In America feudalism never prevailed, and our Revolution severed the only cord by which we were connected with this ancient system. It was fit that the Congress which performed this memorable act should have for its President a merchant. It was fit, that, in promulgating the Declaration of Independence, by which, in the face of kings, princes, and nobles, the New Era was inaugurated, the education of the counting-house should flaunt conspicuously in the broad and clerkly signature of JOHN HANCOCK. Our fathers "builded better than they knew"; and these things are typical of the social change then taking place. By yet another act, fresh in your recollection, and of peculiar interest to this assembly, has our country borne the same testimony. A distinguished merchant of Boston, who has ascended through all the gradations of trade, honored always for private virtues as well as public abilities,--need I mention the name of ABBOTT LAWRENCE?--has been sent to the Court of St. James as ambassador of our Republic, and with that proud commission, higher than any patent of nobility, taken precedence of nobles in that ancient realm. Here I see the triumph of personal merit, but still more the consummation of a new epoch. Yes, Sir! say what you will, this is the day of the merchant. As in the early ages war was the great concern of society, and the very pivot of power, so is trade now; and as feudal chiefs were the "notables," placed at the very top of their time, so are merchants now. All things attest the change. War, which was once the universal business, is now confined to a few; once a daily terror, it is now the accident of an age. Not for adventures of the sword, but for trade, do men descend upon the sea in ships, and traverse broad continents on iron pathways. Not for protection against violence, but for trade, do men come together in cities, and rear the marvellous superstructure of social order. If they go abroad, or if they stay at home, it is trade that controls them, without distinction of persons. In our country every man is trader: the physician trades his benevolent care; the lawyer trades his ingenious tongue; the clergyman trades his prayers. And trade summons from the quarry choicest marble and granite to build its capacious homes, and now, in our own city, displays warehouses which outdo the baronial castle, and sales-rooms which outdo the ducal palace. With these magnificent appliances, the relations of dependence and protection, marking the early feudalism, are reproduced in the more comprehensive feudalism of trade. There are European bankers who vie in power with the dukes and princes of other days, and there are traffickers everywhere whose title comes from the ledger and not the sword, fit successors to counts, barons, and knights. As the feudal chief allocated to himself and his followers that soil which was the prize of his strong arm, so now the merchant, with grasp more subtle