that some of the present generation may live to see it.

However favored may be the circumstances of a country, and whatever its aggregate wealth, the great mass of its people must be poor. Even in England, with a degree of opulence such as the world has never before seen, if her whole annual income were divided among her people, the proportion to each individual would not amount to more than from seventy to eighty dollars, which would be barely sufficient to give to each one the means of plain and comfortable subsistence, at the price they bear in that country, and not enough to do that, according to the standard which prevails in the United States. In this country, though, on such a distribution, the proportionate share would, in quantity, be larger than it is in England, the money price would be less; that is, from sixty to sixty-five dollars-enough to furnish the comforts of life on a very simple scale, and nothing more.

But this income is, and must ever be, very unequally distributed. Fortune blindly rewards some men, but the virtues of industry, integrity and prudence, a far greater number; and in the same degree that some have more than their proportionate share, others must have less. We know that many have an income one hundred times as large as the average, and some in England a thousand times as great. The number, then, who have less than the average, must be proportionate. Thus, if there be one in a hundred who have but fifty times the average income, then the average income of the rest of the community, that is, ninety-nine hundredths, would be reduced to one half the average-a pittance barely sufficient to sustain life, which many obtain by honest labor; but some are fain to seek it by crime, or fraud, or beggary, and a portion, not obtaining it, experience the miseries of hunger, disease, and premature death.

Such would seem to be the condition of every civilized community. By far the largest portion are dependent upon their daily labor for the means of subsistence; those means are necessarily small, and gradually diminish with the increasing density of population. The gradual rise in the price of raw produce, or the gradual fall in the price of labor, are but different modes of expressing this fact.

Such a class as we have here sup

posed, has always been unfriendly, if not formidable, to the peace and well-being of society, by its numbers, its necessities, and the vices and crimes engendered by its ignorance and wants. Looking with envious discontent on those who are in affluence or ease, desirous of change and confusion, by which they may gain, but cannot lose, they will be ready to follow any leader who will give them bread, or promise it. Nor is it necessary that the worst passions of this class should be appealed to, since plausible pretexts for reformation can always be devised by the cunning and unprincipled demagogue, sufficient for minds so undiscriminating, and so easily yielding to impressions, so that the better portion of the destitute class often unite with the worst, in riot, outrage and disorder. Such is the character of the populace in Europe, and signs of the rise of a similar class may be occasionally seen in our largest cities.

To guard against these mischiefs, which strike at the root of society, and which have their seat in the appetites and passions of men, wherever ignorance is associated with want, government, it is urged, must be armed with an adequate physical force; and political power, moreover, must be withheld from those who are so incapable of rightfully exercising it, and would be so sure to abuse it. Even the system of representation affords no security with such a constituency, for the representative will faithfully reflect the feelings and opinions of those who have chosen him. If they favor a liberal and enlightened policy, so will he; if one that is narrow-minded and unjust, as certainly will he. If they wish to defraud their creditors, he too will be a repudiator. If they wish to lay an unequal tax on the rich, he is their willing instrument. The government must then have the power to quell commotion, or rather to keep it from rising; and that power must be exercised only by those who have intelligence and independence. So far you may, in a densely peopled community, extend the elective franchise, and no further. Such is one view of the subject.

But these remedies and precautions imply a considerable change from our present political system, and a far less degree of civil freedom than we now possess. They would not only disfranchise a large part-perhaps much the largest part of the community-but it supposes a degree of power in the Executive which sometimes may be brought to bear upon

the honest and loyal, as well as on the vicious and lawless, and which may lead to further encroachments. It has been from such small beginnings that military usurpation, profiting by the proper moment, has taken its rise, and that monarchies have been reared on the ruins of republican government. This remedy may thus create a worse disease than it

cures.

