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[287] to unbind the fetters of mankind. She took her stand against the blind egotism of the narrow self-sufficiency which would isolate each community from every other and tear asunder all the bands of sympathy wherewith nature joins the populations of the earth; wherewith and whereby nature fortifies that mind of man which is never strong by its single strength. I will not confine this idea by my own poor words, but give it rather in the words of New England, speaking through the lips of the purest champion of her cause—one might say its conscience: ‘Free trade!’ exclaimed Dr. Channing; ‘this is the plain duty and plain interest of the human race. To level all barriers to free exchange; to cut up the system of restriction, root and branch; to open every court on earth to every province—this is the office of enlightened humanity. To this a free nation should especially pledge itself. Freedom of the seas; freedom of harbors; and intercourse of nations free as the winds—this is not a dream of philanthropists. We are tending towards it, and let us hasten it. Under a wiser and more Christian civilization we shall look back on our present restrictions as we do on the swaddling bands by which in darker times the human body was compressed. The growing freedom of trade is another and glorious illustration of the tendency of our age to universality.’
Richmond, VA. 1892.
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