Daily national Democrat., 1859-04-07
..IIe Works for His Living"

That labor of any kind is honorable, whe-
tber with hand or head, is part of the dem
oeratie creed of free government. On this
account no distinctions are made by this
creed between the mechanic and the lawyer,
the drayman or the clerk, the farmer or the
uteratenr. the field laborer Of the statesman,
in the exercise Of the right Of suffrage or any
of the privileges which appertain to freemen.
1t is the glory of republican institutions that
it is so. Yet, despite Of all this. it cannot be
denied that there is n species OF mushroom
aristoeracy growing up in various portions of
the United States, which bases its claims to
superiority upon the fact that the individuals
constituting its component parts do not lcork
fer their living. Happening to be rich, either
10y Inheritance from some lucky shoemaker,
tallow chandler or soap manufacturer of an
other generation, or by fortunate specula-
tion of their own, or on account ofany of the
various turnings of the wheel of fortune, they
set themselves up as an order of superior te-
| ings and affect to look down with scorn upon
the endowments of honesty, intelligence, mo
rality and the social virtues generally in those
who hare to cork for their Hriag. Our Amer
lean government and our social system which
partakes Of its nature recognize no such dis
tinctions, and the greatest intellects that we
have ever had have despised the spirit which
would give such distinctions importance.-
| Daniel Webster, that intellectual giant among
men, was proud of the honest life of labor
which his sturdy New England father led,
and proud of the humble log cabin in which
! he himself was born. Scarcely any Of our
great men in America have had any titled or
aristocratc lineage to boast of, but the great
majority of them have been the sons as the
phrase goes, "of poor but honest parents"
As far as political or literary position is con
cerned, the would-be aristocrats of wealth in
this country have been pushed from their
stools 10y the lofticr aristocrats of intellect
an aristocracy which springs as well from the
horny handed, weather.beaten classes of Ia
Dor as from the families of wealth and dainti-
ness and ease. Intellect is not the birth right
of the rich any more than of the poor and
intellect rules in free governments.
There is no sense in the aristocracv of re.
publican country. In monarchcal or oligar-
ehical countries, it is different because, there,
the whole system of government is based up
on the distinctions of property, birth and
Il, e H.
arbitrary, exist from the very necessity of the
political system which rules, and cannot be
overcome or disregarded The peer, the ba
ron, the knight, the gentleman, the trades
man, the mechanic the day laborer-these
are classes recognized by the political and
social system, and consequently one class be.
ing more favored than another narurallyputs
on those airs of superiority which its superior
social and political position gives it. God
and nature never made any such classfca-
tions. Intellect and virtue are the glory OF
man. and God and nature never narrowed |
those qualities into the limits of any particu |
lar class or society. 1t is easy to see, there
iore, that distinctions which are merely ar
Jitrary, and which have no foundation in
natural laws, are entitled to no respect in
and that where there are no laws
o maintain them they are entitled to no re
pect either intrinsically or extrinsically. In
'ur free country, as we have said, there are
10 such determinations or classifcatons by
he law, and it is simply nonsense for any
'ody to undertake to set up anything of the
,ind. The masses will never recognize the
'alidity of the ssumption--intellect will in
'ariably despise it, and the genius of repub-
lean institutions will crush it out.
Occasionally, even in this State, where,
lbove all other States in the Union, labor has
been invested with peculiar dignity, for the
reason that it has been so largely and richly |
ful would-be aristocratc spirit. 1t belongs, |
however, more to isolated individuals than to |
any recognized social class and displays itself |
in quiet sneers at men or women rho uork |
for their Hving. Sorry are we to say, too,
that persons who have once been in good cir |
cunstances but have been reduced by T. is |
fortune. show their sensitiveness to the exist.
ence of this most despicable spirit. by being
that they have now to support
themselves and their families 10y the labor of
their hands. On the contrary, they should
be proud of their honest ability to help them
selves. and that they owe their support, ac-
tording to natures great primal law, to the |
sweat Of their own brows. Let the fawning
creatures of despoti,m, the miserable sycho
plants of royalty, the betinseled and gew-
gawed dependents of titled aristocracy be
ashamed OF honorable toll, and cling to their
gilded servitude to power, but let no free
born American or true hearted adopted citi.
zen of a free country ever disgrace the Land
OF Liberty and the name of free government
and the manhood that his God has given him.
by being ashamed to tell the proudest and the
wealthest OF his fellow citizens, ~ ,oork for
my liping."
Later from Salt Lake.
BY the Central Overland Mail we have
f,,, GnI& L.