Our Future Policy, BQR for January 1841

Our Future Policy.

[From the Boston Quarterly Review for January, 1841]

Contrary to our wishes, but hardly contrary to our fears, we have no to record the signal success of the friends and now supporters of William Henry Harrison. The Whigs are now in the ascendency in the Union, and in a majority of the states. With the forth of March next, commences a Whig dynasty, to last at least four years. The people have so willed, and whatever may be our individual convictions, hopes, or fears, we must submit. 

Whether thus result will be for the good of the country, or the evil, it is impossible as yet to decide. We have not desired it. We have had no fellowship with the Whig party, no sympathy with their methods of electioneering, and no confidence in their acknowledged principles. We have depreciated their success as a serious calamity, similar in its nature to the subjugation of a free, and independent people by a foreign power, and likely to be not less disastrous in its consequences. We have honest believed that the safety of our free institutions, the progress of liberty and social equality, demanded the reelection of Mr. Van Buren, and the success of his friends in the Union and the states. But a majority of the people, wisely or unwisely, have decided differently, and though we cannot, as yet, honor their decision, we must respect it as the law of the land till it be reversed.

But however much we may fear of the worst, we owe it to ourselves to say that we by no means despair of the republic. We are not among those who have unbounded confidence in the actual virtue and intelligence of the people; and the recent elections have by no means tended to increase what little confidence we may have had; but we have great faith in the capacities of human nature, and we believe there is already enough of virtue and intelligence in our community, to arrest any dangerous tendency in the government, before it shall be too late. Moreover, we believe firmly in an overruling Providence; and the Providence which has selected this as the chosen land of freedom, thus far watched over and protected us, and prepared us for the work assigned us in the progress of civilization, we cannot believe will abandon us before we have accomplished our mission. We confide with the calmness in the God of our fathers, and trust that he will yet deliver us from the Philistines, and enable us to build the temple of freedom, which will abide the ravages of time, and within which shall one day meet in peace, to pay their vows, the whole family of disenthralled and regenerated man. 

Moreover, in analyzing with some care the elections which have resulted in favor of General Harrison, we still find ground for hope. The people on these elections have not, in their own estimation, decided against freedom and equality; nay, they have not decided against the doctrines or measures of the Democratic party. They have not deserted, and we have as of yet no reason to believe that the will desert their ancient democratic faith. However it may have been with the Whig leaders and wire pullers, the great mass of the people whom they have carried away have not voted against the administration because they have condemned its measures. They have asked not for a change of measures, but of men. They have looked upon the present administration, in its administrative character, as low-minded and corrupt, as deficient in both capacity and integrity, and therefore as unfit to be entrusted with the management of public affairs. Here is the secret of the recent revolution, - a revolution which in the minds of the majority of the people extends to only men. The people we need not say have been deceived woefully deceived; but the moment they become aware of the fact, they will lose no time in rectifying their mistake. If the men, they have not placed in power, undertake to carry out a policy essentially different from that which has been pursued for the last twelve years, they will hurl them from power at the earliest moment permitted by the forms of the constitution.

With this conviction, we cannot despair. We believe the present administration has been grossly belied; but in its purely administrative character, we have no disposition to take up its defense. In thus character, it has not extraordinary claims on the affection of the people. It is remarkable neither for its sagacity nor its purity. There are, we should hope, many other men in the country who can administer the government as well as they have done. Still in justice to Mr. Van Buren, we must say, that in the measures of requiring legislative action, which he has recommended or sustained, he has done well, been faithful to the constitution, and deserved, as he will one day receive, the gratitude of his country.

Mr. Van Buren has been defeated; but he is much dearer to the American people today than he was when elected president. He failed in his reelection, not because he has lost his popularity, but because he never was the choice of the American people. The people never willed his elevation to the presidential chair. He was elevated to that chair, not by his own popularity, but by the popularity of his predecessor, and by the management of party leaders. Since he became president, he has for the first time in his life gained a place in the affections of the American people, and he retires from the presidency, with an enviable popularity, and an honest fame which will endure. 

We are, however, far from regarding Mr. Van Buren as entirely free from faults, and faults which in these times cannot be without results. He strikes us as deficient in boldness and enthusiasm. He has great coolness, is firm, and will die in the last ditch sooner than abandon his avowed principals; but his better qualities rarely manifest themselves til he is put upon his defense; and, though they may spread a glory around his grave and secure him a hero’s fame, they generally come too late to retrieve the losses of his friends or to change the fortunes of the day. His policy is to wait, to trust to time, to “the sober second thought of the people”; in other words to follow public opinion and events, not to lead them. His is not the bold mastermind that seizes time by the forelock, that creates his own public, and bends it to his will. He may ride upon the storm, but he does not direct its course. Yet there is something almost sublime in the calmness, the composure, with which he suffers himself to be carried along, whither he apparently sees not. He is not deficient in mere intellect, and his political information is respectable. In ordinary times, when passion is asleep, and reason awake, he were not ill qualified to be the president of a free people. But in these revolutionary times, his qualities are not of the sort most in demand. He wants elevation, nobility of ideas, and warmth of heart. Sober reasoning, calm reflection, mere good sense are not now the sovereigns of the world. Men’s passions are aroused, their feelings are excited, and they are moved my appeals to theur sympathies rather than to their understandings. The see not clearly, but feel intensely; and they ask for a man to go before them who fears not the darkness, whose step falters not, and who can lend then a confidence not their own. Such a man Mr. Van Buren has not proved himself. One such man we had in Thomas Jefferson; another we had in Andrew Jackson; another- we shall find him in due time.

That the administration party has been defeated through its own faults rather than through the frauds, falsehoods, and misrepresentations of the opposing party, of which there have been enough, and more than enough, for even Beelzebub’s infinite satisfaction, we supposed it would not be difficult to show. But, what were the use in attempting to do it? It is a miserable disposition, that which delights to dwell on the blunders of friends, or which can bring itself to upbraid associates with the reverses which all must share in common. Defeat like the grave levels all distinctions, and hides all faults. If things had been different, they would have been different. This is the amount of all fault-finding with the past. Nit things were as they were, and the result is what it is, and there is the end of the matter, and no more need be said about it. It is not the temper of democracy to weep over past errors, or to turn around and scold her friends when she chances to meet repulse. Her face is ever towards the future, which alone is hers; and she labors to recruit her forces, and to stand ready for whatever may come. She knows that though she may be checked in her onward march for a moment, she cannot be driven back; and that though she may sometimes fail to win, she never loses. If her leaders managed badly yesterday and failed, she trusts that they will acquire wisdom from their mismanagement, and become able to conquer tomorrow. 

We regret, deeply regret, the ill success of the Democratic Party; but we have no reproaches to cast on friend or foe. We are as ready to engage again with those with whom we fought side by side yesterday, as we should have been, had we entirely approved, as we did not, their arrangements. In this we are not alone. We express the feelings of the great body of those, who, as friends of the constitution and equal rights, have struggled, with what skill and bravery were in them, to sustain the administration. We have been unsuccessful, but we have not lost our temper, nor are we disposed to run foul of one another. We have by a common fate become but the more endeared to each other. Personal animosities have subsided. The Democracy will hereafter be disturbed by no intestine diversions, by no personal rivalries; but will present to the enemies of liberty and social progress, an unbroken front, a closely knit body, animated by one and the same soul, and directed by one and the same will. They are now indeed a band of brothers, sworn to stand by one another in adversity, as they did not always in prosperity; and so long as one of them can stand, liberty shall not want a defender, nor social equality an advocate. 

For the present the Democracy will wait the movements of the new dynasty. They will assume not the attitude of opposition, but of watchfulness. If the Whig policy shall prove to be democratic, they will not oppose it, but give it their cordial support. But if it be at war with that which has been pursued by the administration for the last twelve years, as there is but too much ground to fear that it will, then it must count on an opposition, not factions, but calm, determined, uncompromising, whether successful or unsuccessful. The Whig party has come into power by pretending to be democratic; it has come in, to a considerable extent, unpledged, and is therefore free to adopt the democratic policy if it chooses; we must then wait its movements, and hold ourselves free to sustain or oppose as it shall prove itself democratic or not.

