selves its condition, in general, is becoming freer every day, and with freedom, it gains power-a power which is learning to display itself in acquiring a just dominion over material things, and asserting and vindicating a proud superiority and mastery over physical obstructions, difficulties, and disabilities, placed, for obvious and wise reasons, in the plain pathway of his advance towards that point of dignity and excellence, which is clearly attainable, but only so through severe discipline and patient cultivation. No one, I am sure, can be more sensible than I am, how very limited and imperfect is the view I have presented of the advantages and influence of commerce, and its connexion with the past, and the anticipated progress of civilization. The subject, as all must have seen by this time, is quite too vast and gigantic in its proportions, to admit of compression, with any show of justice, within the proper boundaries of a single occasion like the present. There are several considerations of deep interest connected with it, to which no allusion even has been made - while the topics which have been touched upon, have only been touched, not handled. The influence of commerce, not only as it is the source of liberal profits, and generally of great aggregate wealth, to the class of merchants themselves—the use of which is always distinguished by singular generosity; but also as it stimulates to industry and enterprise in the other grand departments of business-opening the way and the only way to wealth in them, by opening markets to them by affording them a vent for surplus commodities, without which there would be no surplus production, no profits, and no accumulation. The influence of commerce, in enabling men to congregate in large towns and cities, which otherwise could not possibly be subsisted and sustained, leaving to the fields only such portions of the entire population as are essential to their profitable cultivation, instead of crowding those fields with herds which, without commerce, would occupy only to crop them, as the beasts do, for a present and bare subsistence - enabling men, I say, to congregate in cities, which, with all the vices and impurities that necessarily yet belong to them, always have been, and must be, the chief seats of refinement and civilization in every land, where wealth aggregates and centres-where literature, polite learning, and the fine arts, flourish — where manners are polished-where intellect is alive and active- where sympathy and benevolence have an ample field for untiring exertion, and in which exertion never tires-where virtue is of vigorous growth, because it is obliged to flourish in spite of the tainted atmosphere it dwells in, or die—where morals have a strong cast, because they exist in the very presence of seduction and crime. and where piety, and faith, and honor, and manhood, and nobleness, and generosity, all put on a positive and resolute bearing and quality, because they are called to occupy their spheres, and exercise themselves in the face of the boldest infidelity, and before the sworn enemies of all the orderly, decent, and legal institutions and customs of civil society. Again; the influence of commerce, in favor of human liberty, as its whole history, if examined, would show, in resisting the exactions, and breaking down the artificial and oppressive distinctions of the feudal system- in demonstrating, as it did in Italy, and in the free cities of Germany, and elsewhere, the power and capacity of men to establish and maintain independent communities, to form confederacies, and to govern themselves, in raising up a new class in society-men who could carve out fortunes for themselves, without the sword-men who could command, without being born to command men who were competent to business, to public business, because they were bought up to business-men who showed that there was some value in other things, as well as in lands—that the lord of manors was no better or wiser, than the lord of ships, of money, and of merchandise, and that the world might be benefitted quite as much by indus. try and noble virtues, as by idleness and noble blood-in short, that the world, after all, was not made for kings and barons, but for generations of free-born men to dwell in and to enjoy. And again; the influence of commerce, in favor of the gentle virtues and arts of peace, and against the trade and the calamities of horrid war, an influence which has been felt, first, in teaching men that they may have a better and more profitable occupation, by turning their thoughts to productive industry, and acquiring the means of surrounding themselves with the comforts, conveniences, and luxuries of quiet life; then, in rendering wars of territorial conquest or personal ambition, at least in countries highly commercial, difficult if not impossible; then, in showing that negotiation is better than blood in composing disputes, and that treaties and compacts between nations are quite as rational and effectual a way of defining accurately their mutual rights and obligations, and bringing them to a good understanding with each other, as ramparts and bristling cannon, lines of circumvallation, sorties and attacks, the tramp of