But will it be necessary to alter the distribution of political power? and when our population becomes dense, may not our democratic institutions be retained in their present form, or with only such slight modifications as experience shall clearly point out? There are many circumstances to favor these agreeable anticipations. In the first place, the class which will be without property is likely to be proportionately smaller in this country than it is in any part of Europe. Equality of civil rights, though it cannot produce equality of property, tends to lessen the inequality. It keeps the avenues to profitable employment, whether in public office, or by the efforts of industry, open to all competitors, and it cherishes the pride of personal independence. Here are no laws of primogeniture—no privileged orders-no enormous salaries-no monopolies to favorites-no means of perpetuating property in the same families as exist in other countries; by all of which the inequality of property is increased and maintained. On this account, property, which is now more equally distributed in this country than in any other, is likely to continue so, and consequently, the class of the destitute to be proportionally diminished. Nor is this all. Many of those who are without property, seeing the field of competition open to all, and that a large proportion of those who have attained affluence or distinction, were once as poor as themselves, are encouraged to hope for similar favors of fortune, and such hopes afford the same security for their obedience to the laws as would the possession of property.

But in the next place the poorest class with us is not likely to be so poor as the correspondent class on the old Continent, from the peculiar circumstances of the American people. We know that, in the regular progress of society, the population of a country is in proportion to its means of subsistence, and that this has been no less the case when its people were in the condition of hunters, as the aborigines of this continent, with scarce

ly one to the square mile, than when they amount to two or three hundred. The population is thus always up to the level of the food, and, without doubt, the increasing demand for food, occasioned by increasing numbers, has been the parent of husbandry and all the other arts by which human aliment is augmented.

The state of things has, however, been very different in this country. Here, a people possessed of those useful arts which can support a dense population, settled in a country which contained not more than one to a square mile. Hence, while in other countries population has been determined by subsistence, here subsistence has been determined by population. In consequence of these peculiar circumstances, there has always been here a liberal rate of subsistence, such as is not seen, and probably never has been seen, in any part of the Old World. Now, when a people become habituated to so liberal a standard of comfort, they are likely to cling to it, and thus the preventive checks to redundancy may be expected to operate sooner here than they have done elsewhere, and to keep down our population to the means of liberal subsistence; or, if they cannot reach that point, they will greatly tend to reduce the number of that needy, ignorant, and desperate class of which we have been speaking. Our last census shows conclusively that the moral checks have already begun to operate in this country, though the means of subsistence have been all the while increasing instead of diminishing. It must also be recollected that if, in the progress of society, the influence of intelligence and property is, on some accounts, diminished by the increased numbers and votes of the ignorant and necessitous, that influence is, on other accounts, augmented by the increased dependency of the destitute class on the others for employment and subsistence. Every large land-owner or ship-owner, every great manufacturer or miner, has an influence over those he employs, far greater in a dense, than a thin population; and this influence, having its foundation in the nature of man, furnishes a further security against the supposed danger from the class without property.

We are likely to have another security which must not be overlooked; as popular ignorance is one of the principal elements of the mischief, it is consoling that the ignorant class will ever probably be

unusually small in this country. The policy of diffusing instruction among the people is of such obvious benefit, and is so vital in democratic governments, that it is a popular measure in all the States. There is accordingly no country in which elementary schools are so general as in some of the States, and in the others, they are steadily increasing. Greater density of numbers, so far from checking the diffusion of this benefit, will give new facilities to it, as experience has already shown us.

May we not also count something on that extraordinary respect for the laws which is manifested by our citizens, and which generally characterizes democratic governments? By far the greater number of the laws being promotive of the public interest, and, in fact, dictated by the popular will, the people have the strongest motives to respect, as well as obey them, and thus the sentiment becomes by habit engrafted in the character of the people. Hence it is, that at our largest and most tumultuous assemblies, one may see thousands yield the same obedience to a constable as in most countries is yielded only to the armed bands of the government. On all these accounts the fears entertained by some that our political system is not suited to a dense population, seem to be unfounded.

