abodes of squalid misery; and while the hard toil of one man yields him a scanty revenue of a hundred dollars, he may be pardoned for repining that the birth and title of another secure him an income of a million.

The obstacles to improvement, at which I have thus glanced, as arising out of the political institutions of the Old World, are but a few of those which actually exist. They have grown up in a long course of years; some of them are hallowed by age, and made venerable by antiquity; and it is useless to expect they will cease to operate, except upon the occurrence of some great political convulsion, which shall re-organize society, tear up the foundations of long established tyrannies, and bury the fruits and the prejudices of centuries in one common ruin.

In turning to inquire how far the institutious of our own land operate as an encouragement to enterprise, it is not to be expected that within the limits of an exercise like this, we can do more than to glance at a few of the most prominent aspects of the subject.

The differences existing between the Old World and our own country, are by no means confined to dissimilarity in political institutions. We are a young nation, inhabiting a comparatively new portion of the globe. The spirit of enterprise which led the first settlers of this country to dare the difficulties and dangers they encountered, has been transmitted to their descendants. The indomitable love of liberty which drove the oppressed of

every clime to seek an asylum upon this Western Continent, still burns with unabated ardor in the bosom of every true American. The unquenchable love of religious freedom, which animated the Pilgrims and led them forth from their native land across the ocean, and into the forest, to erect their standard upon the rock of Plymouth, and to worship the God of nature upon nature's own altar, has lost none of its vigor in its transmission to the present time.

The great extent and natural condition of our country, both tend to nurse the spirit of enterprise. A century ago, our settlements were principally upon the sea coast; but in the brief space of a hundred years, the march of improvement has extended far beyond the Mississippi; and the traveller from this region, who ventures to what he deems to be the most distant advances of civilization, will be told by the hardy pioneers of the West that he has as yet reached but the verge of the promised land; and that the El Dorado of his hopes lies still further Westward. The West-the unsubdued, interminable West, opens her arms to every adventurous spirit. She points him to her majestic lakes, and the sails of commerce soon whiten their bosoms; she tells him of her mighty rivers, and he is restless until he has traced them to their source; she reminds him of the wealth which lies hid in her extended forests and boundless prairies, and he rejoices in the assurance that that wealth may be his; she foretells her growing political power, and prophecies that in a quarter of a century, the destinies of this Union

will depend upon hearts and hands west of the Alleghanies; and he exults in the possibility which exists, and in the probability which he fancies, that it may be his province to direct their pulsations and efforts to subserve his country's good.

This probability of reward addresses itself to the strongest feelings of our nature, and will always stimulate to effort; and its operation is forcibly shown in that feature of our institutions which abolishes all distinctions, except those founded on merit; and renders the wealth, the honors, and the emoluments of the land accessible to all.

We have already glanced at the degraded condition of the laboring classes under despotic rulers; and we need but extend the examination into France and England, and compare the results with what we see in our own country, to ascertain the influence which our institutions have exerted upon the fortunes of this portion of our population. In the item of wages the difference is almost incredible. France has a population of about thirty-two millions; of this number it has been computed that seven and a half millions receive less than twenty dollars a year for their support; and nearly twentythree millions of her inhabitants are compelled to procure the necessaries of life with from five to eight cents daily; leaving the small remaining fraction to roll in affluence and luxury. It is stated by Simond, a late accurate and intelligent traveller, that the common wages of a hired laborer on a farm in France, were about thirty-seven and a half dollars annually for men, and one half that sum for women.

But even this small sum must be diminished to pay the taxes due the government; and the amount thus assessed upon landed property, is estimated to be equal to one-fifth of its net revenue. The poorest

individual in America would be startled at this exhibition of the condition of the laboring classes in France; and we could hardly believe it possible that this estimate was founded in fact, were it not that the authority upon which it is based, puts its correctness beyond a question.

Great Britain boasts that her citizens are the freest of any in Europe; but let us see in what, besides the name of freedom, the privileges of her laboring classes consist.

It is well known that in England, with her dense and crowded population, the wages of labor are reduced to the lowest possible point. A scanty subsistence is all that the laboring man can hope to obtain; and in the manufacturing districts, thousands of her poorer population are not unfrequently, for lack of the very necessaries of life, reduced to the most absolute want, and the most abject distress; and it has been truly said by a writer on this subject, that "in the road in which the English laborer must travel, the poor house is the last stage on his way to the grave."

In Ireland the wages of agricultural labor vary from nine to eleven cents per day, and manufacturing labor is but little better paid. Upon such scanty means of livelihood, nearly eight millions of the inhabitants of Ireland are compelled to subsist. But even this poor pittance they cannot enjoy.

They have their proportion of British taxes to pay; their proportion of one hundred millions of dollars annually, to meet the interest of the national debt, and of an equal amount raised by direct and indirect taxation, to discharge the contingent expenses of the crown.

But the most galling tax, and the bitterest curse upon the industry of Ireland, is her Church establishment. While five-sixths of her population are Catholics, the strong hand of power has established the Church of England as the national religion; and her citizens of every creed are compelled to contribute the tithes of their lands, to the support of a faith in which few of them believe, and which most of them condemn. The aggregate of the income of the clergy, thus forced upon Ireland, is more than five and a half millions of dollars; and this enormous sum is annually wrung from the distresses of her peasantry, to sustain a legalized clergy, and to enable its highest dignitaries to support a becoming splendor as spiritual Peers in the Parliament of Britain. The man who could enjoy luxuries sustained by exactions like these, has forgotten the humility of the religion he professes to teach; and the mitre whose splendors are derived from a source like this, should wither the brow that wears it.

This brief statement of the condition of the laboring classes in the most enlightened nations of Europe, is sufficient to show the superiority of their advantages here. With such boundless uncultivated regions as we possess, agricultural labor cannot but command rewards corresponding with the demand;