During this period of waiting, we must not, however, be idle. We must avail ourselves of the comparative repose, with which we are favored, to fix the basis of our creed, to consolidate our policy, and to prepare ourselves to take the field again, if we must take it again, with a perfect understanding of the objects for which we are to contend, and with as entire agreement as may be, concerning the methods by which we must proceed, and by which we may hope to win.

Two parties there are in this country, and two parties there always will be; a party in favor of property, whose leading object will be to facilitate the profitable investment of business capital, to make the government a mere instrument for facilitating trade; and a party in favor of man, whose leading object will be to secure the workingman a greater share of the proceeds of his labor, and to elevate labor and make it honorable. These two parties have existed from the formation of the federal government, and they will not cease to exist under the new dynasty. Whether the Whigs in their actual policy will ultimately prove themselves the first named party or the second, we shall not now attempt to determine. For our part, we shall always be found with the second, the party of the constitution, of equal rights, of the workingman, whatever may be the name by which it may be called, and whether it be in power or out of power.

This second named party is properly the party of the constitution, and of equal rights. It in reality comprises a large majority of the American population, and when it can be rallied, as it has not be effectually in the late contest, it is able to carry everything before it. The great aim of the friends of liberty, of social progress, and the practical realization of the principles incorporated into our free institutions, should be to rally this party, to unite in one body all who sympathize with it. This party has heretofore failed, because vast numbers of those, who properly belong to it, have not come to its aid. False issues have been made, and elections have not turned on the real matters in dispute. Hence this party, the true democratic party of the country, has been divided, and friend has, unhappily, fought against friend, and natural and irreconcilable enemies have fought in the same ranks side by side. This has created no little confusion, and caused all the disasters the democracy has experienced. We must study to remedy this evil, to make up the true issue, and collect all the democrats of the country under the same banner, and keep them on one and the same side.

This can be done only by falling back on first principles. The democracy is never moved by mere words, by mere shadows. It is grave, solemn, earnest. It demands realities. It asks for the substance. It supports no party because it bears this or that name, no individuals because they are called democrats. A party to gain its suffrages must be democratic; and men must be democrats, or it will not confide in them, or follow their guidance. It asks only what is just, and that is does ask. It asks for an open, straight-forward, honest policy. It has a great dislike to all maneuvering, to all crooked paths, to all underhanded methods of proceeding. It would take its ground openly and manfully, in the broad light of day, and maintain it by fair means, or not at all. It has also a great horror of half-way measures, measures which excite all the opposition of whole measures, and yet effect nothing when carried. The timid, trimming, compromising policy, so much insisted upon by fourth-rate politicians, finds no support in the instincts or the reason of the people. Democracy abhors it, and it can find supporters only among mere party leaders themselves. Democracy demands a bold policy; measures which amount to something; which reach far and wide; and will accomplish something worth making an effort for. Who will go to war, risk ease, wealth, life itself, when even victory secures no advantage? The leaders of the democratic party have erred on this point. They have talked finely, but they have done little else than talk. They have eulogized liberty, declaimed about equality, and spoken of the dignity of labor, but unhappily, they have kept too far in the abstract. They have proposed little that is tangible, palpable; and the people have felt that, if all which they propose were adopted, it would effect but a slight, a scarcely perceptible mitigation of the evils of our existing social state.

Some may say that our friends have failed to succeed even in the small measures they have proposed, and ask how then could they have succeeded in greater measures? It is simply because their measures have been small, and capable of realizing only a trifling good, that they have failed. They have failed not because they have attempted too much, but because they have attempted too little. They have proposed nothing big enough to fill the heart of the people, to enlist its affections, kindle its enthusiasm, and call forth its energy. The giant will not rouse himself to crush a fly. If you really mean to be true to the great principles of freedom and equality, if you really mean to ameliorate society, elevate the laborer, and make every man really a man, free and independent; then you must say so, and show by the measures you propose that you mean so. Show that you are in earnest, that you are contending for something, and that you have the nerve to contend for it effectually, and then you will inspire confidence, touch the nobility of human nature, the magnanimity of the people, and carry the masses in one solid phalanx with you. You must have the souls of heroes, if you wish to take the place of heroes, or reap their success. Nay, if you ask for heroic deeds from the people, you must give them a cause able to kindle the heroic spirit. If you have no inborn heroism, if you have no power to grasp the great, the noble; no courage to propose the bold and the daring; then stand aside, with your timid half-way measures, bowing, and cringing, and praying to be admitted; stand aside and let men, who have the souls of men, the minds and hearts of men, who fear nothing, who tremble, blench at nothing, save the mean, the wrong, the inefficient, let them take your places, and try their hand at conducting the democracy to victory.

The truth is, too many, who call themselves democrats, are democrats only in the abstract, only in pretty phrases, or high-sounding words, and flattering epithets. Propose anything really democratic, anything that is likely to result in making democracy something more than a splendid dream, and forthwith these sonorous democrats are frightened, they look pale, and begin to tremble for their own cushioned seats. Poor fellows! They are afraid they shall be disgigged, and thus lose their respectability. Such are not the men to lead on the democracy. Whoso loves father or mother, sister or brother, wife or children, nay, or his own life, more than democracy, is not worthy in these times to be her champion. Her cause can be promoted only by men who dare to live for her, or if need be die for her; who can joy even in exile, in the dungeon, or on the cross, at the prospect of her success.

Men love the brave spirit, the heroic soul, and they fall down and worship him who risks all that is dear to him in their cause. Why are men so attracted by military glory? Why has military prowess such power over the masses? Because men delight in war and bloodshed, in hewing and mangling the bodies of their brethren, in carrying widowhood to the wife, and childlessness to the mother? Nonsense. Men are not cruel. They delight not in scenes of carnage; they hear no music in the groans of the wounded and dying, the bereaved and the disconsolate. It is because they see courage, nobility, disinterestedness, a power in the warrior that raises him above himself, above all fear of danger, or death. It is because war reveals the brave, the heroic spirit. Here too is the reason why the people always prefer the military chieftain to the mere politician. They distrust the politician, because they believe him cool, calculating, crafty, selfish, cowardly, destitute of bravery and enthusiasm, as most politicians have been and are. The people care little for mere intellect. They have no faith in dry calculations, in the cool deductions of logic. Intellect to them is a god, only when it is accompanied by high moral qualities, nobleness of soul, generous emotion, warmth of affection, and a contempt of difficulties and dangers.

But, interposes one of our prudent politicians, you are all wrong. You ruin everything by going too fast. You must not outrun public sentiment! Seize the right, the true, the beautiful, the good, hold them up in their native simplicity and loveliness, and know that public sentiment is sure to be with you. The “ common people” will listen to you with open ears, eyes, and mouth. They will arm in your defense, declare you their king, and take the kingdom for you by storm. It is your want of confidence in the greatness and generosity of human nature, that ruins you; it is your fear that, if you trust the people with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, they, like a herd of swine, will turn and rend you, that makes you powerless, mean, and insignificant. Out upon you! If you are democrats dare trust the people, dare trust them with the truth, dare trust them with all that you believe necessary to their salvation. Ask not what they believe, what they will support. Be generous, be brave, be heroic, speak the truth and support the right, at the sacrifice of your lives if need be, and know that they then believe what you believe, and support what you support.

But, is there no danger of being rash, of attempting more than the people will bear? Miserable cowards, who boast that “discretion is the better part of valor,”

“That he who fights and runs away, may live to fight another day;”

We advise you to attempt nothing at all. If you have not confidence enough in the people to trust them with much, be assured that they will not trust you with little. True prudence is what you would call rashness. True prudence is never made up of timidity and selfishness, but of lofty daring and generous confidence.

