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There has been introduced into our country a mode of living very unfriendly
to this noble spirit of which we are discoursing. We shall be convinced
of this, and perhaps discover a remedy for this public disease, by examining
its origin and progress. At the close of the revolutionary war, much of
the public debt was in the hands of men in needy circumstances. To relieve
their own wants, and support their families, they sold the price of their
toil at a small part of the nominal value. This began the first act in the
great American speculation. The sale of lands followed; and these negotiations
were carried to an amazing extent. Fortunes on paper were created in a day.
Men rose at once from penurious obscurity, and blazed, and dazzled in all
the splendor of opulence. They revelled in the luxuries of wealth; became
ostentatious of their riches; built houses, set up equipages, and furnished
tables merely to shew the world how much money they could throw away.
This spirit of speculation spread, rapidly as the fogs of a vernal atmosphere,
until it had possessed every class of the community. All were making haste,
not only to be rich, but also to be luxurious. The bubble of imaginary wealth
raised millions to bask in the blaze of prosperity; millions who evidently
beheld in its broad transparent bosom all the glories of a new heaven and
a new earth. As it expanded they were elevated, until its fatal explosion,
and they found themselves struggling in the dirt from which they first emerged.
But when the phantom fled from our deluded country it left behind a foul
progeny; it left us all our habits of profusion and extravagance. The simple
manners and rigid economy of our ancestors, had been expelled from the nation;
the productions of our own soil could not regale our fastidious appetites;
the manufactures of our own country were too plain for her proud sons and
daughters; and our wants, originating from this source, have reduced us
to a service dependence on foreign nations for our food and rainment.
It is for you, Gentlemen, if you would be independent, to restore primitive
plainness. In the American war, when our country struggled with unutterable
difficulties, how did the spirit of our ancestors walk abroad in the majesty
of independence? Beauty was then clad in garments which her own hand had
wrought; and blushing in unadorned loveliness, felt secure of conquest without
the aid of Asiatic or European auxiliaries. Those who then fought, waited
not until they could be robed in purple, and fine linen; but, dressed from
the loom where our mothers toiled to cloath their sons for the long campaign,
they rushed from their native hills, terrible in the battles of their country,
and victorious over her foes. The temprance, the economy, the simplicity,
the industry of those times, would render our country independent of every
nation on earth; and each individual of us entirely independent of all the
influence of his neighbours, and perfectly master of his own resolves.
Look out, and behold the independence of all creation. The oak grows from
the earth, drinks the dewy showers, warms by the rays of summer noon, and
expands its verdant foliage to the sweeping breeze of evening; yet, tho'
fed, and supported, by all the elements of nature, it leans to none of them,
but lifts its branches towards heaven, and rears its head aloft in all the
muggiest of independence.--The ox on the plain lows without permission from
a neighbor grazer. The wolf asks not his kindred prowler of the forest when
he may leave his rocky den, stalk down from the mountain, or howl to the
dismal responses of midnight echo. Even the dog, that fawns on man so much,
begs not a brother dog for leave to bark. Every thing but man preserves
its native independence.
If, therefore, Gentlemen, independence be the preserving principle of the
Universe; if the brutes by their instincts, and the very trees by silent
example seem to teach it to man; if the influence of it preserves the existence
of nations; if the designs of your Association must expire when they shall
no longer be nurtured by this principle; if in our country your arts cannot
flourish unless they flourish under its fostering hand, then let independence
be the great mystery of all your trades, the first and last maxim of your
lives.
Should any imagine this path to mechanical improvement, steep of ascent,
and difficult to be trodden, let them with me, a little while, contemplate
the importance of those arts; and they cannot then want motives to animate,
and to urge their exertions. To speak on this part of the subject is difficult
indeed; for it is scarcely possible to look out a point of beginning, or
to fix any ultimate boundary to discourse. I can see nothing; I can think
of nothing, which does not hold up to me the importance of your arts. Convenience
is indebted to them no less than superfluity; and it would be difficult
to say whether they most advance the utilities or the ornaments of life.
Is there any thing commodious, useful, or ornamental; is their (sic) any
thing beautiful, grand, sublime, or magnificent, among the works of men,
which did not originate from them, as naturally, and as necessarily as streams
originate from their fountains.
Look t your white ensign which to day has waved in the winds of heaven.
The world of mechanic philosophy is epitomised on that wonderful production
of nature's admired copiest, and arts most ingenious pupil.
