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prepared to execute it. A man must be an idiot, and incapable of judgement-he must be a knave, endeavoring to impose upon mankind a conviction that they are fools—or he must be a madman, imagining all others to be crazy, who should set himself seriously and soberly to work to convince the mechanics of this country-the laboring and producing classes-that they suffer privations and disabilities, that are not felt by all other men. That individual instances of oppression and wrong have occurred, and will again occur, is doubtless true; "when went there by an age " that fraud, and cunning, and avarice, were not sometimes successful in sacrificing a victim? We have not yet arrived at that perfect state of society, the long-expected Millenium. long as men are born with human passions, and wherever these passions are permitted to grow and strengthen without cultivation and discipline, so long and so widely will the consequences of uncultivated and undisciplined passions be felt and lamented. The remedy for this is Education. The one allefficient remedy is Moral and Religious Education. Let men be taught that independence-the only independence worth having-is an absolute and entire reliance on their own personal efforts. Let them be taught that their chief good is to be found in the enjoyment of subdued appetites, disciplined passions, temperate habits, moderate desires, well-informed minds; and I know not what further agency man can have in hastening the approach of that period, when

All crime shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail,
Returning Justice lift aloft her scale,

Peace o'er the world her olive wand extend,

And white-robed Innocence from Heaven descend.

Admitting what is sometimes contended for, that the middling classes have not their due proportion of influence in the public affairs-if, as a body, they would regain what they have lost, or achieve what properly belongs to them, in this respect, they must sacrifice all personal considerations, all motives of a merely selfish character, on the altar of public spirit. There must be no jealousies, and envyings, and heart-burnings, at the success, which distinguishes one above another. If candidates for public office should be selected from their ranks, there should be no paltry opposition, growing out of the supposed neglect of imaginary, or even real, claims of others. Prejudices of this sort avail nothing in favor of those that indulge them, but they often defeat the best of purposes, and weaken the strength of the whole body. It is an unnatural discontent, and may lead to divisions, injurious to the public welfare, as well as unjust to private feeling, which the life of man may not be long enough to repair.

Would the middling and laboring classes preserve in their own hands the powers and privileges they now possess, and perpetuate the possession in the hands of their children, they must watch the signs of the times and keep pace with the progress of improvement. They must never weary nor tire in the pursuit of knowledge; they must allow neither sleep to their eyes nor slumber to their eyelids, while there

is important knowledge to be obtained, important principles to be unfolded, important rights to be secured. Let them see that their country has no cause to reproach them with treachery or neglect. That country is yet in its youth. Compared with some of the kingdoms of the eastern continent, it yet retains, in its physical features, all its virgin freshness, and exhibits the recent touches of its great Maker's hand. It is for you whom I address, and such as you, and your contemporaries of the middling classes, to carry on the work of improvement; to plant cities in her deserts and towns in her waste places; to convert her forests and rocks into houses that shall unite elegance and comfort-into ships for the transportation, and warehouses for the storing and vending of the merchandize that accumulates in our seaports-into churches, and temples, and edifices for public use, that shall add improvement and beauty to the face of nature, and give ease and safety and gladness to the heart of man. In that career of public spirit, which constructs canals, rail-roads, aqueducts, manufactories, and every species of work that can contribute to public convenience and private enjoyment, it is yours to lead the van. Men of capital may furnish the means, but it is your ingenuity and invention, your contrivance and skill, your perseverance and industry, that must accomplish the work. Let no one ask, if you can do it. You can do whatever you will. There is not in the worldI say it with feelings of pride as a mechanic and of patriotism as an American citizen-there is not in

the world a more virtuous, and patriotic, and efficient class of men, than the American Mechanics. "There is no better sign of a brave mind, than a hard hand."

The Duke of Orleans, now the King of the French, when he was driven from his country and deprived of the income of his estates, would not, like many of the nobles and princes of the blood royal, among whom was Charles X, become a beggar to the English Government, but chose rather to become a professor of mathematics in a Swiss college, and actually earned a subsistence by teaching arithmetic and geometry. This showed that he knew the value of an independent mind, and that he was fitter for a king than the miserable mendicant he succeeds. No man of mature age and strength is fit to live among men, who is too idle or too ignorant to employ the means necessary to furnish his daily bread. Least of all is he fit for a ruler, who is unacquainted with the arts, which give subsistence to his subjects.

Give me whereon to stand, exclaimed Archimedes, and with my lever I will move the world. The mechanics of these free and independent states can do as much; they can make as proud a boast as the Grecian Philosopher, and they are not, like him, without a safe position on which to plant themselves, while they put the power in operation. The influence they possess as a body is daily increasing. An awakening spirit is abroad among them, and stirring them up to the establishment of schools, lyceums and institutions for purposes of education, and for uniting and directing their energies to the advance

ment of literature, and arts, and sciences. The highest honor of a mechanic, or any other man, consists in the cultivation of his mind; because it is mind, that controls and directs every thing else. It is mind, which pursues, preserves, and enjoys happiness; it is the mind alone, of all earthly possessions, which is eternal; mind is the only attribute of our nature which exalts us to the likeness of our Maker-the only one, in which the image of God is reflected.

"It is the mind that makes the body rich." It is wisdom and understanding that make the man independent. Ignorance is, of all slavery, the most degrading. Chains and fetters may be made of gold as well as of iron, but neither the one nor the other can keep down the energies of an intelligent, wellcultivated, independent mind-a mind trained in the school of virtue, and imbued with principles of honesty, integrity, firmness, honor, and that self love, which forms the basis of the social system. The power of such a spirit is uncontrollable and unlimited; its elasticity can no more be subdued than that of the vital fluid, which sustains its physical organization. Prison walls cannot confine it; nor mountains nor seas set bounds to its operations.

Do you ask what is the evidence to support so broad an assertion, look at your own doors. Look at your public schoolhouses, which, from year to year, send forth their hundreds of boys and girls, instructed in the elements of all that is indispensable, and of much that may be superfluous in education, forming a basis, on which they may build a fabric of

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