This feeling that politicians have about the imprudence of attempting much, and the prudence of attempting little, arises from a mistaken notion of the true office of government. I nearly all ages and countries of the world, the office of government has been to impose burdens on the people, to force from the people a larger portion of their earnings, or to keep them quiet under an order of things from which the few alone profit. Hence the necessity of craft, of subtlety, secrecy, dissimulation on the part of the politician. It becomes necessary for him to proceed with great caution, to seem to be what he is not, to pretend on thing and to do another. Now if this be the office of government, the politicians are right.  If it be their object by the aid of government to ride the people, it is prudent for them to beware and not attempt too much at once. If the object be to impose burdens on the people, then your halfway measures, we admit, are the safest, and the only safe measures. You must not lay on too heavy a load at once, lest the animal rear up and hit you a kick, or lest you break the poor fellow’s back. But the real office of government is not to increase, but to lighten the load borne by the people. Your object should be to throw off the poor creature’s burden, and to let him go free, and graze at will on the mountain or in the valley.  If this be your object, as it should be, you must show the people that what you propose to throw off will really lighten their load, if you wish them to cooperate with you, or even to stand still while you proceed in your efforts. The people do not like to be mocked.  They will not thank you for removing an ounce from their burdens, while you leave them bowed down under the weight of tons. In politics, as in all things else, the old maxim holds good, : “nothing venture, nothing have.”

In order then to rally the democracy, and unite them all in a firm resolution to recover their rights, and to take the direction of the social and political affairs of the country, we must adopt a bold policy, and propose bold measures. We must show that the measures we propose will do something more than merely assuage the pain of the social wound, without healing it.  Palliatives will no longer answer our purpose. Mere expedients will be worse than useless. We must go to the bottom, and lay our foundation deep. We must build on ultimate, universal, and immutable right, and propose measures which will either destroy the social fabric entirely, or reconstruct it as it should be. We must be thorough; propose not what we think we can carry, but what we think we ought to carry; not what we in our wisdom may deem practicable, but what in the exercise of our better nature we deem just and desirable. We must not say, “such and such a thing is right, is desirable, but the people will not assent to it.”  Party leaders may not assent to it, but the people will.  Why should what appears to be your better nature as right and desirable, not appear the same to them? Have you a different nature from theirs? Propose, then, a bold and efficient policy; one which, if carried out, will realize the ideal which the wise and good are struggling after.

It is not our province, nor is it any man’s province, to say authoritatively what this policy must be; but it is our right and our duty, as it is the right and the duty of every man, to give out views of what it ought to be, and to use all the moral means in our power to determine what it shall be. We propose therefore in what follows to give to some extent our views in relation to the course which should be pursued, and the measures which should be adopted, by the friends of the constitution, and of equal rights, We shall speak of course for ourselves, but we shall also speak what we have good reasons to believe will be acceptable to the great body of the democracy. Our motive for speaking at this time is to contribute what we can to bring about a perfect agreement among all the believers in social progress, and to give to the social and political movement of our countrymen a salutary direction.

The first thing necessary to be determined is the end we are to seek. What is the end, which in our political movements we should have in view? Should we aim merely to keep things as they are? Should we be satisfied to go on as we have done for the last fifty years? Is it enough merely to maintain the forms of a free government, and to keep its administration in the hands of the Democratic Party? Ought we not rather to aim at some advance? Should we not regard our free government in the light of a means to an end? Should we not feel that it is our duty to use our democratic forms of government as instruments in our hands for working out a moral and social good? Governments, unless we have greatly erred, are worth nothing in themselves, are never to be supported for their own sake, as ends. They are valuable, they command our support, only as means, only for the use we can make of them. Can we make no better use of government than we have heretofore done? Can we not direct it to a higher end? Indeed is there not an end which we should always seek, towards which we should direct all governmental measures and action? What is this end?

We have answered this question more than once. We contend that the mission of this country is to emancipate the proletary, to ennoble labor, raise up the laboring classes, and make every man really free and independent proprietor, possessing enough of the goods of this world, to be able by his own moderate industry to provide for the wants of his body; and under the spiritual relation, that he be free to develop harmoniously all his faculties, and have access to the highest culture the community can furnish. We demand for every man wealth to start with in life sufficient, if he makes proper use of it, for him to hold, so far as wealth gives distinction, an equal rank with any other man in the community. In a word we demand a state of society in which every man’s rank shall be measured by his capacities, intelligence, and virtues and where the intelligence and virtues shall be as nearly equal as the diversities of men’s natural aptitudes will admit. There must not be a learned class and an unlearned, a cultivated class and an uncultivated, a refined class and a vulgar, a wealthy class and a poor. There shall not be one class owning all the funds, and another performing all the labor of production. There shall be no division of society into workingmen and idlers, employers and operatives. There shall be workingmen, but no proletaries; for we would have all men work each on his own capital, associated or not associated, on equal terms with his brother. This is the end we aim at; this is the mission of this country, and to this should all the measures of government directly or indirectly tend.

Now we are far from supposing that this end can or will be realized in a day. We see as clearly as any of our friends, that its realization is far distant in the future. Not indeed because the great mass of the people are not prepared for it; but because the leaders of parties are in no haste to reach it, and for the most part want courage to attempt it.  But let this be as it may; the end we have designated we should keep ever in view, and the wisdom or unwisdom of every political or legislative measure should be tested by its tendency to carry us towards it, or to remove us from it.  Government is of no value to us, except so far as we can use it for the realization of this end.

We say here, in order to prevent misconception, that we are far from regarding government as the only means in our power for realizing the end we have proposed. Our faith in government is not unbounded. Government has no wisdom beyond the wisdom of society, and it can in this country be nothing more than the agent of society for embodying, for executing its will.  It is not government that gives the law to society; but society that gives the law to government. Unquestionably our chief concern is with society, and our main endeavor should be to create a true public opinion, and that exaltation of the public sentiment which will carry society with resistless force towards the completion of its destiny. This is to be done by moral, religious, and intellectual influences. These influences are then of course more essential than governmental action. These determine the action of society, and the end towards which it shall act.

But still we are far from regarding government, as someone asserts, as “at best a necessary evil.” We look upon man both as an individual and as a member of society; and his perfection requires both individual action and social. These are some things which he can do and must do alone by himself; there are others equally necessary to be done, which can be done and must be done by society only. Man must act collectively as well as individually. Now his collective action is the action of society, that is, government. If, then, we mean society shall do anything, if we recognize in any shape the necessity of associated action, we must have government. If, then, we mean society shall do anything, if we recognize in any shape the necessity of associated action, we must have government. We accept it then not only as necessary but as a great good. We would indeed leave a large space to the individual, but we would not leave him entirely alone. The laissez-faire doctrine, so much in vogue with a certain class of politicians, does not meet our approbation. Men require to be governed, and coercion of some sort is indispensable. They need to be combined into a whole, and directed towards a common end, which shall be for the common good of all, and the special good of each. Hence it is that we recognize, not absolute power, but a certain power in society to control the action of her members, and to force them into a qualified submission of her will.  This power is founded in right, and constitutes the legitimate basis of government. We owe to society a certain obedience, and should be loyal to her whenever she steps not beyond her province.

We hold that society has the right to adopt such measures as are likely to be for the common good of each, even against the will of individuals; nay, more, she is bound to adopt such measures at the earliest practicable moment, let the active opposition to her proceedings be what it may. If this were not so, no social progress could be made; the best and most salutary reforms could be defeated by the obstinacy, the pride, the ignorance, the prejudice, or the interested views of some half-a-dozen individuals. The whole race might be compelled to linger on intolerable wretchedness, because a few anti-social spirits should fancy their interest was promoted by it. This will not do. Throw indeed a bulwark of sanctity around the individual, determine what are the rights of the individual, suffer society never to encroach upon them; but while you take care not to sacrifice one to all, take care also not to sacrifice all to one. The rights of the individual are sacred, and so are the rights of society.

Government we regard as the agent of society, the instrument by means of which society works. Our duty as individuals is to use our best influences to induce society to use this instrument wisely, effectively, and for accomplishment of the right end. The mission of government, taken as the executive agency of society, is not merely negative. It is more than to prevent one man or one nation from encroaching on the rights of another. Its duty is positive still more than it is negative. Its business is to protect, to guide, to control, and by combining the many into one body to effect a good, which must forever transcend the reach of mere individual effort.

