of thought and action; but politics,
in its common sense, or considered as the invention of temporary shifts,
as the playing of a subtile game, as the tactics of party for gaining
power and the spoils of office, and for elevating one set of men above
another, is a paltry and debasing concern. The laboring class are
sometimes stimulated to seek power as a class, and this it is thought
will raise them. But no class, as such, should bear rule among us. All
conditions of society should be represented in the government, and alike
protected by it; nor can any thing be expected but disgrace to the
individual and the country from the success of any class in grasping at a
monopoly of political power. I would by no means discourage the
attention of the people to politics. They ought to study in earnest the
interests of the country, the principles of our institutions, the
tendencies of public measures. But the unhappiness is, they do not
_study_; and, until they do, they cannot rise by political action. A
great amount of time, which, if well used, would form an enlightened
population, is now wasted on newspapers and conversations, which inflame
the passions, which unscrupulously distort the truth, which denounce
moral independence as treachery to one's party, which agitate the country
for no higher end than a triumph over opponents; and thus multitudes are
degraded into men-worshippers or men-haters, into the dupes of the
ambitious, or the slaves of a faction. To rise, the people must
substitute reflection for passion. There is no other way. By these
remarks, I do not mean to charge on the laboring class all the
passionateness of the country. All classes partake of the madness, and
all are debased by it. The fiery spirits are not confined to one portion
of the community. The men, whose ravings resound through the halls of
Congress, and are then circulated through the country as eloquence, are
not taken from among those who toil. Party prejudices break out as
fiercely on the exchange, and even in the saloon, as in the workshop.
The disease has spread everywhere. Yet it does not dishearten me, for I
see that it admits of mitigation, if not of cure. I trust that these
lectures, and other sources of intellectual enjoyment now opening to the
public, will abate the fever of political excitement, by giving better
occupation to the mind. Much, too, may be hoped from the growing
self-respect of the people, which will make t