It is on this broad platform of diversified and interlocked labors that man meets his brother man and equal. The variety and diversity of labors adapts itself to a like and analogous diversity of human characters, tastes, and industrial aptitudes and capacities. And the mutual dependence and interlocking of these multiplied branches of industry bring the laborers themselves into more numerous, more close, and independent relations. Men are first drawn together by their mutual wants and their social impulses; but when thus brought together, they tend to remain united, not merely by affinity of character, but also, and often mainly by their having something to _do_ in common--by their common labors and pursuits. Advancing civilization, since it ever brings out and develops more and more of man's nature, must, as a natural result, ever also multiply his wants. These multiplying wants can be satisfied for each individual only by the diversified activities of multitudes of his fellows; the results of whose united labors, brought to his door, are seen in the countless articles that go to make up a well-built and well-furnished modern dwelling. Labor is thus the great _social cement_; and can any one fail to see that it is upon the basis of such a diversified and interwoven industry that a corresponding multiplicity, intermingling, and union of human relations are established; and also that it is only under free institutions in the enjoyment of equal rights, where all are equal before the law, and where political authority and order emanate from the people themselves, that labor itself can be free; and not only free, but ennobled, and at full liberty to expand itself broadly and widely in all departments, without any conceivable limits? While at the same time, by the interlacing of its countless details, it cements the laborers, the respective communities, the entire nation into a noble brotherhood of useful workers. We have yet to learn the elevating, refining power of labor, when organized as it can, and assuredly will be. At present we have no adequate conception of this influence. It is solely for the sake of labor, for the sake of human activity, that it may fill as many and as wide and deep channels as possible, and thus permit man's varied life and capacities to flow freely forth, and expand to the utmost; it is solely for this end that all government is instituted; and under a free, popular government, under the guidance of religion and science, labor is destined to reach a degree of development and a perfection of organization, and to exert a reactive influence in ennobling human character that shall surpass the farthest stretch of our present imaginings. Our rare political organization is but the coarse, bold outlines--the rugged trunk and branches of the great tree of liberty. Out of this will grow the delicate and luxuriant foliage of a varied, beautiful, scientific, and dignified industry and social life.