It is often said that men are born equal, that all men are equal by nature. This, if it have reference to their rights, or if it mean that so far forth as they are men, partakers of a common nature, they are equal, we admit it; but in almost every other possible sense we deny it. Men, regarded as individuals, are by nature unequal. Some are healthy and others are sickly, some are strong and others are weak, some are cunning and others are simple, some have bold comprehensive minds, others timid, feeble intellects, hardly capable of putting two ideas together. Now leave all these individuals free to act according to their natural capacities, and what must be the result? A state of gross inequality? All the advantages of society will be monopolized by the strong and cunning, who will not fail to throw all its burdens upon the weak and less gifted. But, even admitting that government should prevent all encroachment upon the rights of these last, we should not be satisfied. The strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak. Government should step in and maintain between all the members of society that equality, so far as it may be done, which does not exist among men by nature. Government is mainly necessary in consequence of men’s natural inequality, the perpetual tendency of which is to lead to gross social inequality, and its mission is to introduce and maintain an equality which does not exist by nature. Its mission is two-fold. On the one hand, its duty is to protect the rights of individuals, on the other, to force individuals to perform their duties towards one another.  Government is unquestionably restricted to a limited sphere of action; but within that sphere we hold that it is imperative, and may, nay, is bound to enforce its commands.

We have dwelt the longer on this point, because just at present the legitimacy of all governments is questioned by a respectable class of reformers, who condemn all political action, and look upon him who hopes to accomplish any good by the agency of government, as either a very weak or a very base-minded man; and because too many of our leading democrats are in the habit of counting on only the negative agency of government. Give us, say these last, an open field and fair play, and individual skill and enterprise will do the rest. We think not. Society as well as the individual in the progress of civilization has a great work to perform, a positive as well as a negative work; and we shall find that society most often needs perform her work, as the indispensable condition of the individual’s performing his.

Assuming then that society through government has a work to perform, a mission to fulfill, an end to seek, and that this end is what we have stated it to be; we must bear in mind that this work, in this country, is to be performed by the state governments, and not by the federal government. The federal government is neither a democratic nor an anti-democratic government, and was instituted for the purpose of carrying out neither the democratic nor the aristocratic principle.  The constituents of that government are communities, not individuals, and it has no concern with the relations of individuals with one another. Its business is solely with free and independent, but associated communities, and its duties remain precisely the same, whether these communities be internally constituted according to the democratic principle, or the aristocratic. There are certain matters which concern all the states alike, such as their relations with foreigners, with the Indian tribes, and with one another, the general welfare and common defense of the whole. These matters and these only come within the province of the federal government.

The first business of the American statesman is always to distinguish accurately between what he may attempt by the federal government, and what must be looked for from the state government alone. Much mischief has already arisen from not having distinguished with sufficient care between the respective provinces of the two governments. Democracy and aristocracy have both attempted to carry out their respective principles by means of the federal government; and hence it is we talk of democracy and aristocracy in relation to that government, when these terms, properly speaking, have no connection with it, and can apply only to the state governments. 

It is unquestionably for the interests of democracy that the federal government should be kept within its province; so far democracy may apply to a party in connection with it. It is also for the interest of the anti-democratic states, in which slavery is tolerated, to keep faithful to the constitution, for slavery rests on state legislation, and might be endangered if state rights were abandoned. These states have the same interest in regard to the federal government, that the democracy have, and will in general be found acting with them. They constitute the same party in relation to the general government; but not in relation to that government by any means a democratic party. It is a party made up of democrats and anti-democrats. It is properly a constitutional party, a state rights party, and so should it be called. 

As a party of the Union, we democrats of the North must support the federal constitution. We must raise the state rights flag, or we shall not be able to maintain an open field, for the carrying out of our democratic principles, which are to be carried out solely by the agency of the state governments. In regard to the Union, then, our policy is simple. It is to maintain the constitution, and resist all efforts of the federal government to enlarge, directly or indirectly, its powers at the expense of the states. As a party of the Union, we must not call ourselves democrats or aristocrats, but strict constructionists, constitutionalists. In acting under this relation we may have often to act with those who do not sympathize with our democratic hopes and tendencies. No matter. Are they constitutionalists? Are the opposed to enlarging the powers of the federal government? Do they go for the independency of the states? Then we and they are, as a party of the Union, of the same party, although in the states themselves we may be of opposite parties.  It is not necessary that a man should be a democrat, or have any democratic sympathies, in order to be a constitutionalist. 

 The truth is, it is not the aristocracy of the country that has given to the federal government its dangerous direction. But the democracy, through the mistaken notion, that it was by that government it was to realize its hopes. The South which, though liberal and chivalrous, is by no means democratic, has been the main supporter of the constitution. The old Federal party of New England, during the administration of Jefferson and that of the Madison, labored indefatigably to check the federal government, and to restrict it to as narrow a sphere as possible. Massachusetts during the war carried her state rights doctrines to the utmost verge of treason to the Union, and the Hartford Convention solemnly proclaimed very nearly the doctrine subsequently contended for by South Carolina. If we are not much mistaken, the policy, which has so enlarged the sphere of the federal government, was forced upon it by the leading democratic states. The worst feature of this policy is the tariff. But the tariff has been uniformly opposed by the southern states, and a majority of the delegation in congress from the New England states. No tariff has ever received a majority of the votes in New England, and none, not even the new tariff act, commonly called the compromise act, of 1832, has ever received a majority of the votes of the southern delegation. The tariff policy has been from the first sustained by the middle and western states which has always gone for it by large majorities. The middle and western states we may certainly call the democratic states of the Union. The southern states are not democratic, for they tolerate slavery, and New England we believe has been the principle defender of the anti-democratic doctrines of the old Federal party. 

The Federalists, no doubt, wished for a consolidated republic, some few of them perhaps for a consolidated monarchy. But the South, in consequence of her peculiar domestic institutions, contended for state rights; for she saw at once, that if all the states should be subjected to the supremacy of a central government, her peculiar institutions would be obliged to give way before the strong anti-slavery feeling of the middle and eastern states. The small states, too, which by no means wished to be swallowed up in the large ones, being equally represented with the large states in the convention, were able to resist effectually the centralizationists, and to preserve to the states, their sovereignty. The Federalists were defeated. They attempted under Washington, and especially under the elder Adams, to obtain by construction and administrative measures what had been denied them in the convention. But after the election of Mr. Jefferson, and especially his reelection, the policy of the New England Federalists, to say the least, was almost wholly changed. They turned themselves to the state governments, and sought to lessen the importance of the federal government. This was the policy of Otis and his associates. From the reelection of Mr. Jefferson to the election of John Quincy Adams, we may say to the election of Andrew Jackson, the consolidation party were not the Federalists, but the Republicans. The middle and western states had the preponderating influence, and the policy of New York and Pennsylvania has been almost from the first that of the general government. 

From this we infer that it by no means follows that because a man is a democrat he is not a consolidationist, or that because he is an aristocrat, he cannot be a constitutionalist. The larger states will always have a leaning towards consolidation; and when we look at the great states of the West, and see the rapidity with which they become filled with an active and energetic population, the prospects of the constitutionalists do not appear the brightest. The natural tendencies of all these states will be to consolidation, because being the most powerful, they fancy that they will be able wield the federal government in their own favor.

One thing is now certain, that the increase of the powers of the federal government is unfavorable to the growth of democracy. The action of that government, the moment it steps beyond its constitutional limits, is to favor business at the expense of labor, and to benefit the capitalist instead of the operative. Hence, it follows that every democrat ought to be a constitutionalist. The elements, which go naturally to form the constitutional party, are then, first, the small states, which in a consolidated government would become insignificant; second, the slave-holding states, which have no security for their peculiar institutions but in upholding state sovereignty; and third, the democracy, the real friends of equal rights.

Hitherto the democracy of the middle and western states have not been constitutionalists, from the mistaken notion that it was through the federal government, and not the state governments, that they were to carry out their principles. They must now look and see that the more they strengthen that government, as it can act on them only through its measures touching trade, and the currency, through its general financial operations, the more power they will throw into the hands of the capitalists and business men of the country, and consequently the greater the burdens they will impose on the laborer. If our friends in those states will hold up this view, if they will present this consideration as they may, there is some hope that even in them they will be able to rally the democracy around the standard of the constitution.

