Daily national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1854, 1854-07-27
DAILY NATIONAL ERA.

4
brother, in the light of those objects, and has
either improved it, or devised a new aud better
one. He aims ut doing the most that is possible
as quickly as possible; and this characteristic is
manifested equally in his weapons Of war and
| his instruments Of peace, whether they are to be
used in the field, or in the workshop, or on the
seattle fre-arm, the axe, the plough, the rail-
road, the clipper ship, the steam engine, and the
printing press. His railroads cost less and are
less perfect than those in other countries but he
builds ten miles where they have only three. He
moves passengers and freights on such roads and
in his ships with less safety, but with greater
/ cheapness and velocity He prepares his news
papers, his magazines and his treatises, with less
care, but he prints an hundred for one. If the
European has failed to give him necessary
principle or to embody it in practical machine
he finds out the one, or constructs the other
promptly for himself He wanted machines for
working up his forests, and he invented the saw
/ gang and the growing and planning machines
for cleaning his cotton, and he invented the gin
| for harvesting his wheat, and he invented the
reaper He needed mechanical force to navigate
/ his long rivers and broad lakes, and he converted
the steam engine into marine power. He need
| ed despatch in communicating intelligence, and
he placed his lightnng-rod horizontally and
beating it into wire, converted it into awrting
| telegraph se
! Fifty years ago, there was no American Science
| and no American Literature Now, there is an
American tenancy in every intellectual depart
ment, and none acknowledge its presence and
usefulness more freely than those whose fame has
least to fear from competition.
1 II seems to me that this intellectual develop
ment of the United States is due chiefly to the
adoption Of the great idea of universal emulation.
| Our Constitutions and laws open every depart
ment Of human enterprise and ambition to all
citizens without respect to BIRTH or class or con-
dition, and steadily though cautiously exert a
power quite effective in preventing any accidental
social inequality from becoming fixed and per-
| manent.
/ There still remains the question, whether the
moral development is coordinate with those Of
| physical power and mind in the United States. A
Republic may be safe, even though it be weak,
and though it be in considerable degree intel
lectually inactive, as is seen in Switzerland; but
q Republic cannot exist without virtue.
/ 1t will not suffice to examine the question
through the lens of traditional prejudice. In all
nations, kind of reverence is paid TO antiquity.
i There is no one that does not trace its lineage
from the gods, or from those who were especially
favored by gods. Every people has had its age
of gold, or Augustan age, or heroic AEGEAN age,
alasl forever passed These prejudices are not
altogether unwholesome. Although they pro-
duce conviction of declining virtue, which is
unfavorable to generous emulation yet q People
sarily become Hcentious. Nevertheless, such
prejudices ought to be modified. 1t is not true,
that in the period of nations rise from disorder
to refinement it Is not able to continually surpass
itself. We see the present plainly, distinctly with
all its coarse outlines, its rough inequalities its
dark blots, and its garing defornites. We hear
all its tumultuous sounds and jarring discords.
We see and hear the past, through distance
which reduces all its inequalities to plane mel
oil ire cho int f,la b,,an nd cuh
dues even its hoarsest voices into harmony In
our case, the prejudice is less erroneous than
| in most Others. The Revolutionary age was truly
/ heroic one It's exgences called forth the
| genius and the talents and the virtues of society
and they rpened amid the hardships of long
and severe trial But there were seliishness and
vice, and factions, then, rs now, although compar-
atively subdued and repressed. You have only to
consult impartial history, to learn that neither
public faith, public loyalty, nor private virtue,
eliminated Mt that period in our own country
while mere glance at the literature or. at the
stage or at the politics, of any European country,
in any previous age, reveals the fact that it was
marked, more distinctly than the present, by
licentious morals and mean ambition.
Reasoning PRIOR again, as we did in another
case, il is only just to infer in favor of the United
States an improvement of morals from their es-
tabished progress in knowledge and power !;
otherwise, the philosophy Of society is misunder-
stood, and we must change all our courses and
henceforth seek safety in imbecity, and virtue in
superstition and ignorance.
What shall be the test of the national morals
Shall it be the eccentricity of crimes? Certainly
not; for then we must compare the criminal &C.
centricity of to-day with that of yesterday
Loyalty to the State is public virtue. Was
it ever deeper-tpned or more universal than it is
now 2 ! know there are ebullitions Of passion
and discomfort, sometimes breaking out into dis
order and violence; but was faction ever more
effectually disarmed and harmless than il is now
There is loyalty that springs from the affection
that VIC bear to our native soil. This we have,
as strong, as any people But il is not the soil
alone, nor yet the soil beneath our feet and the
skies over our heads, that constitute our country.
II is its freedom, equality justice, greatness, and
glory Who among ms Is so low TO be insens-
BILE of an interest in them Four hundred thou
sand natives of other lands every year voluntarily
renounce their own sovereigns, and swear fealty
to our own. Who has ever known an American
to transfer his allegiance TO a foreign Power2
The spirit Of the laws in any country, is a true
| index to the morals OF people, just in proportion
to the power they exercise in making them. Who
complains, here or elsewhere that crime im-
morality blots our statute-books with lcentous
enactments2
The characters Of a countrys magistrates, egis-
lators, and captains chosen by people, reflect
their own. II is true, that in the earnest
ing which so frequently rccurring elections
quire, suspicion often follows the magistrate, and
scandal follows in the footsteps Of the statesman.
Yet, when his course has been finished, what
magistrate has left n name furnished by corrRps
| ton, or what statesman has left act or an
i opinion so erroneous that decent charity cannot
excuse, though it may disapprove What chief
tain ever tempered military triumph with so much
moderation as he who, when he had placed our
standard on the battlements of the capital Of
Mexico, not only received an offer of supreme au-
thority from the conquered nation, but declined
/ n2 -
The manners of nation are the outward form
Of its inner life, Where is woman held in so