Year: 1859

union. 1t may well be questioned whelhe
they should ever be spoken OF as classes
since the term presupposes line o
demarcation, which cahnot be drawn
Both are striving with The same casernes.
for the same object-some portion O
wealtt-and Doth are interested in the
protection of property. If, instead o
spending time in mutual jealouses and
fecrimina,ons, they would join heart and
hand in all great and good undertaking
the one contributing the means, the other
the skill and labor, they would accom-
plish more for themselves and their coun.
try in one year than by fifty years of dis.
sensiou.


We should not forget that there are
those who grace and gladden. our festivi.
ties by their presence; who do not mingIe
with us, indeed, in :he walks of business,
but exert mere potent influence upon
the affairs of men than we are always
willing 10 acknowledge whose empire is
absolute over the world of fashion whose





like the radiant bow that spans the storm
If their smiles do sometimes kindle dis
sensions, they of,ener allay it, and would
invoke their gentle influence IN the work
of reforming the national manners. If
they would besow more of their kind
regards upon their athletic and manly
forms that make our hill sides and valleys
laugh and ring with the wealth of golden
harvests and less upon those whiskered
and bedizened apes that iniest the drawing
room, we should love them better, and our
country would regard them as her jewels.


What honest vocation can he named that
does rot contribute, in greater or less de.
gree, 10 the enjoyment of man? II may be
humble, indeed, but il goes 10 swell the
mighty aggregate it may be a rill that
trickles from the mountain side, but il diff
fuses fertility through the valley, and min.
giles its drops at last with the ocean. The
true American motto is and must be-mar.
ked upon our ioreheads, written upon our
door posts-channeIed in the earth, and
waited upon the waves INDUSTRY, LABOR
is HoNoRABLE, and idleness is dshonorable
and care not if ii be labor, whether il
be of the head or hands. Whitney, whose
cotton gin doubled the value of every acre
Of land in the South, raised more cotton
with his head than any twenty men ever
raised with their hands. Let me exhor,
those OF you who are devoted TO intellectual
pursuits, 10 cherish, on your part, an en-
alled and Just idea of manual labor, and TO
make that opinion known in your works
and seen in the earnest Of your actions.
The laboring men Of this country are vast
in number and respectable in character
We owe 10 them, under Providence, the
most gladstone spectacle the sun beholds
in its course-a land Of cultivated and fer
tile fields, an ocean white with canvass.
We owe 10 them the annual spectacle oil
golden harvests, which carries plenty and
happiness alike TO the palace and the cot
,age. We owe TO them the forlresses that
guard our coasts-the ships that have borne
our flag TO every cline and carried the
thunder of our cannon triumphant over the
waters of the deep.


Sir Walter Scott, a mere writer of poetry
and romance, has given employment to
ten thousand paper-makers, type-founders,
printers, tanners, book binders; and beyond
that has awakened the love of elegant lite
- IF ,nls
spent his days partly in sleep, and his nights
in watching the stars in the midnight sky
and yet his discoveries have enabled the
mariner 10 pursue his forming pathway in
the deep, as safely as on the land, and thus
poured the products of every cline into the
lap of labor. The benefactions of these
men were indeed great and illuslrious but
there are men IN our midst engaged in
similar pursuits every day o: their lives,
bestowing the same kind of benefits on
mankind. The merchants life is life oil
excitement and care, of risk and uncertainty,
but of .he first importance TO every commu'
nifty as indispensable 10 the laborer as the
laborer is TO him.


The village school master who devotes
the years oil his youth or his manhood 10
the exhausting drudgery of instruction
who moulds the characters and fixes the
principles of an advancing generations-is
as eminently useful, though he sinks al
last into the grave unhonored and unsung
as the demagogues whose presence is
greeted in caucuses, or whose voice is
heard in the halls of Legislation, discussing
the constitutional power of Congress TO buy
a penknife.