What built the numerous cities, what raised the vast palaces which glitter
along the shores of our country? What spread this town on the banks of a
river once rolling its black waves thro' the shaggy bosom of a forest? Whence
those edifices, catching the gazing attention of the traveller? Whence this
temple, reared on ground, where erst the unhallowed foot of barbarity beat
the shaded sod? This lofty temple, whose broad front blazes so far in the
sunbeams of evening, whose consecrated dome so often re echos with the found
of morning hallelujahs.--All these grew up under the fostering hand of mechanic
arts; and all these are but a small part of their many productions. It would
be endless to trace them through all their connexions with the most important
transactions of man; to tell how by them war is armed with all his terrors;
b them peace is robed in all her allurements;p by them agriculture "hews
the hard rock, and harrows up the plain;" by them commerce freights
the wealth of every clime, associates the nations of distant worlds, and
encircles every region of the earth in one broad horizon.
The improvement of mechanic arts in our country will expand into vast importance,
when we consider our immense importation of foreign manufactures. We know
that from thence our ships are rigged for the sea; from thence our houses
receive their ornaments; and the very beds on which we repose ourselves
are fitted up, and sent to us by foreigners. We are, every one of us, dressed
by other nations. Columbian beauty wraps her white limbs in the lawn of
a foreign loom; and the valour of America does not yet disdain to wear a
British livery. The materials of which these were wrought, perhaps, were
worth one hundredth part the price at which we purchase them. Nine hundred
of every thousand dollars, paid by us for imported manufactures, rewards
the superior skill of the foreign artist. These must be obtained in exchange
for the unwrought productions of our own soil. How vastly against us the
balance in this exchange. What a trifle, growing on the plains of Flanders,
or the hills of China, will, before it arrives at the hands of one of our
husbandmen, purchase the labours of his whole year. I have seen the company,
at a birth-night ball, glittering in the spoils of a hundred season. Imagine,
therefore, if you can, Gentlemen, imagine, a subject more important, more
interesting, to our country than the improvement of American arts and manufactures;
for until we can excel foreigners, this importation cannot be prevented.
Will not, then, the improvement of your arts be a rich reward for the labour
it can cost you?
The importance of your arts will be still more conspicuous, if we consider
the political influence of that noble spirit of independence by which they
are cherished and improved. In all countries wealth is power; and therefore
the most wealthy are the most powerful. He, who can support one man, will
be more powerful, than he, who cannot support one. If one thousand pounds
a year will feed ten dependents, ten thousand pounds a year will feed one
hundred. every accession of wealth will produce a new accession of power.
Thus it was over all Europe in the days of feudal dominion. The tyrant,
whether a prince, or a lord, who could, by parcelling out his lands, pay
the greatest number of soldiers, was ever most powerful. Thus it is in the
Ottoman realms at this day. The Grand Seignor is sole proprietor of all
the lands; and these constitute the whole wealth of empire. He is, therefore,
the unresisted, and undisputed lord, not only of the services, but of the
lives, of his trembling vassals.
The genius of our government is not like those; but tho' vastly different,
it is quite as liable to be wielded by that kind of power. Altho' every
thing with us is done by suffrage; yet he, who can bring to the place of
election, one thousand, who eat bread from his table, will be as powerful,
as a thousand whose wealth can support none of these dependents. Here we
behold the birth of aristocracies; and they grow up, and gather strength,
from all those causes which collect the wealth of a nation into the hands
of a few. Great individual wealth has an influence, hostile to the first
principles of our government. This influence ought to be opposed, or, like
a troubled ocean, it will break in upon us, and deluge the liberties of
our nation. In this opposition nothing can be so efficient as individual
independence; as that spirit by which your arts must be fostered, and improved;
that spirit which will animate every artificer, whose habits of life set
him beyond reliance on the rich, whose professional skill renders him necessary
to the luxurious, and whose erect and independent soul will never lean from
its own basis to support the powerful.
Altho' this country has not felt the effects of exorbitant individual wealth,
altho' no proud aristocracy hitherhto has laid its massy hand on this government;
yet if ever accident, or any permanent cause, should throw too much wealth
into the hands of a few, this spirit of power, "this goblin damned,"
would rise secretly, like "the pestilence that walketh in darkness;"
or gathering audacity from an accumulation of the causes which first gave
it existence, it would finally stalk abroad at noon day, in all the haughty
forms of usurped authority, and insolent oppression. If ever this should
happen in our county, then would an independence like yours, the independence
of numerous, intelligent, and respectable citizens, be too mighty for this
genius of mischief, and hie him back to the foul region from which he arose.
Think not, Gentlemen, that I would degrade your Association into a democratic
club. These clubs are the birth places of party spirit. Here young action
is cradled, and nursed, until with gigantic limbs stalking forth he an trample
on law, and religion, and humanity. That independence, which I would recommend,
is not the independence of a party, but of the individual. It is the independence
of a man, and not of a faction. Its votary is of no party, he is of the
community. You, therefore, Gentlemen, in guarding against the influence
of wealth, will never enquire from what department of the community that
influence originated. In these political efforts, you will never stand forth
as a mechanic association, but as so many unconnected individuals, taught
by long habits of independence, to oppose every influence which may rise
up to overthrow the principles of our government. (pp. 13-20)
I feel an additional proof of the importance of your Association, when I
behold assembled on the present occasion, so large a collection of such
Apprentices.. Young Gentlemen, we all rejoice to see you here; to me it
is doubly grateful. It brings back to my memory the days of my own apprenticeship.
