THE YOUNG AMERICAN. 357

out all force of a certain kind that slumber-ed in the former dynasties. It is now in the midst of its career. F eudalism is not ended yet. Om‘ gov- ernments still partake largely of that element. Trade goes to make the governments insignificant, and t0 bring every kind of faculty of every individ~ ual that can in any manner serve any person, on sale. Instead of a huge Army and Navy and Ex~ ecutive Departments, it converts Government into an Intelligence-Office, where every man may find what he wishes t0 buy, and expose What he has to sell; not only produce and manufactures, but art, skill, and intellectual and moral values. This is the good and this the evil of trade, that it would put everything into market; talent, beauty, virtue, and man himself.

The philosopher and lover of man have much harm to say of trade; but the historian will see that trade was the principle of Liberty; that trade planted America and destroyed Feudalism; that it makes peace and keeps peace, and it will abolish slavery. We complain of its oppression of the poor, and of its building up a new aristocracy on the ruins of the aristocracy it destroyed. But the aristocracy of trade has no permanence, is not en~ tailed, was the result of toil and talent, the result of merit of some kind, and is continually falling, like the waves of the sea, before new claims of the