There are some evils to which we are even now exposed, without carrying our speculations to a distant future. The great merit of a democratic government is, that the people will, for their own sakes, aim at good laws-laws which are suited to their circumstances-which impose light duties, and secure personal rights; and although they may, sometimes through ignorance, mistake their true interests, in most cases the sagacity of self-love is too unerring for this. But the preceding theory, it must be recollected, supposes only that the interests of the majority will be promoted in good faith, and with effect. Now, it may sometimes happen that the interests, as it often does, that the wishes of the two parties into which all free States are commonly divided, will be directly opposite, and on these occasions, there is always danger that the majority will be unjust to the minority-we do not mean by disappointing their wishes, but by departing from those principles of right which all recognize and profess to respect-that, in a word, the impulses of feeling will

prevail over a sense of duty. Thus, to give examples, the majority of a State legislature may so unequally arrange the election districts as to secure to themselves more than their fair proportion of political power. They may appropriate to themselves all the public offices, and put incapable men in the place of those of tried skill and integrity, on the ground that "to the victors belong the spoils," and they may so adjust the revenue laws as to make them bear more heavily on the minority than the majority. In these ways may minorities be deprived of their just share of political power, and robbed of their property. These flagrant wrongs are not peculiar to any party. They arise in all free governments, and are incidents of human weakness. Is there any remedy for the evil? There can be none by any device of organization, which might not at times, as formerly in Poland, paralyze the necessary action of the government. Would constitutional provisions avail? Party leaders are too ingenious not to find means of evading such provisions, sufficiently plausible to satisfy their indiscriminating followers, and are sometimes reckless enough to make boldness supply the place of ingenuity. There then can be be no remedy for this injustice, but improving the moral sense of the commu nity. All good men must endeavor to give new force to that rule of action which is written on the human heart, and is man's law to himself.

The very lively interest which the people of the United States take in the elec tion of their chief magistrate threatens also, as some think, the future peace and stability of the Union. At every successive election, this interest is likely to increase, both from the increase of the President's patronage, and the growing power and importance of the nation of which he is the head; and as the weight and dignity of the office augments, the voters not only increase in number, but also somewhat alter in character. The recollection that the contest, in this election, is one in which millions are engag ed, will, of itself, powerfully operate on the passions of the people, and produce a fervor of feeling which may lead to the most serious civil commotions. The rapid growth of our cities, and the steady increase of the needy, ignorant and vicious, who are the ready instruments of the ambitious intriguer, greatly enhance the mischief. When we see the causes of

danger thus increasing, who can say that we shall be always able to escape them? While the storm is yet rising, we cannot be sure that the ship may not continually founder.

Such are the gloomy anticipations, not only of those who look with unfriendly eyes on our institutions, but of many of our citizens, whose love of country shows itself in over-anxious fear about the future. That the presidential election will be an object of increasing interest we cannot doubt, but that the interest will be at all in proportion to his increase of power, or that of the nation, may well be questioned. In the contest of 1800, between Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams, or even in that of 1796, when our numbers were less than a third of their present amount, the people were as much excited as at this time. Even if the interest were to go on increasing, it is too much to suppose that it would lead to the predicted consequences. Such an opinion is utterly inconsistent with that love of order, and that habitual respect for the laws which mark the character of the American people, and which temper their deportment in the wildest paroxysms of party zeal. Broken heads and bloody noses, so familiar in some countries in popular elections, are unknown here, except now and then in some of the cities, and where too most of the actors are foreigners who have not yet been disciplined into sobriety by a government of equal laws.

This part of our political system has ever been the favorite occasion of evil augury, whether men predicted what they feared or what they hoped. They first insisted that the weight of General Washington's character kept the frail structure of the federal government to

gether, and that after his death it would fall to pieces. When it was found to go on as well under his immediate successors, the effect was then ascribed to the great names of the Revolution. But these have passed away, and it is found that for its safety and healthy action it is indebted to its own inherent vis medicatrix, and that strong as it has already proved, it is ever gaining new strength by time.