What my Mother, my Father, then taught me, I will now say to you. Be not
satisfied, before you perfectly know, whatever you undertake to learn. If
there be any excellence in your trade, if there be any praise which can
be merited by you, case not to labor, and to meditate, until you have obtained
that excellence, until you have deserved that praise. Youth is the stuff
of which your whole characters must be wrought. If you waste this, or work
it up into vicious habits your characters will be contemptible, and your
lives wretched. The idle boy will be an idle man; the ignorant boy will
be an ignorant man; the vicious boy will be a vicious man. You never saw
a man, ideal, and ignorant, and vicious, who was not poor, and dispised,
and miserable. If, therefore, you would be happy and respectable men, you
must now be industrious, sober, and thoughtful; you must turn your eyes
from every temptation, nor even set a foot in the path of vice.
You have parents whose hearts throb with anxiety for your success in life.
Your prosperity will cheer them to the very evening of their days; your
ruin would carry them sorrowing to the grave. Your Masters have this day
presented you to the public; and in this hallowed temple, with the eyes
of all this assembly upon you, they now consecrate you to your country.
Remember you must one day become citizens, you must one day solemnize the
rites of this society; and when your masters shall be taken from your head,
may a double portion of the spirit of this institution, like the mantle
of the departing prophet, forever rest upon you. (pp. 21-22)
Ode First, Composed by Paul Allen, Esq..
Genius of Art when we survey,
Thy works, our minds with rapture glow,
The rising and the setting day
Display thy wonders here below.
Our bosoms own thy magic power,
Our native dignity we scan,
And feel at every passing hour,
The inborn majesty of man.
The massy pyramids that rise,
And o'er the humble cottage frown,
The lofty tower that prop the skies,
Are monuments of thy renown.
Behold the savage quits his bow,
Forsakes his wild ferocious clan,
He feels the genial current flow,
And mellows into social man.
Yon field of flax which summer gales,
Wave as they sweep along the plain,
Transformed by art to swelling sails,
Shall waft our glory o'er the main.
Where mines of min'ral dark and drear,
Lay cover'd with the mountain heap,
Arts mighty Genius whispers here,
Columbia's future thunders sleep.
ODE THE SECOND, Composed by Paul Allen, Esq.
Cold was the earth and dark the skies,
No vernal beauty bloom'd,
The wild flower spread it crimson dyes,
And barren heaths perfum'd.
Wide as an Angel's eye could ken,
The tangling desart lay,
And scarce the cottages of men,
Would mark the length of way.
The hunger famished Wolf with ire,
Would pace the shades of night,
While children at the winter fire,
Sat shivering with affright.
Mechanic Art! thy mighty hand,
Dispels the midnight gloom.
we view the heath with flowers expand,
And bursting into bloom.
Let there be light, the Almighty said,
And shook the vast profound,
Dark midnight threw aside her shade,
Creation sparkled round.
The hills with fragrance seem'd to breathe,
The birds were hard to sing,
While all creation blush'd beneath,
The rosy-footed Spring.
`Twas by thine aid Almighty Art,
The world beheld this light,
And should thy heavenly beams depart,
Would sink obscured in night.
Ode Third, Composed by Paul Allen, Esq.
CONTENT, thou dear object of all our desires,
To thee the fond bosom with rapture aspires;
Poor mortals deluded thy phantom pursue;
We never possess, tho' we keep thee in view.
Had Adam, our father, thy beauty but known,
Serene as the morning his days would have flown,
All nations and ages had bow'd to thy reign,
Nor pity's soft Angel would ever complain.
Dame Nature foresaw what her sons would endure,
And like a fond parent provided a cure;
She call'd fair Invention her aid to impart;
That handmaid of Science and glory of Art.
Fair Science that lately in caverns unknown,
Repin'd like a vestal, forlorn and alone;
On wings of Invention exulting shall rise,
And measure her flight with the bounds of the skies.
Those men whom the love of their country has fir'd
who smil'd in the arms of applause, and expir'd;
From tombs more resplendently rise to the views,
Applauded by Senates, and sung by the Muse.
All hail then, Invention, thy blessings bestow,
To brighten the prospects of mortals below;
The Arts and the Sciences both shall combine,
With chaplets of glory to cover thy shrine.
(pp. 26-28)
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