The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 8, April, 1835Various
General
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 8, April, 1835
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
There is another safeguard against both disunion and consolidation, to
be found in the diffusion of instruction among all classes of people;
to which object all the states have given encouragement. Besides the
general moral effects which such mental culture is found to produce,
wherever it has been tried, it will make the mischiefs of a single
national government or of several disunited governments, which are
already so obvious to those who have reflection and forecast,
intelligible to all. The diffusion of intelligence will operate
advantageously to the same end in another way. It will raise the
self-respect and honest pride of the indigent classes, and these
sentiments afford the best security against an over-crowded population
and its deleterious consequences, for they naturally tend to raise the
ordinary standard of comfort, and the higher _that_ is, the sooner do
the checks to improvident marriages begin to operate.
Supposing our federal union to be thus enduring, the progress of
philosophy may be expected to continue with our advancement in numbers
and wealth, and to exhibit itself in the increased vigor of the
reasoning faculties; the greater purity of religion; the better
government of the passions; an enlarged dominion over physical nature;
a deeper insight into the multifarious laws of mind and matter; and a
general amelioration of our condition, social, intellectual, and
moral. But dangers and evils are apprehended by some, when we shall
have a large class of manufacturers. This must eventually be the
condition of the greater part of the population of every civilized
country, since in no other way can the greater part of a dense
population find employment. A small proportion of the community is
sufficient to cultivate the soil, especially with so fertile a
territory as the greater part of the United States; and the rest must
be employed in manufactures, or starve. Besides, the products of this
species of industry are as essential to our comfort and enjoyment, if
not to our subsistence, as raw produce. We must have clothes,
furniture, utensils, and books, as well as food: and when our numbers
shall be sufficiently great to consume the whole of our raw produce,
as in time it certainly will be, we shall cease to export; and the
great mass of its consumers here, must fulfil the inevitable ultimate
destiny of man--he must labor for his subsistence, either in tilling
the earth, or in giving to its products some new form, which by
ministering to the wants of others, may enable him to satisfy his own.
The people of the United States must therefore become a manufacturing
people, as well as their progenitors, and that too at no very remote
period. At present, most of our citizens are agriculturists, because
they find a ready sale for their redundant products; but while it may
be easy to obtain a market for the surplus produce of fourteen
millions of people, it may not be equally easy to find a vent abroad
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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