o labor is the well-being and
happiness of man in this world--is to develop man's whole nature, and
so to organize society and government as to secure all men a paradise
on the earth. This view of the end to labor for I held steadily and
without wavering from 1828 till 1842, when I began to find myself
tending unconsciously towards the Catholic Church.'

"The reader will have seen by the extracts given that we were a party
full of enthusiasm. I was but fifteen when our party called Dr.
Brownson to deliver the lectures above mentioned. But my brothers and
I had long been playing men's parts in politics. I remember when
eleven years of age, or a year or two older, being tall for my years,
proposing and carrying through a series of resolutions on the
currency question at our ward meetings. As our name indicates--
'Workingman's Democracy'--we were a kind of Democrats. As to the Whig
party, it received no great attention from us. At that time its
chances of getting control of this State or of the United States were
remote. Our biggest fight was against the 'usages of the party' as in
vogue in the so-called regular Democracy embodied in the Tammany Hall
party. This organization undertook to absorb us when we had grown too
powerful to be ignored. They nominated a legislative ticket made up
half of their men and half of ours. This move was to a great extent
successful; but many of us who were purists refused to compromise,
and ran a stump ticket, or, as it was then called, a rump ticket. I
was too young to vote, but I remember my brother George and I posting
political handbills at three o'clock in the morning; this hour was
not so inconvenient for us, for we were bakers. We also worked hard
on election day, keeping up and supplying the ticket booths,
especially in our own ward, the old Seventh. I remember that one of
our leaders was a shoemaker named John Ryker, and that we used to
meet in Science Hall, Broome Street.

"If this was the high state of my enthusiasm, so was it that of us
all. Our political faith was ardent and active. But if we had been
tested on our religious faith we should not have come off creditably;
many of us had not any religion at all. I remember saying once to my
brother John that the only difference between a believer and an
infidel is a few ounces of brains. . . . We were a queer set of
cranks when Dr. Brownson brought to us his powerful and eloquent
advocacy, his contribution of mingled truth and er