hem shrink indignantly from
the disgrace of being used as blinded partisans and unreflecting tools.
Much also is to be hoped from the discovery, which must sooner or later
be made, that the importance of government is enormously overrated, that
it does not deserve all this stir, that there are vastly more effectual
means of human happiness. Political institutions are to be less and less
deified, and to shrink into a narrower space; and just in proportion as a
wiser estimate of government prevails, the present frenzy of political
excitement will be discovered and put to shame.

I have now said what I do not mean by the elevation of the laboring
classes. It is not an outward change of condition. It is not release
from labor. It is not struggling for another rank. It is not political
power. I understand something deeper. I know but one elevation of a
human being, and that is elevation of soul. Without this, it matters
nothing where a man stands or what he possesses; and with it, he towers,
he is one of God's nobility, no matter what place he holds in the social
scale. There is but one elevation for a laborer, and for all other men.
There are not different kinds of dignity for different orders of men, but
one and the same to all. The only elevation of a human being consists in
the exercise, growth, energy of the higher principles and powers of his
soul. A bird may be shot upward to the skies by a foreign force; but it
rises, in the true sense of the word, only when it spreads its own wings
and soars by its own living power. So a man may be thrust upward into a
conspicuous place by outward accidents; but he rises, only in so far as
he exerts himself, and expands his best faculties, and ascends by a free
effort to a nobler region of thought and action. Such is the elevation I
desire for the laborer, and I desire no other. This elevation is indeed
to be aided by an improvement of his outward condition, and in turn it
greatly improves his outward lot; and thus connected, outward good is
real and great; but supposing it to exist in separation from inward
growth and life, it would be nothing worth, nor would I raise a finger to
promote it.

I know it will be said, that such elevation as I have spoken of is not
and cannot be within the reach of the laboring multitude, and of
consequence they ought not to be tantalized with dreams of its
attainment. It will be said that the principal part of men are plainly
designed