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THE WEST.

CHAPTER I.

The dignity and usefulness of Commerce, exemplified in the history of the Western States.

IN estimating the relative standing and influence of the different classes of our population, there are, I think, two very grave mistakes usually committed: one of which assigns the highest place in the scale of merit to manual labor, while the other disdains, as low and coarse, all that partakes of physical exertion;-by the one class, the farmer, the laborer, and the mechanic, are lauded as wielding the creative power by which all the elements of wealth are brought into existence, by the other the members of the learned professions are revered as the depositories of all knowledge, the makers and arbiters of public opinion; and these respective classes have been courted and flattered, by those who have sought to rise upon the breath of popular favor.

The truth lies, I suppose, between these extremes. While we concede to the hard hand of labor a vast amount of power, utility, and consequent influence, and grant to intellect and education the force of a mighty lever, it will require but little reflection to satisfy us, that the resources of this country are controlled chiefly by that class, which, in our peculiar phraseology, we term "the

business community"—embracing all those who are engaged in the great occupations of buying and selling, exchanging, importing and exporting merchandise, and including the banker, the broker, and the underwriter. In a population so active as ours, and spread over so wide an expanse of territory, with lands so prolific, a climate so diversified, productions so various, mineral treasures so vast, and facilities for interior navigation so great, the pursuit of commerce must form a prominent occupation. The commercial and fiscal concerns of such a people cannot be otherwise than important. I have no hesitation in asserting that they employ more of the wealth, the industry, and the intellect, of the American people, than all other employments and professions united. Vast, and vastly diversified, they extend to every place, and are interwoven with every occupation. Commerce is limited only by the boundaries of civilized intercourse. Wherever men congregate in social life it is there; in the most obscure hamlet it is found among the first elements of the most simple form of society; in the proudest metropolis, it employs the highest energies of the human intellect, and is seen in the most magnificent displays of wealth and power. The vast navies that circumnavigate the globe are her's, great cities acknowledge her sway, her merchants are princes, the revenues of mighty nations are under her control. She is the arbitress of war and peace.

Under the influence of that fell spirit of demagoguism which has swept over our land, it has become fashionable to flatter the agricultural and laboring classes, because they are the most numerous, and wield the greatest power at the ballot boxes; while a systematic effort has been made, to decry the merchant and the banker, and to stigmatise their business as inimical to the liberty and

prosperity of the country. We might pass over these incendiary doctrines with the contempt they deserve, if it were it not for the wide spread mischief which they work, by deluding, to their own injury, the numerous classes whom they are intended to cajole and flatter. The laborer and mechanic are taught to dislike the banker, whose means furnish them with daily employment, and the farmer's mind is diligently imbued with a settled hatred for the merchant, without whose assistance his crops would rot upon the field. The prosperity of the country, its peace, its character, and its credit, are deeply affected by the too successful influence of these wretched intrigues. The masses are imbued with the opinion that wealth and poverty, commerce and labor, education and the want of education, constitute hostile interests; and the legislative halls are disgraced by an abject subserviency to those prejudices, which has banished justice, and patriotism, and manly freedom of thought, from that high sanctuary of sovereign power. Even the bench has not been free from these pernicious opinions, and demagogues have been found so hardened and so daring, as to carry into that sacred tribunal, the profligate pledge of party obedience, and to consummate there the atrocious proscription of individuals and classes.

It appears, by the census of 1840, that the number of persons in Ohio, engaged in Commerce, in Agriculture, and in Mechanical Labors and Trades, was as follows:

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By this showing it appears that the disparity between these classes is very great, that the oppression attempted to be practised by the many over the few, is at least safe

to the agents employed in the experiment, and that however abject and unjust, however repugnant to the constitutional principles of equality and democracy, such appeals to the prejudices of the mass may be, the demagogues who use them, do so in the confidence of an impunity guarantied by an odds of thirty to one in their favor.

The streams of water which afford beneficent supplies of that necessary element to our city, are distributed by the force of a powerful engine. Situated at a distance, and silently performing its appointed office, its gigantic action is unobserved by the mass of human beings who enjoy the benefits of its incessant labor-who derive refreshment, comfort, health, and perhaps life itself, from its operations. Through the agency of that powerful machine, the healthful current circulates throughout all the avenues of the city; it is present in every street, it is used in every dwelling; yet the agent, that distributes a blessing so universal and indispensable, is by no means obvious to the casual observer. It is so with commerce; though its advantages are pre-eminent, and widely diffused, the number engaged in this profession is so small, in comparison with the aggregate of society, and their transactions, especially those of the greatest magnitude, attract so little attention, that the observation of the public is not awakened to a just appreciation of the mercantile character.

We might, indeed, appeal to the annals of the world, from the earliest times, to show that commerce has always led the van, in the great march of human improvementin the discovery of new countries—in promoting the intercourse between nations-in affording employment to industry and ingenuity-in promoting science and diffusing knowledge--in adding to social comfort—in the spread of

civilization and christianity. I might refer to Greece and Rome, in the dark periods, when little else was regarded than fighting and the fine arts-to Venice and Genoa-to the brightest ages in the histories of Holland and of England—and to the whole history of America, from its discovery, until now, for proofs, that commerce is the most efficient agent of national prosperity. The occasion will not, however, allow me to enter upon so wide a field, and I shall confine myself to our own country, and to recent times.

Allow me then to occupy a few minutes in presenting some of the prominent facts in our history, for the purpose of inquiring what are the obligations of the country, to the class of our citizens who are engaged in commercial pursuits; and I am sorry that the subject is so broad and so varied in its details, that it is impossible to do it justice in the brief space of a single discourse.

The French, who first explored our northern frontier, ascended the great chain of lakes to Huron and Michigan, and afterwards penetrated through Lake Superior, to that remote wilderness, where the head branches of the St. Lawrence interlock with those of the Mississippi. Adopting, and probably improving, the bark canoe of the natives, they were enabled to traverse immeasurable wilds, which nature had seemed to have rendered inaccessible to man, by floods of water at one season, and masses of ice and snow at another, by the wide spread lakes, and ponds, and morasses, which in every direction intercepted the journey by land, and by the cataracts and rapids, which cut off the communication by water. All difficulties vanished before the efficiency of this little vessel: its wonderful buoyancy enabled it, though heavily freighted, to ride safely over the waves of the lakes, even in boister

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