armies, the shock of battles, the desolation of homes, habitations, and countries; an influence, in short, on the part of commerce, which, as it increases in power and importance, and in an intelligent understanding of its own great interests, and the higher interests of government and society, is more likely than any thing else I am acquainted with, short of the universal sway of the simple and unaffected spirit of christianity, to put an end to all wars-such only excepted, perhaps, as may be waged for the only cause that was ever worth fighting for-the independence of nations, and the freedom of mankind. All these topics, and others that might be adverted to, which are a part, and an essential part, of the subject in hand-all of which, it would be necessary to investigate and develop, in order to show how intimately and essentially, commerce is connected with the progress of civilization all must be passed by with the slight and very unsatisfactory notice of such as have been named and referred to all. I can do no more, in conclusion, than to commend them all, with the whole subject, to such attention and thought as they may seem to deserve. I think it must be seen, that commerce, while it has done much, very much already, to benefit the world, is still in commission as the minister and apostle of other benefits and higher advantages-that there is not an interest in the whole range of life and society, to which its influence does not, or may not, reach, in one way or another, and to which it is not, or may not, in some degree, be of essential service. Education, religion, freedom, morality-the diffusion of wealththe diffusion of the useful and ornamental arts-the diffusion of knowledge. the dissemination of religious light and truth - the extension and cultivation of taste and refinement a free, happy, and improving personal intercourse between country and city, between different parts of the same country, and between different countries- these things are all of them more or less within the province of commerce- - at least, none of them are wholly beyond its power and influence. Let its influence be felt, then, not as it must be in spite of itself, but as it may be by exerting it. The carrying-trade of the world is in the hands of commerce; but let her carry as she has done, and more abundantly, other commodities than those which are bought and sold — in her broad beak, let her carry the olive, to drop it among men, wherever there are victors over moral degradation to be crowned, or wherever there is strife or contention to be healed; and under her strong white wings, and in the volumes of vapor which she breathes forth, let her bear ample stores of ripe seeds, like the down which is borne on the wind, to scatter them broadcast wherever she moves; seeds which shall spring up in green plants, in bud and blossom, in flower and fruit, to feed the growth of improvement in all forms—the growth of virtue and intelligence, of taste and civilization, in all lands. Nor are other departments of life and industry, as all are to participate in the humanizing advantages of a growing and extended commerce, without a deep interest in its successes and its prosperity. Of course, commerce, as I have said, cannot flourish without their aid. That aid, however, is to be supplied through increased activity and enterprise in their own proper spheres. It is the beautiful order and arrangement of Providence, that those who labor assiduously in their own callings, promote in the end the general advantage much more effectually, than could be done by any direct interference with the proper pursuits of others. The prosperity of a community, and its advance in improvement and happiness, are not committed exclusively to single hands, or to particular classes. Every profession and every employment has its share assigned it in so great a work. Eloquence has its share; instruction has its share; invention has its share; literature has its share; and labor, in its thousand forms, has its full share. The same great end is always in view, or it should be, to make men at once wiser and happier. And, though he may not know it, the workman with the hammer, and the smith that smites the anvil, labor effectively it may be in an humble degree for this same cause of human advancement; and the pale student and the learned doctor can do no more, and do no better, than labor for the same cause. No people can become and continue refined and intellectual, unless their physical wants and comforts are fully provided for; and hence, the very ditcher himself is no unimportant actor in this universal drama. And, perhaps, there is no one lesson in life more necessary to be learned than this: that men are every where mutually dependent on each other, and so are trades and occupations; that they deserve each others respect, however widely separated their spheres of action, and need each others sympathy, confidence, countenance, and support; that all are embarked in the same broad bottom-borne on the same heaving tide the same bending sky over them all, and the same port and haven forever before them all; that those who work the ship, and those who command-those who tug at the ropes and set the sails, and those who calculate