The smaller states must also be made to see that it is for their interest to resist the tendency to consolidation, that their political existence depends on their supporting the constitution. This is by no means difficult to show, and consequently it will not be difficult to rally them under the flag of state rights. The slave-holding states have, from the nature of their state institutions, a strong interest in adhering to the constitution. If they do, we are safe, touching the Union. 

We call then for a constitutional party, which shall be composed of the smaller states, the slave-holding states, and of the real democracy of the country, and by democracy we now mean the real friends of equal rights and social progress. If these all unite, as they may, on the broad platform of the constitution, they will constitute a majority in the Union, and will be able to resist effectually the tendency to consolidation. But without the strictest union, touching all questions coming under the cognizance of the general government, of these three elements, the consolidationists will carry the day, and the consequences will be most disastrous to the whole country, and fatal to the cause of liberty.

As a party of the Union, we call upon the three elements we have enumerated to unite on the ground of the constitution, and under the flag of state rights. To the South we say, in the name of the northern democracy, unite with us, to prevent the northern capitalists and business men of the middle and western states from encroaching on the constitution, and we will resist all efforts of the abolitionists to reach the question of slavery through the action of the federal government. Slavery we cannot advocate, for we can see no affinity between slavery and democracy. We shall undoubtedly speak out unquestioned, and unobstructed, in favor of universal freedom to universal man. But if you will be faithful to the constitution, we also will be faithful to it, and adopt no methods, countenance no methods, of interfering with slavery in your dominions, which we might not legally adopt in regard to it in the dominions, which we might not legally adopt in regard to it in the dominions of England or France. On this ground, and on these conditions, we meet you. But if you desert us, if you side with the business population of the other sections of the country, and aid them in establishing a national bank, in laying a protective tariff, and assuming directly or indirectly then state debts, all of which measures are unauthorized by the constitution, you may rest assured that the democracy in one solid phalanx will go against your institutions. If no constitutional barriers will hold you back, none will hold them back. They feel sore towards you now. They have defended you firmly, sacrificed much for the constitution in which you had as much at stake as they; but they feel that you have been neither true to them nor to yourselves. This is a dangerous feeling for them to indulge, and unless you go en masse for the constitution, you must not be surprised if they go en masse against slavery. We, for ourselves, shall recommend no such method of retaliation; nay, we shall do all in our power to prevent it. But we know enough of human nature, to know that no power on earth could succeed in preventing it. You must not think that we defend slavery on principle, that we love the institution. There is not a democrat North of Mason and Dixon’s line, that does not loathe it, and believe it a crime against humanity. We refrain from meddling with it, simply because it is a matter which concerns states of which we are not citizens, because we can reach it by no more interested at present in preserving the constitution, in maintaining state rights, than in attempting the doubtful good of emancipating the slave, without making any provision for him after his fetters have been knocked off. But when the constitution is once broken down, when it has become a dead letter, and the federal government has become through the triumph of the money power a consolidated government, the paramount and only efficient government of the country, what then is to hold us back? What then will avail the exhortations, the expostulations of men who have all long been preaching up equal rights?

 The consolidationists will aim at three measures. They will seek to establish a national bank, to impose a protective tariff, and to assume the state debts, by distributing the proceeds of the public lands, as they will term it, but the surplus revenue, as we term it, among the states. In other words they will raise by high taxes a surplus revenue, which surplus they will distribute among the states to enable the states to pay their debts, or at least sustain their credit. Here is their policy.

Now this policy the friends of the constitution must resist. Whether the Whig attempt these measures, as a party, or not, we pretend not to determine. But that they will be attempted by a large and powerful party, we hold to be beyond a doubt. These measures are all unconstitutional. They must then be resisted, firmly, successfully resisted, or the Union is destroyed. Look to it then, the South, look to it then, small states of the Union, look to it, democrats, that ye be not any of you seduced into their support. 

We have stated what must be the principle elements of the constitutionalists. We now say that in the present crisis their main efforts must be directed to defeating these three measures. This is our principle work. We must maintain the independent treasury, we must support free trade, afford no countenance to a national bank, suffer the federal government to form no connection directly or indirectly with the paper money system, keep down the revenues to the wants of the government, and leave the states to redeem their own bonds. 

This for the present, must be the policy of the friends of the constitution. And to this must be added, as soon as may be, to other measures of a less negative character; one a disposition of the public lands, according to some plan similar to the one recommended by Mr. Calhoun; the other a change in the mode of taxation, from the present system of indirect taxation to that of direct taxation. These two measures are loudly called for, and will be found absolutely necessary, if we mean to maintain a federative government, and public morality. They are measures of some import, and they will be found to reach far. We shall avail ourselves of an early opportunity to discuss them at length; at present we can only indicate them, and give it as our opinion, that they must make up an integral part of the policy of that party which shall rally round the flag of the Union, and seek to preserve the constitution in its purity and force.

Will the constitutionalists, by adopting the policy here indicated, be able to succeed? Will they command a majority throughout the Union? We know not, ask not. By adopting this policy and contending for it in an open, manly manner, with earnestness and solemn intent, they will deserve success; they will be on the side of justice, in the right; and it is better to be defeated with the right than to triumph with the wrong. We should rarely trouble ourselves with the question of success; if we can only be sure that we have found out the right, and done our best to sustain it, we may leave results with a calm confidence to Him to whom they belong.

We, however, readily admit that success will not be obtained without an effort. Apparently the consolidationists, the representatives of the money power, have now possession of the government; and we do not fancy that they will be dislodged without a long and severe struggle. As yet, history, so far as we are acquainted, presents no instance of  political contest, in which man has remained the victor over property. Sometimes commercial capital has triumphed over landed capital, plebeian wealth over patrician wealth; but simple naked humanity over wealth itself, never. If we succeed now it will be the first time in the history of civilization.  Nevertheless, we are not without hope. We believe that the interests of our country are so diverse, that man in this contest will not be utterly naked; but that the influence of a considerable portion of the capital of the country may be, after all, on his side. That we must struggle hard, is no objection. In these dull times, it is well to have something to struggle for; otherwise we should remain children always, and never know the virtue there is in manhood. A cause is not desperate because it cannot be won without difficulty, without effort, without sacrifice. Human nature loves the effort, pants for the struggle, as the hart for the water brooks, and joys in the sacrifice. It asks always for an occasion to display its power to do, to dare, to suffer, to prove that it old heroic energy is not exhausted. We have great faith in the heroism of human nature, little in its selfishness. The victory which demands sacrifice is easier won, than that to which interest alone prompts. Take your stand openly and truly on the side of God, Truth, Justice, Man, and you carry all hearts with you; and the greater the opposition you have to encounter, the more enthusiasm shall you enlist in your favor. Heaven is stronger than hell, and God is a better captain than the devil.

Thus far we have spoken of the policy to be pursued by the friends of the federal constitution, the policy necessary to preserve the federative character of the Union, the independency of the states, and an open field for the friends of equal rights to adopt within their respective states such measures as they shall judge most likely to emancipate the proletary, ennoble labor, and realize equity in our social relations as well as in our political relations. We turn now to the states, to the policy which should be adopted by the true friends of democracy. 

The democratic party, in its character of a democratic party, can properly in this country be only a state party, a party restricted in its operations to a single state. Doubtless the action of the democracy of one state will have no little influence on that of another, and in general the policy which the democracy may adopt in one state is that which ought to be adopted in all the states; but we in Massachusetts, for instance, can have no direct action on the policy pursued by other states, any more than the policy pursued by foreign nations. Under the relation we are now considering them, they are foreign nations to one another, free, sovereign, independent states, in no sense responsible one to another. We may demand of all the states that they adhere to the constitution, and adopt through the federal government the policy we have decided to be constitutional; for in this sense they are a single body politic; but we can demand only of the citizens of our own state a democratic policy. In the bosom of our own state, we may urge the most radical democracy, and as democrats we are guilty, if we do not; but we cannot urge it anywhere else. As democrats then we have nothing to do with the internal policy of other states, nor are we accountable for the state policy pursued in the other states by those with whom we act on questions of general policy. We know them only as a federal party, not as a state party. 

