Of course there is more than one way of defining the term "self-interest." There is one sense in which it is used by children, savages, and thieves, and which makes it mean immediate gratification, and this appears to be the sense in which it is used by the inflationists in Congress, in considering what is for the good of those Western men who owe money at the East. In that sense, it is a good thing for a man to lie, cheat, steal, and embezzle whenever it shall appear that by so doing he will satisfy his appetites or put money in his pockets. But civilized and commercial, to say nothing of Christian, society is founded on the theory that men look forward and expect to carry on business for several years, and to lay up money for their old age, and establish their children in life, and that they recognize the necessity of self-restraint and loyalty to engagements. The doctrines, on the other hand, which are preached in Congress about the best mode of dealing with debts--that is, with other people's money--have never before been heard in a civilized legislature, or anywhere outside of a council of buccaneers, and, if acted on by the community, would produce anarchy. The fact that Morton and Butler, who preach them and get them embodied in forms of words called "acts," are legislators, disguises, but ought not to disguise, the other fact, that these two men are simply playing the part of receivers or "fences." There probably never was a more striking illustration of the immorality in which, as it was long ago remarked, any principle of government is sure to land people if pushed to its last extreme, than the theory which is now urged on our attention--that superiority of numbers will justify fraud; or, in other words, that if the number of those who borrow should happen to be greater than the number of those who lend, "a vote" is all that is needed to wipe out the debts, either openly or by payment in bits of paper or pebbles. Of course, the converse of this would also be true--that if the lenders were in a majority, they would be justified in reducing the debtors to slavery. If the question of humanity or brotherhood were raised as an objection, that, too, could be settled by a ballot. We laugh at the poor African who consults his wooden fetish before he takes any step in the business of his wretched and darkened life; but when a Caucasian demagogue tries to show us that the springs of justice and truth are to be found in a comparison of ten thousand bits of paper with nine thousand similar bits, we listen with gravity, and are half inclined to believe that there is something in it. COMMENCEMENT ADMONITION