her latitude and hold the tiller, are all, and equally, indispensable to the success of the voyage; and that the prosperity and the happiness of the whole company will be promoted and secured, just in proportion as all, in their own proper spheres, shall perform their own proper duties, with resolution, with promptness, and with scrupulous fidelity. ART. III. ACCUMULATION, PROPERTY, CAPITAL, AND CREDIT. An Address, delivered before the Mercantile Library Association, at the Odeon, in Boston, September 13th, 1838. By EDWARD EVERETT. THE association, the celebration of whose eighteenth anniversary gave occasion to this ad lress, is, we believe, the oldest of the kind in our country, though, as might be expected, from the relative extent of the two cities, inferior in its resources and in the number of its members to that which has been so successfully established here. We cannot allude to these institutions, without expressing our admiration of the spirit and manly feeling to which they are indebted for their origin. Their purpose, and it is an elevated one, is to withdraw the members from the influence of the feeling and habits which are the natural result of the routine of all professional pursuits; to illustrate those pursuits by philosophical observation and inquiry; to take up the conduct of education at that stage of its progress, where our ordinary guides leave us at our own disposal. In the mercantile profession, the advantages of such institutions are more obvious than in any other; under their influences, the merchant, if he be not numbered among the princes of the earth, may become what is still loftier and better-the intelligent friend of social advancement, the benefactor of his race. We are persuaded that we cannot better instruct and gratify our readers, than by transferring to our pages the greater portion of this admirable discourse. No intelligent reader in our country would willingly confess himself unacquainted with the writings of Mr. Everett, nor require any description of the beautiful power by which he illuminates every subject that he touches. It is one of the finest characteristics of his eloquence, that fervid and lofty as it is, we never see it employed to throw a seductive coloring over extravagant positions or wild theories; the reader is not compelled to condemn what he admires; and if he wonders, it is only at the wide and various learning with which every topic is treated, and the originality which all assume beneath a master's hand. In this address, Mr. Everett has done that for the science of political economy, which its professors have too generally failed to do; he has shown the direct, immediate, indispensable application of its principles to the ordinary business of life. It will be well for those who have been led to regard this science as unsettled in its principles, and unsatisfactory in its results, to study the illustration which is here given of the importance of those principles, in relation equally to the individual, and to the society of which he is a member. Many of them may be surprised to find that what they have been in the habit of regarding as fraught with danger, or deserving only of reproach, is but the seeming evil from which good may be educed. In the beginning of the address, the author declares its object to be the discussion of a few of the elementary topics connected with commerce; in reference to which, there are some prevailing errors, and on which it is important to form correct judgments. These topics are, accumulation, property, capital, and credit; and they are successively treated in a manner which would be spoiled by an attempt at abbreviation Certain we are, that no reader will complain of the copiousness of our extracts. I. Some attempts have been made of late years to institute a comparison between what have been called the producing and the accumulating classes, to the disadvantage of the latter. This view I regard as entirely erroneous. Accumulation is as necessary to farther production, as production is to accumulation; and especially is accumulation the basis of commerce. If every man produced, from day to day, just so much as was needed for the day's consumption, there would of course be nothing to exchange; in other words, there would be no commerce. Such a state of things implies the absence of all civilization. Some degree of accumulation was the dictate of the earliest necessity; the instinctive struggle of man to protect himself from the elements and from want. He soon found such is the exuberance of nature, such the activity of her productive powers, and such the rapid development of human skillthat a vast deal more might be accumulated than was needed for bare subsistence. This, however, alone, did not create commerce. If all men accumulated equally and accumulated the same things, there would still be no exchanges. But it soon appeared, in the progress of social man, that no two individuals had precisely the same tastes, powers, and skill. One excelled in one pursuit, one in another. One was more expert as a huntsman, another as a fisherman; and all found that, by making a business of some one occupation, they attained a higher degree of excellence than was practicable, while each one