dollar, who look but for a momentary profit, not caring for their fatherland and humanity—­nothing for the principles—­nothing about the tears and execration of millions, if only that condition remains intact which gives them individual profit—­though that condition be the misfortune of a world.  Wherever that class of money-hunters is influential, there is a disease in the constitution of the community.  It is vain to complain against the dangerous doctrines of socialism, so long as such money-hunters have any influence upon politics.  The genus of Rothschilds has done more for the spread of socialism than its most passionate sectarians.

Take on the other side the contrasting fact of the Erie Canal.  I remember well that some were terrified, when in the councils of the Empire State first was started the idea of that gigantic enterprise.  And now when we hear that its nett proceeds amount to about three millions of dollars a year—­when we see the almost unbroken line of boats on it—­when we see Buffalo becoming the heart of the West, the pulsation of which conveys the warm tide of life to the East; and by the communication of that artery, bringing the wonderful combination of the great western lakes into immediate connection with the Atlantic, and through the Atlantic with the Old World—­when we see Buffalo, though at four hundred miles distance from the ocean, without a navigable river, living, acting, and operating like a seaport; and New York, situated on the shores of the Atlantic, acting as if it were the metropolis of the West—­when we consider how commerce becomes a magic wand, and transforms a world of wilderness into a garden of prosperity, and spreads the blessing of civilization where some years ago only the wild beasts and the Indian roamed—­then indeed we bow with reverential awe before the creating power of that commerce.  We feel that the spirit of it is not a mere money-hunting, but a mighty instrumentality of Providence for the moral and social benefit of the world; and we at once feel that the interests of such a commerce underlie so much the foundation of your country’s future, that not only are they entitled to enter into the regulating considerations of your country’s policy, but they must enter—­they must have a decisive weight—­and they will have it, whatever be the declamations of learned politicians who have so much looked to the authority of past times that they have found no time to see the imperious necessity of present exigencies.

There are still some who advise you to follow the policy of separation from Europe, which Washington wisely advised in his days—­wisely, because it was a necessity of those times.  I have on many occasions adduced arguments against this, which to me are quite convincing.  Yet to some minds custom is of so much more power than argument, that I could not forbear to feel some uneasiness.  But to-day, gentlemen, I no longer feel such uneasiness.  I am entirely tranquillized.  I want no more arguments,