ies had not been touched, or whose
wrath had not been kindled by something he had said either in public or
in private, and by his saying it repeatedly. The sons of the Puritans he
had exasperated by styling them the grand inquisitors of private life,
and by asserting that a low sort of tyranny over domestic affairs was
the direct result of their religious polity. He had roused the
resentment of the survivors of the old Federalist party by declaring
that its design during the war of 1812 had been disunion, and that in
secret many of them still longed for a restoration of monarchy, and
sighed for ribbons, stars, and garters. He had not conciliated the party
with which he was nominally allied by his incessant attacks upon the
doctrine of free-trade. He had made Boston shudder to its remotest
suburbs, by stating again and again in the strongest terms that (p. 172)
it was in the Middle States alone that the English language was spoken
with purity. The New England capital he had further described as a
gossiping country town with a tone of criticism so narrow and vulgar as
scarcely to hide the parochial sort of venom which engendered it. He had
charged upon New Yorkers that their lives were spent in the constant
struggle for inordinate and grasping gain; that to talk of dollars was
to them a source of endless enjoyment; and that their society had for
its characteristic distinction the fussy pretension and swagger that
usually mark the presence of lucky speculators in stocks. He had
attributed to the whole trading class a jealous and ferocious
watchfulness of the pocket, and a readiness to sacrifice at any time the
honor of the country for the sake of personal profit. To the native
merchants he had denied the name of real merchants. They were simply
factors, mere agents, who were ennobled by commerce, but who did not
themselves ennoble it. The foreign traders resident here fared no
better. They had never read the Constitution of the country they had
made their home, and were incapable of understanding it if they should
read it. Always judging of American facts in accordance with the
antiquated notions in which they had been brought up, they were largely
responsible for the erroneous opinions entertained and blundering
prophecies made in Europe in regard to the condition and future of the
United States. The educated class, above all, he had denounced for its
indomitable selfishness and its hatred of the rights of those socially