD CONTINENTAL.

319

you rogue, if I did'nt tell you. It beats all natur how hot

it was.

N. I wonder you didn't all die of heat and fatigue.

Capt. Why, so we should, if the reg'lars had all died first; but you see they never liked the Jarseys, and wouldn't lay their bones there. Now, if I didn't hate long stories, I'd. tell you all about that 'ere business, for you see they don't do things so nowadays.

N. How so? Do not people die as they used to? Capt. Lord bless you, no. It beat all natur to see how long the reg'lars would kick after we killed them.

N. What! Kick after they were killed! That does beat all natur, as you say.

Capt. Come, boy, no splitting hairs with an old continental, for you see, if I didn't hate long stories, I'd tell you things about that 'ere battle that you'd never believe. Why, Lord bless you, when Gin'ral Washington telled us we might give it to'em, we gin it to'em, I tell you.

N. You gave what to them?

Capt. Cold lead, you rogue. Why, bless you, we fired twice to their once, you see; and if I did'nt hate long stories, I'd tell you how we did it. You must know, the reg'lars wore their close-bodied red coats, because they thought we were afeard on'em, but we didn't wear any coats, because, you see, we hadn't any.

N. How happened you to be without coats?

Capt. Why, Lord bless you, they would wear out, and the States couldn't buy us any more, you see, and so we marched the lighter, and worked the freer for it. Now, if I didn't hate long stories, I'd tell you what the gin'ral said to me next day when I had a touch of the rheumatiz from lying on the field without a blanket all night. You must know, it was raining hard just then, and we were pushing on like all natur arter the reg'lars.

N. What did the general say to you?

Capt. Not a syllable says he, but off comes his coat and he throws it over my shoulders: "There, captain," says he, "wear that, for we can't spare you yet." Now, don't that

beat all natur, hey?

N. So you wore the general's coat, did you?

Capt. Lord bless your simple heart, no. I didn't feel sick arter that, I tell you. "No, gin'ral," says I, "they can spare me better than they can you, just now, and so I'll take the will for the deed," says I,