We are particular in marking this distinction between a federal party and a state party, between constitutionalists and democrats, because it is generally overlooked, and because the consequences of overlooking it are none of the best. At present the states are regarded by the great body of the people as mere departments, are prefectures, of one grand consolidated republic. Few comparatively look upon the federal government and the state governments as coordinate governments. The federal government is supreme. Federal politics absorb everything; and so little is the true nature of the Union understood, that we presume not a few of our readers will fancy that, when we speak of federal politics, we are talking of the views and dogmas of the old Federal party, represented by its great leader Alexander Hamilton. Rarely will it occur to them that with us a man maybe, nay should be, both Federalist and a democrat, a Federalist touching the Union, a Democrat touching the states. But let this pass. The state counts for nothing in our political contest. In the bosom of the states themselves, of the towns and parishes even, federal politics decide everything. A man’s fitness to be a parish priest, a selectman, a pathmaster, is determined among us mainly by his views of federal politics. Rarely does the election of a state, county, or town office, in the northern or middle states, turn on local politics. Politicians calculate the votes of a state for president by its votes for town officers, supervisors, school committee men, and constables.

Nor is this all. We urge sometimes the good citizens of our state to vote for a certain candidate for president of the United States, because we are in favor of administering the government of the state economically, or because we are or are not in favor of a certain railroad or bridge, or of a certain police regulation. And then we urge the same citizen to vote for candidates for state officers, because they are in favor of our presidential candidate, or our views of federal policy. Admirable logic! Then again, we hold the members of a given party in one state responsible for the measures pursued by members of the same party in other states in regard to the action of their state government. We are not allowed to be democratic in one state, because those who agree with us in another state, on general politics, are anti-democratic in the bosom of their own state. The consequences of this are bad.

The administration party for instance, as a federal party, has been in the main constitutional. Its measures have been just and proper; and it has deserved the support of all the friends of the constitution. But in the bosom of the states themselves in regard to state legislation, it has been as anti-democratic as the Whigs themselves; and, perhaps, to this fact, more than to any other, should be attributed its late disastrous defeat. It has called the Whigs the bank party, and urged us to oppose them on that ground; but has it, on the other hand, been an anti- bank party?  It has condemned the Whigs, for advocating paper money, but has it ever opposed paper money? It has opposed a United States bank; but on the broad ground of opposition to a paper currency? Has it not contended for state banks as strenuously, if not openly, as have the Whigs? What, then, has availed its opposition to a national bank? Aside from certain constitutional and political reasons, what arguments can you bring against a national bank? Nay, once admit the policy of paper circulation, and it is questionable whether you are not unwise in opposing a national bank. If the states are to be suffered to issue, either directly or indirectly, through institutions of their own creating, a paper currency like the one we now have, it may be contended with justice, that a national bank is needed; nay, all but indispensable. Nothing can be worse that as many different currencies as there are states and as many different currencies there will be, if the currency be left to state legislation. A principle reason for desiring a union of the states was, that we might have a currency which should not vary with each state, but be of uniform value throughout all the states. The people, in order to secure this end, placed the whole subject of the currency under the control of the federal government. If we have decided that our currency shall be paper, assuredly it should come under the control of the federal government. The interests of trade, nay, of industry, of labor, imperiously demand that the currency of Massachusetts and of Mississippi should be of the same value. Does anybody believe this can be the case, so long as our currency is paper, and this paper is issued by state institutions, and subject to the action of the state legislatures? It may be truly asserted, that a national bank cannot, under any circumstances, do much to remedy the evil; but there is no question but it can, to some degree, mitigate it. Its own notes will pass current , at the same value, throughout the Union, and thus afford a medium of exchange between the remote sections.

Now the administration party has opposed the United States bank, without opposing paper money; it has sustained the paper money policy, while it has opposed the only measure which can possibly render that policy in any degree tolerable. This has been its error. If you have a paper currency, you are bound to place it under the control of the federal government, by subjecting it to the direct or indirect action of that government. But the administration party has said, no, we will retain a paper currency for the furnishing of which the federal government was created? Assuming that a paper currency is to be the currency of the country, Mr. Webster’s arguments on this point are unanswerable, and have been so considered by a majority of the people of the United States.

The administration party in all the states, unless we except Massachusetts, has been as decidedly in favor of paper money as the Whig party. There is nothing against it in any of the messages of Andrew Jackson or Martin Van Buren; Senators Buchanan, Grundy, and King have taken unwearied pains to show that they are in favor of state banks, and what they call a mixed currency. Mr. Benton, the great antagonist of the bank, has never said a syllable, as we can find, against paper money. The only opposition we have seen to the policy, in either branch of congress, has come from Mr. Calhoun and some of his state rights friends. 

Leaving congress and coming into the states, we find the administration party, as a state party, nowhere opposing paper money. In Pennsylvania, the governor, a friend of the administration, is also a friend of the banks; and the legislature which chartered the United States Bank of Pennsylvania, contained a majority of members friendly to Mr. Van Buren; in Ohio, the governor, elected by the administration party, in his message to the legislature last winter, sustained, on principle, at great length, and not without ability, the policy of paper money. Michigan has been all but ruined by banks, created while it was an administration state; Mississippi and Alabama have feared not much better, to say nothing of Illinois and Louisiana. The banking system of New York is a creation of the same party, and the whole influence of the New York banks was brought to bear against a national bank, and in favor of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, till the explosion of the deposit system. In our own state, no man could maintain, prior to 1837, his standing in the administration party, if he were known to be opposed to paper money, and in favor of an exclusively metallic currency. We had our democratic banks, and the leading men of the party seem to hold that banks were good things, providing they were managed by members of the democratic party. In fact, in no state of the Union, had the administration party assumed the character of an anti-paper-money party. Individuals there may have been, who, sub rosa would tell you that they were inclined to the belief, that we must return to a metallic currency, but the opposition to paper money has been purely an individual, and not a party opposition. 

Several other matters, which have been made objections to the Whigs, have also been encouraged by the administration party. This party has favored state loans, and aided and contracting those ruinous state debts, of which it now complains so much. The administration states have plunged as deeply into debt, to say the least, as the Whig states. Witness New York, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, Alabama, Illinois. Massachusetts, a thorough-going Whig state, has by no means been so rash; and furthermore, the policy of lending the credit of this commonwealth to corporations has not been a purely Whig measure. It has been sustained by some of our most influential administration men. 

Now, as the confusion of state and federal politics has made the party, as a federal party, responsible for its action, as a state party, these facts have given it the appearance of gross inconsistency. As a state party, it has had nothing to distinguish it from the Whig party, unless it be professing more and aiming at less. As a federal party, it has been tried not by the constitution, but by its character as a state party. Its federal policy, it has been seen, retaining its state policy, would be ruinous to trade, to business, and no advantage to labor. It, therefore, has had nothing to recommend it, and the people have decided against it. The people have not decided in favor of paper money, but simply, that, if we have paper money, it shall not be left to the contradictory policy of state legislatures, but be under control of the federal government. The federal policy and the state policy of the party have not been harmonious, but parts of opposite systems. This has lost the party. The people are excellent logicians, great advocates for consistency, and require you always to be systematic, in whatever you propose. You cannot make them support one system in relation to one subject, and another system in relation to another subject. They demand bank or no bank; a paper currency of the best character the country can furnish, or a metallic currency. They will not lean toward a metallic currency for the purpose of overthrowing a national bank, and toward a paper currency for the purpose of sustaining state banks. They cannot understand why the arguments which bear in favor of or against the one, do not bear equally in favor of or against the other.

The difficulty we have here pointed out can be removed under our complex system of government, only by dissevering, as much as may be, the connection which has heretofore existed between the politics of the state, and the politics of the Union, and by making a man’s views on federal politics no criterion of his merits on questions of state politics. The doctrine of state rights will hardly be maintained till we have done this. The tendency to consolidation, most to be feared, is not in the action of the federal government, but in the conduct and sentiments of parties. 

