of other men’s labor.  Labor:  a man coins himself into his labor,—­turns his day, his strength, his thought, his affection into some product which remains as the visible sign of his power; and to protect that, to secure that to him, to secure his past self to his future self, is the object of all government.  There is no interest in any country so imperative as that of labor; it covers all, and constitutions and governments exist for that,—­to protect and insure it to the laborer.  All honest men are daily striving to earn their bread by their industry.  And who is this who tosses his empty head at this blessing in disguise, the constitution of human nature, and calls labor vile, and insults the faithful workman at his daily toil?  I see for such madness no hellebore,—­for such calamity no solution but servile war, and the Africanization of the country that permits it.

At this moment in America the aspects of political society absorb attention.  In every house, from Canada to the Gulf, the children ask the serious father,—­“What is the news of the war to-day? and when will there be better times?” The boys have no new clothes, no gifts, no journeys; the girls must go without new bonnets; boys and girls find their education, this year, less liberal and complete.  All the little hopes that heretofore made the year pleasant are deferred.  The state of the country fills us with anxiety and stern duties.  We have attempted to hold together two states of civilization:  a higher state, where labor and the tenure of land and the right of suffrage are democratical; and a lower state, in which the old military tenure of prisoners or slaves, and of power and land in a few hands, makes an oligarchy:  we have attempted to hold these two states of society under one law.  But the rude and early state of society does not work well with the later, nay, works badly, and has poisoned politics, public morals, and social intercourse in the Republic, now for many years.

The times put this question,—­Why cannot the best civilization be extended over the whole country, since the disorder of the less civilized portion menaces the existence of the country?  Is this secular progress we have described, this evolution of man to the highest powers, only to give him sensibility, and not to bring duties with it?  Is he not to make his knowledge practical? to stand and to withstand?  Is not civilization heroic also?  Is it not for action? has it not a will?  “There are periods,” said Niebuhr, “when something much better than, happiness and security of life is attainable.”  We live in a new and exceptional age.  America is another word for Opportunity.  Our whole history appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race; and a literal slavish following of precedents, as by a justice of the peace, is not for those who at this hour lead the destinies of this people.  The evil you contend with has taken alarming proportions, and you still content yourself with parrying the blows it aims, but, as if enchanted, abstain from striking at the cause.