14. CHAPTER XIV.
A remark, in which the Author appears as a politician, and abuses
both parties.
There are other persons besides Zachariah the
philanthropist, who have experienced the ingratitude
of the poor; and, truth to say, if we can believe
the accounts of those who profess to have the
best means of judging, there is more of it among
that class of beings in the United States than in
any other Christian land. If it be so, let not the
reader wonder at its existence. It springs, like
a thousand other evils of a worse, because of a
political complexion, from that constitution of society
which, notwithstanding its being in opposition
to all the interests of the land and the character of
our institutions, is founded in, and perpetuated by,
the folly of the richer classes. It lies, not in the
natural enmity supposed to exist between the rich
and the poor, but in the unnatural hatred provoked
in the bosoms of the one by the offensive pride and
arrogance of the other. The poor man in America
feels himself, in a political view, as he really
is, the equal of the millionaire; but this very consciousness
of equality adds double bitterness to the
sense of actual inferiority, which the richer and
more fortunate usually do their best, as far as
manners and deportment are concerned, to keep
alive. Why should the folly of a feudal aristocracy
prevail under the shadow of a purely democratic
government? It is to the stupid pride, the
insensate effort at pomp and ostentation, the unconcealed
contempt of labour, the determination, manifested
in a thousand ways, and always as unfeelingly
as absurdly, to keep the “base mechanical”
aware of the gulf between him and his betters—in
a word, to the puerile vanity and stolid pride of the
genteel and refined, that we owe the exasperation
of those classes in whose hands lie the reins of
power, and who will use them for good or bad purposes,
according as they are kept in a good or bad
humour. It is to these things we trace, besides the
general demoralization ever resulting from passions
long encouraged, besides the unwilling and unthankful
reception of benefits coming from the hands of
the detested, all those political evils which demagoguism,
agrarianism, mobocracism, and all other
isms of a vulgar stamp, have brought upon the land.
There is pride in the poor, as well as the rich:
the wise man and the patriot will take care not to
offend it.
Reader, if thou art a rich man, and despisest
thy neighbour, remember that he has a thousand
friends of his class where thou hast one of thine,
and that he can beat thee at the elections. If thou
art a gentleman, remember that thy cobbler is
another, or thinks himself so—which is all the
same thing in America. At all events, remember
this—namely, that the poor man will find no fault
with thy wealth, if thou findest none with his poverty.