Keeping in view the distinction we have designated, we may speak on state policy, without committing in the least the friends of the constitution in other states, whose views are different from our own. We hold them not responsible for the policy we advocate for our own state, and they must not hold us responsible for the policy they may choose to advocate. In the bosom of the several states, we are citizens of independent nations, in no sense accountable to one another.

In coming to the individual state, we can be at no loss to discover the policy marked out for the democracy. The first question claiming our attention is undoubtedly that of the currency. This in itself is a miserable question, and one likes not to meddle with it; and yet its solution must be sought. If wise men neglect it, it will fall into the hands of fools, who will make bad work with it. We cannot blink it out of sight; we must meet it, and dispose of it. What disposition shall we make of it? 

In the first place we assume it as a settled point, that the control of the currency, so far as it falls under the action of government, is conceded by the states to the Union. The people of the United States wished by the Union, to create for the citizens of all the states the same facilities of trade and business intercourse with one another, which they would have had, if they had all been citizens of one and the same state. They had also experienced great difficulties from policies pursued by the several states with regard to the currency. The states, each according to its own caprice, made what it pleased a legal tender for the payment of debts, and emitted its bills of credit almost without limit The currency therefore was constantly fluctuating, and varied in value as you passed from one state to another. The consequences of this on trade need not be told. The debts due from the citizens of one state to those of another, were of uncertain value; and when collected must be collected in a currency from which little or nothing could be realized, that the creditor could use in his own state, or at any point out of the state to which the debtor belonged.

The evils thus experienced the states sought to remedy, first, by surrendering the control of the currency to the federal government. By this they hoped to secure the same currency for all the states, a currency of the same value in every section of the Union. Secondly, to avoid the ruinous fluctuations of the currency, and to prevent the states from substituting any other currency than that of the Union, the states gave to the federal government no power to establish any other currency than that of gold and silver, and denied to themselves the right to create another, or to make anything else a legal tender for the payment of debts.

From these facts we infer, first, that under our present constitution, the subject of the currency is surrendered entirely to the federal government; and second, that the federal government has no right to establish any other than a hard money currency.

Now, under our present banking system, we have virtually, if not literally, a paper currency; and this currency is furnished by the states, and not by the general government; and it is not only subject to ruinous fluctuations, but is of very unequal values, the currency of one section of the Union being at times five, ten, fifteen, and even twenty percent better than that of another. Under the state bank system, we have then a reproduction of the precise evils, against which the framers of the constitution intended to guard.  The introduction of another than a hard money currency is permitted, and the duty of furnishing the currency is resumed by the states.

In this case, of two things one; either the federal government must assume the control of these state banks, and regulate their issues by means of a grand bank of its own, or in some other way; or these banks must be given up. Given a paper money currency as the policy of the country, we agree with Mr. Webster, that it should either be furnished, or, what is the same thing, regulated by the federal government. But under the constitution the federal government has no power to authorize, or to recognize in any way or shape anything like a paper currency. The only currency known to it is that of gold and silver. A national bank, or the furnishing of a paper currency by the federal government is then out of the question if we mean to retain the constitution. Besides, the establishment of a national bank would consolidate the money power, and give to the federal government a power it was never intended to have, a power which would make it the only efficient government of the country, enable it to swallow up the states, and with them the liberties of the individual citizen. A paper currency furnished by, the federal government, then, must not be thought of. But the states have no right to furnish a currency at  all. They have surrendered that right.  Then they have no right to create banks with the power to furnish it. Then he state banks, so far as they are banks of issue, are really, if not technically, unconstitutional, and therefore should cease to exist.

There is then no course for the democracy to take, but either to consent to a national bank, or to abandon state banks. The first they will not do, and ought not do. Then they must do the latter. Then, they must take their stand openly, decidedly, and at once, against the state banks, so far as they are authorized to issue their notes as a circulation. In other words, the democracy must take its stand against paper money, and against all institutions created for furnishing it. They must go for an exclusively metallic currency. Have they the nerve for this? The people have; but whether politicians have or have not, remains to be seen. But if they have not, they may as well surrender at once to the enemies of the democracy, and no longer keep up even a show of opposition.

Men on ‘Change will no doubt smile at our simplicity in demanding a purely metallic currency, and tell us such a currency is impracticable, and undesirable; but in return we can assure them that we rarely go on ‘Change to learn either democracy or political economy. The men who congregate there, are not usually the men whom God calls to enlighten the nations. They may understand the routine of business, but of the principles which lie at the bottom of their practice, their bearing on public morals and public prosperity, they know in general nothing. They are so busy in gathering up the acorns lying on the ground that they have no time to cast their eyes up to the branches from which they have fallen, much less to investigate the laws by which they have been produced. If they were wise enough to afford valuable instructions on the currency, they were not foolish enough to encourage the growth of the system they now contend for.

We may be told that there is not gold and silver enough in the world to do business with, that is now done. Very well; then do less business, and, perhaps, the world will be no worse off.  But this pretense is shallow, and not worth refuting. The real objection is not what our business men allege. The difficulty is not that there is too little gold and silver in the world, but too little in their pockets. Increase the amount in the world a thousand fold, and their embarrassments would remain undiminished. Nor is this all. The use of paper does by no means supply the place of a metallic medium. The furnishing of paper money is a mere business transaction, requiring in the last analysis and absorbing in fact as much gold and silver as any other kind of business to an equal amount. The paper currency is not ultimate, and ends no transaction. It serves merely to defer the time of settlement; but it can pay no balances. The payment of balances, for which alone money is needed in the transaction of business, must be paid, if paid at all, in gold and silver, in like manner as if no paper had been used; with this difference only, that these balances are rated according to the paper standard, and consequently require a larger amount of gold and silver to extinguish them, than would have been requisite, had gold and silver constituted the currency.

The difficulty, which our business men seek to obviate by paper money, is by no means a recondite one. They wish to buy and sell, and amass by the operation a fortune. But they have no money, with which to make their purchases, and no property which they can exchange for money. They have simply the faculty for buying and selling. They would buy and ship to England a cargo of cotton, and not pay the planter for it till it is sold in England and the returns realized. The merchant’s means of payment must be obtained by the sale of the cotton purchased. What he wants, then, is credit. This credit , for various reasons, the planter will not give him. His simple course, then, is, to go to the capitalist, or to the bank, and borrow the means of paying the planter. It is well for him to obtain this loan, and no harm and no harm to the community. Credits to this extent are needed, and must be had, unless we would leave the whole business transactions of the world to a few moneyed men, a thing by no means desirable.

Banks are unquestionably, in this view of the case, necessary, and worthy of encouragement. If the business man can obtain the loan he asks for, it is an advantage to business, and to labor, for labor in certain respects has interests in common with business. A ready market for the products of labor is as of as much importance to the laborer, as to the trader. In order to command this market, for the products of labor of any one country, it is necessary to open to them the markets of the world. And to do this requires an energy, an enterprise on the part of business men, which can rarely be looked for, except in young men, who have their fortunes to make. Facilities to these should unquestionably be extended, and for this banks, private or public, are necessary,

The democracy, then, should not object to credit, nor to banks. We are willing the merchant should obtain a loan, and purchase his cargo of cotton, and not cancel his loan till the sale of the cotton has furnished him the means. All this can be assented to without difficulty. We would assign no limits to the credit he or others may obtain, but the means of those who grant it. So long as a bank loans only its actual capital or real capital in its possessions, we utter no complaint. Because then the planter is actually paid for his cotton, and the losses, if any, fall on the speculator and the bank, where they ought to fall. But by means of paper money, that is, by allowing the bank to loan its notes instead of loaning real money, the bank is enabled to furnish credits beyond its means of redemption. It ceases, the moment its notes exceed its actual amount of gold and silver on hand, to be a money lender, and becomes a money borrower, and dependent on the success of its debtors and their speculations, for the means to pay its creditors. If these speculations miscarry, the bank miscarries, and the actual loss falls, not on the speculator, for he had nothing to lose, nor on the bank, for it never furnished any real capital, but on the producer, who had exchanged his products for the notes of the bank. This is the feature in our banking system which should be stricken out.

