Great instability in the tenure of wealth must flow from the operation of these causes; for the balance of trade must ever be suffering disturbance by the inordinate action, at some point, of those engaged in commercial and business pursuits. This disturbance we see almost every day, in the dishonest spirit of speculation and overreaching that prevails to a melancholy extent. Business is not conducted, in this country, on the permanent, healthy, honest, and only true basis of demand and supply; but is rendered ever fluctuant and unsafe, from the reasons just given. The apparent causes of the instability alleged, are mainly those that we have stated. But, as every thing that meets the eye is an effect of something interior to it and invisible, so, in this case, the things we have set forth are merely the effects of a spiritual cause, or, in other words, of a perverted state of the _mind_ of the whole nation viewed as one man; for the truth that a nation is only a man in a larger form is undeniable. This perversion lies in the almost universal estimation of wealth as a means of selfish gratification, and not as a means of promoting and securing the general good; and from this it arises, that nearly every man seeks to secure wealth to himself, utterly regardless of his neighbor; and far too many not only covet their neighbors’ goods, but actually seek to defraud them of their possessions. Every man is regenerated through temptations to evil, by means of which he comes into a knowledge of his hereditary perversions; and it often happens, that he is not only tempted of his evil lusts, but yields to the temptation, and thus, in suffering the consequences that follow, is made more clearly to see the nature and ultimate tendencies of the false principles from which he had acted. And this is just as true of a body of individuals (as a nation) as it is of an individual himself. The law of primogeniture and entailment of property, which is not a just law, lays, with its disabilities, upon the mind and ultimate energies of the nation farthest advanced in civilization, because to have abolished it would have resulted in a worse evil, even the utter destruction of that nation by the fierce intestine struggle that would have resulted therefrom, while there was no conservative spirit strong enough to sustain it. But, in the fullness of time, this American Republic sprang into independent existence, an outbirth of Anglo-Saxon civilization, and prepared to take an advancing step. The law that held in iron-bound consistency the English nation, was abolished, and all the strong energies, eager impulses, and natural lust of wealth and power, that distinguished the people of that nation, were allowed full scope here.