the rule
of life. In the presence of these agencies, it is frivolous to insist
on the invention of printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or gas-light,
percussion-caps and rubber-shoes, which are toys thrown off from that
security, freedom, and exhilaration which a healthy morality creates in
society. These arts add a comfort and smoothness to house and
street life; but a purer morality, which kindles genius, civilizes
civilization, casts backward all that we held sacred into the profane,
as the flame of oil throws a shadow when shined upon by the flame of the
Bude-light. Not the less the popular measures of progress will ever be
the arts and the laws.

But if there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests,--a
country where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law
and statute-law,--where speech is not free,--where the post-office is
violated, mail-bags opened, and letters tampered with,--where public
debts and private debts outside of the State are repudiated,--where
liberty is attacked in the primary institution of their social
life,--where the position of the white woman is injuriously affected by
the outlawry of the black woman,--where the arts, such as they have,
are all imported, having no indigenous life,--where the laborer is not
secured in the earnings of his own hands,--where suffrage is not free
or equal,--that country is, in all these respects, not civil, but
barbarous, and no advantages of soil, climate, or coast can resist these
suicidal mischiefs.

Morality is essential, and all the incidents of morality,--as, justice
to the subject, and personal liberty. Montesquieu says,--"Countries are
well cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free"; and the
remark holds not less, but more, true of the culture of men than of the
tillage of land. And the highest proof of civility is, that the whole
public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest good of
the greatest number.

Our Southern States have introduced confusion into the moral sentiments
of their people, by reversing this rule in theory and practice, and
denying a man's right to his labor. The distinction and end of a soundly
constituted man is his labor. Use is inscribed on all his faculties. Use
is the end to which he exists. As the tree exists for its fruit, so a
man for his work. A fruitless plant, an idle animal, is not found in
the universe. They are all toiling, however secretly or slowly, in th