We have instanced the case of the speculator in cotton, who, wishing to speculate in that article, can only do it on credit. Now, it may be that this speculator can obtain no credit at the bank, or it may be, that the advance on the price paid for his cotton, at which he can sell it, will not be sufficient to furnish him a living profit, and at the same time pay the interest on his loan at the bank. What now shall be done? He, and four or five more in the same situation, but engaged in different business transactions, come together, petition the legislature, obtain a charter for a bank, with a privilege of issuing their notes to as great an amount, practically, as they can keep out. They pay in the capital of the bank in stock notes, and now substituting their notes as a bank for their notes as individuals, purchase cotton and other products on their own credit. In this case they unite in themselves the character of speculators, borrowers, and lenders. They are their own bankers. The planter takes the notes of their bank for his cotton, which he sells to them as individuals, and the farmer for his wheat. But if they fail in their operations, as speculators, then they must fail as debtors of the bank, and then fail as the bank or debtors of the public, and what then have the planter and farmer received for their wheat and cotton?

But one knot of four or five individuals have obtained a bank, and by its means are commanding the products of industry with the same ease they would, had they been men of real capital.  Other individuals, seeing this, say, why not we have a bank also? So these other individuals petition, and obtained a bank, and go through the same process. Another set of individuals do the same, till your whole state is covered over with banks, and the land deluged with bank notes. During this time the rage of speculation goes ever increasing; fortunes are made in a day; men who were poor clerks yesterday are millionaires today; slow but gradual gains are despised; honest industry is contemned, and all the world rushes in to trade. But this cannot last. Balances must be paid and paid in gold and silver; but gold and silver for this there is not enough to become at. The few individuals, who, during the fever of speculation had taken good care not to have many outstanding balances to settle off, come out with a princely fortune, while the great mass of the active business men find themselves where they began; and the planters and farmers find that they have nothing to show for the products they have parted with.

This is the inevitable result of a system of paper money, and this is a result no honest man can desire. This is carrying the credit system to a ruinous extent, and making that, which, within its natural limits, is a great good, one of the greatest of evils.  Credit to this extent is not needed, and should not be furnished. We must, then, abolish the paper money system, and compel the banks to limit their loans to their actual resources. The evil of banking begins the moment the bank becomes a borrower from the public at large, and this it does the moment it issues its notes beyond the actual amount of gold and silver in its possession. Beyond that amount its loans are loans of its credit, not of its money. Now we are willing that credits should be obtained by the businessmen to the full extent of the actual means of those who furnish them. This is the natural limit to the credit system, and beyond which it can never be safe. When extended beyond this limit, the business of the country is unnaturally stimulated, and rendered unhealthy; its frame becomes bloated, and sudden dissolution is always to be apprehended. 

We come, then, to this conclusion; the democracy need not oppose banking, but it should oppose paper money; it need not oppose credit, without which all business must come to a standstill, but it should oppose all artificial means for extending credits beyond the ability of those who furnish them to redeem them in gold and silver. We make no objections to banks of deposit, of exchange, transfer of credits, and of discount; we simply ask that all discounts be made in the legal currency of the country.

This, if it were but the existing order, we shall be told, would unquestionably be far preferable to our present state of things. But, then, it is useless to contend for it. So large a proportion of the people are in debt, that they will never submit to the sacrifice necessary for introducing it. This may be so. Yet the losses to the debtor class of the community, we do not believe, would be greater than they have been for the last few years. Then, again, can we not arrive at a tolerably exact estimate of the percent, at which this change would appreciate the currency? Why not, then, require the creditor, in the case of all debts contracted prior to the change, and estimated in a depreciated paper currency, to deduct this percent from the nominal amount claimed? This would be just to both parties, requiring the debtor to pay only the amount of value he had stipulated to pay, and giving the creditor all the values he had ever a right to demand.

But, if we go against all paper money, what shall we do with existing banks? Repeal, of course, that clause in their charters, which allows them to issue their notes as a currency, and require the immediate redemption, in gold and silver, of the notes that they have now in circulation. This, we admit, is a bold measure, and cannot be adopted at once, without causing great suffering. But what of that? Is it better to take a medicine, which will expel a lingering disease and restore us to health, although its immediate operation shall give us the gripes, then it is to be always sick. What is true in this respect of the individual, is of the community. It is better to feel the full shock of the evil at once, and then to be ever after free from it, than it is to be constantly debilitated by it. But be this as it may, a healthy state of business cannot be obtained at a less expense.

Having disposed of the currency question, and by annihilating all banks of circulation, brought the currency to the constitutional standard, we must extirpate all monopolies, not necessarily all corporations. Corporations are useful, and answer many desirable purposes. All that democracy can ask in regard to them is, that they conceal no monopoly principle, that they confer on the corporator no privileges, which he did not possess or may not possess as an individual. We would, therefore, insist that the individual property of all the corporators should be holden for the debts of the corporation. 

Corporations, for manufacturing purposes are not strictly anit-democratic when their charters confer no monopoly; and yet they exert anti-democratic influence. Their tendency at present is unwholesome. Nevertheless, they are founded on a principle destined to play an important part in the business of production, that of associated labor. They are but a feeble, a most imperfect embodiment of this principle; but they contain the germ of it, and we should therefore seek to perfect them, and not to destroy them. When we can make them corporations, as we may, of operatives and employers in the same persons, and not of employers alone, they will be great blessings. 

Banks are at present monopolies, for they have the privilege of making a use of their credit, which is denied to individuals. But when they cease to be banks of issue and restrict themselves to the ordinary functions of banking, that is, to negotiating loans and exchanges, they will not necessarily be monopolies, and may be suffered to exist. If, however, they are found to have any privilege, which an individual has not, or which he can have only by becoming a member of them as bodies corporate, they should be modified, and the principle taken away.

Monopolies disposed of, many other questions will come up. The reforms we need are in very few cases political.  By political reforms, we understand reforms in the organization of the state. A few of these may, perhaps, be needed. The right of suffrage needs some extension, and, perhaps, the judiciary some constitutional changes. But the principle questions which come up relate not to political, but legislative reforms. There are several of these, which we intended to specify, but we have already exceeded our limits. We can only add, that we must complete the abolition of imprisonment for debt, and revise our laws relating to the collection of debts. The expense annually incurred by the collection of debts by law exceed the amount of debts so collected. These expenses are borne chiefly by the debtor willingly dispense with altogether. Why should not all ordinary debts be regarded as mere individual matters, which are to be adjusted by individuals, without calling in the aid of society? Why not leave the whole subject to individual probity and honor? If so left, the demand for these virtues would be increased, and thereby public and private morality be promoted.

Reforms in the criminal code are demanded. We cannot specify them now; we can only say that our criminal code should be made to harmonize with the principle, that human governments have no right to punish, except for the purpose of restraint from actual violence, done either to individual rights, or social.

In fine, we must insist upon a system of education, combining industry with science and literature. Or, in one word, a system of industrial schools, in which some branch of industry shall be pursued, in connection with literature and science. Schools of this kind are needed for ennobling labor. When all the children of the commonwealth labor, labor will be honorable. They are needed for the promotion and preservation of health. A few hours’ labor every day is essential to the health of the student. They are also needed in order to enable each child in the commonwealth to have access to the best education the community can afford. They may easily be made self-supporting schools, and cost the state nothing, and then education may be really universal.

Some other things we would specify, but we have said enough. What we have said indicates that the democracy has a great work to perform, and that it cannot engage too soon, nor be too much in earnest to perform it.

Doubtless, some will dissent from the policy we have marked out, the measures we have suggested. Be it so. We have merely given our own views freely and boldly. We have told what we honestly think the democracy should attempt, stated the ground on which it should rally, and some of the measures, on which it should insist. If others think us wrong, wild, rash, impracticable, or wicked, all we have to say is, let them bring forward something better. But, whatever they have to propose, let them be speedy. Time flies. The enemy is already in our midst, has already entrenched himself in some of our strongholds, and threatens to bring us under his accursed dominion. Friends of the constitution and of equal rights, be on the alert. You have no time to waste. Now, or never, must you recover your kingdom, and establish your empire. Now, or never, must you seize upon a true democratic policy, and stake everything on the reign of Justice and Equality.