Yet the interest taken in the election of President, though not fraught with such disastrous consequences, is still mischievous; and it would be desirable to lessen somewhat of this absorbing feeling, which not only painfully agitates the nation, but in no small degree diverts it from objects of more intrinsic importance, and more direct bearing on the national welfare. How can this be done? We know of no means except those of abridging the term for which he is eligi ble, and lessening his power and patronage. The framers of the Constitution seemed to fear that the federal Executive would be too weak for the legislature, but experience has shown that their fears were groundless; and the power which he has exerted against majorities of both Houses in Congress has been far more frequently used of late than formerly. Should this exercise of executive power become familiar, it would give to that branch of the government a share in legislation, and even of initiating laws which would destroy the lines of separation its framers thought it wise to draw. Though these and similar changes might not cure the evil of excessive popular agitation in electing a President, they could scarcely fail to mitigate it.*

If there are dangers to our government, in common with all others that are free, from the sway of sinister passions-from

agitations and commotions-from that sudden ebullition of feeling in which the virtue of moral restraint evaporates, and right and wrong are melted down into one indiscriminate mass-may there not be dangers of an opposite character? May not our political system perish by paralysis as well as by fever? May not our splendid hopes be eventually marred by our too great strength instead of weakness? It is easy to see that these States will, in the course of two or three generations more, attain a degree of power and wealth of which the world presents no example. In this state of confident strength, shall we engage in a career of conquest, or shall we gradually fall into a state of torpor ? For the first, there appears to be no adequate field, even if democratic jealousy should see no objection to it. Long before the period to which we advert, the destinies of Canada and Mexico will be determined. They will give us no provocation, whether the one remains independent and united, or the other becomes so. They will either have been incorporated with these States, or, more probably, neighbors too far inferior to them to excite fear or jealousy, or even to keep alive a military spirit. In this state of things, is it not possible that the energies of our people may decline, for want of adequate causes to call it forth, and that we may sink into a listlessness similar to that of the Chinese? Though that precise result should not take place, is there not danger that we may want sufficient motives of national emulation when we have greatly surpassed in numbers, wealth and strength all the nations with which we have intercourse?

Every species of human excellence is mainly the effect of exercise and the desire of excelling-from the art which makes a nail to that which produces a poem or a statue-and to this emulation between individuals must be added national rivalry to call forth the utmost powers of which man is capable. What nations of this earth have elevated our species to the highest point of excellence in letters, arts or arms? They are, first, the Greeks, among whose little States there was an unremitting struggle for superiority or independence, and also for distinction at those remarkable institutions, the Olympic and other games,*

where men of extraordinary endowments of body or mind assembled from every part of Greece, to attain honor for themselves and their country. And those States with which the rivalry was the greatest, because they were most nearly equal in power, were the Athenians and Spartans, who both, though in very different ways, exhibited human nature in its greatest exaltation. Then the Romans and Carthaginians, in their struggle for superiority, excelled in the art of war, and those virtues it most favors, all their contemporaries. The Italian States, long afterwards, produced the same result in painting, sculpture and architecture. Who have taken the lead among the moderns in letters, science, arms, and the useful arts? England and France, who, by the emulation stimulated by neighborhood, and the animosity it is so apt to engender, have put the higher faculties of our nature in requisition, and given them the most energetic and unremitted exercise. Spain and Portugal were never so great as when they felt this same animating principle in their commercial enterprise. Holland, too, excited by the same spirit in her contest with Great Britain for naval supremacy, exhibited a degree of vigor and power altogether disproportioned to her numbers, and [which was] truly astonishing. It would not be difficult to extend this list, and perhaps it would not be going too far to aver, that no nation ever attained a high place in the scale of human greatness, in which the force of this principle of national emulation may not be distinctly traced.

But it is indispensable to this spirit of rivalry that there should be some approach to equality between the parties-some ground for hope that extraordinary efforts will be crowned with success. As soon as the disparity is too great for dispute, and to be above the probability of change, the emulation ceases. It has continued longer between France and England than in the other instances, and therefore the effects have been greater in advancing both nations. Shall we not, then, be likely to want this great, and, as it would seem, indispensable incentive to the exertion which alone produces human excellence? We dare venture to say we shall not.

The source of it is to be found in the separateness of the States of our con