moment by the thought of so frightful a perspective.
On the other hand, forty-five States and Territories have worked
to-day, without concert, without mutual understanding, to provision
New York. How is it that every day brings in what is needed, neither
more nor less, to this gigantic market? What is the intelligent and
secret power which presides over the astonishing regularity of
movements so complicated--a regularity in which each one has a faith
so undoubting, though comfort and life are at stake.

This power is an _absolute principle_, the principle of freedom of
operation, the principle of free conduct.

We have faith in that innate light which Providence has placed in the
hearts of all men, to which he has confided the preservation and
improvement of our race-_interest_ (since we must call it by its
name), which is so active, so vigilant, so provident, when its action
is free. What would become of you, inhabitants of New York, if a
Congressional majority should take a fancy to substitute for this
power the combinations of their genius, however superior it may be
supposed to be; if they imagined they could submit this prodigious
mechanism to its supreme direction, unite all its resources in their
own hands, and decide when, where, how, and on what conditions
everything should be produced, transported, exchanged, and consumed?
Ah! though there may be much suffering within your bounds, though
misery, despair, and perhaps hungry exhaustion may cause more tears to
flow than your ardent charity can dry, it is probable, it is certain,
we dare to affirm, that the arbitrary intervention of government would
multiply these sufferings infinitely, and would extend to you all,
those evils which at present are confined to a small portion of your
number.

We all have faith in this principle where our internal transactions
are concerned; why should we not have faith in the same principle
applied to our international operations, which are, assuredly, less
numerous, less delicate, and less complicated. And if it is not
necessary that the Mayor and Common Council of New York should
regulate our industries, weigh our change, our profits, and our
losses, occupy themselves with the regulation of prices, equalize the
conditions of our labor in internal commerce--why is it necessary that
the custom-house, proceeding on its fiscal mission, should pretend to
exercise protective action upon our exterior commerce?

CHAPTER XIX.