endeavored to do every thing for himself. With this discovery, commerce began. The Indian, who has made two bows, or dressed two bear-skins, exchanges one of them for a bundle of dried fish or a pair of snow-shoes. These exchanges between individuals extend to communities. The tribes on the sea-shore exchange the products of their fishing for the game or the horses of the plains and hills. Each barters what it has in excess, for that which it cannot so well produce itself, and which its neighbors possess in abundance. As individuals differ in their capacities. countries differ in soil and climate; and this difference leads to infinite variety of fabrics and productions, artificial and natural. Commerce perceives this diversity, and organizes a boundless system of exchanges, the object of which is to supply the greatest possible amount of want and desire, and to effect the widest possible diffusion of useful and convenient products. The extent to which this exchange of products is carried in highly-civilized countries, is truly wonderful. There are probably few individuals in this assembly who took their morning's meal this day, without the use of articles brought from almost every part of the world. The table on which it was served was made from a tree which grew on the Spanish Main or one of the WestIndia islands, and it was covered with a table-cloth from St. Petersburg or Archangel. The tea was from China; the coffee from Java; the sugar from Cuba or Louisiana; the silver spoons from Mexico or Peru; the cups and saucers from England or France. Each of these articles was purchased by an exchange of other products - the growth of our own or foreign countries-collected and distributed by a succession of voyages, often to the farthest corners of the globe. Without cultivating a rood of ground, we taste the richest fruits of every soil. Without stirring from our fireside, we collect on our tables the growth of every region. In the midst of winter, we are served with fruits that ripened in a tropical sun; and struggling monsters are dragged from the depths of the Pacific ocean to lighten our dwellings. As all commerce rests upon accumulation, so the accumulation of every individual is made by the exchanges of commerce to benefit every other. Until he exchanges it, it is of no actual value to him. The tiller of a hundred fields can eat no more, the proprietor of a cloth factory can wear no more, and the owner of a coal mine can sit by no hotter a fire, than his neighbors. He must exchange his grain, his cloth, and his coal, for some articles of their production, or for money, which is the representative of all other articles, before his accumulation is of service to him. The system is one of mutual accommodation. No man can promote his own interest without promoting that of others. As in the system of the universe every particle of matter is attracted by every other particle, and it is not possible that a mote in a sunbeam should be displaced without producing an effect on the orbit of Saturn, so the minutest excess or defect in the supply of any one article of human want, produces an effect - though of course an insensible one on the exchanges of all other articles. In this way, that Providence which educes the harmonious system of the heavens out of the adjusted motions and balanced masses of its shining orbs, with equal benevolence and care furnishes to the countless millions of the human family, through an interminable succession of exchanges, the supply of their diversified and innumerable wants. - II. In order to carry on this system of exchanges, it is necessary that the articles accumulated should be safe in the hands of their owners. The laws of society for the protection of property were founded upon the early and instinctive observation of this truth. It was perceived, in the dawn of civilization, that the only way in which man could elevate himself from barbarism, and maintain his elevation, was by being secured in the possession of that which he had saved from daily consumption, this being his resource for a time of sickness, for old age, and for the wants of those dependent upon him, as well as the fund out of which, by a system of mutually beneficial exchanges, each could contribute to the supply of the wants of his fellow-men. To strike at the principle which protects his earnings or his acquisitions, to destroy the assurance that the field which he has enclosed and planted in his youth will remain for the support of his advanced years that the portion of its fruits which he does not need for immediate consumption will remain a safe deposit, under the protection of the public peace is to destroy the life-spring of civilization. The philosophy that denounces accumulation, is the philosophy of barbarism. It places man below the condition of most of the native tribes on this continent. No man will voluntarily sow that another may reap. You may place a man in a paradise of plenty on this condition, but its abundance will ripen and decay unheeded. At this moment, the fairest regions of the earth-Sicily, Turkey, Africa, the loveliest and most fertile portions of the East, the regions that, in ancient times, after feeding their own numerous and mighty cities, |