THE 
 
 CITY OF NEW-YORK: 
 
 ITS 
 
 GROWTH, DESTINIES, AND DUTIES. 
 
 A LECTURE, 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 JOHN A. DIX, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY AT METROPOLITAN 
 HALL, ON THE 6tii DAY OF JANUARY, 1853. 
 
 NEW-YORK . 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 200 BROADWAY. 
 
 1853. 
 
• p. i 
 
THE CITY OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 In the opening lecture of the series in which I have been 
 invited to take part, you were addressed with great eloquence 
 and force on the culture of Art, with a special reference to this 
 city. So far as the application is concerned, I propose to fol- 
 low the example of the distinguished speaker, but in a much 
 more humble sphere. I shall, with your indulgence, devote 
 the hour allotted to me to a brief review of the growth of this 
 city, some glances into the future, to see, if we can, what are 
 its probable destinies, and the discussion of a few topics of do- 
 mestic interest and social duty. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance that the Hollanders, who 
 laid the foundations of this city, should have foreseen, more 
 than two centuries ago, the commercial pre-eminence to which 
 it was destined. In September 1652, forty-three years after 
 the landing of Hendrick Hudson, the directors of the West 
 India Company, in a letter to Peter Stuyvesant, the Director 
 General, urged on him the importance of promoting commerce 
 with the settlers in New England and Virginia, by which 
 means, they say, " must the Manhattans prosper," and their 
 trade and navigation flourish. "For when," the letter adds, 
 "these once become permanently established — when the ships 
 of New Netherland ride on every part of the ocean — then num- 
 bers, now looking to that coast with eager eyes, will be allured 
 to embark for your island." If these sagacious adventurers 
 could have looked forward to the changes which the lapse of 
 two hundred years has wrought, their language could hardly 
 
4 
 
 have been more prophetic or descriptive of the reality. Great 
 discoveries, it is true, have been made in the application of 
 physical powers to the practical uses of mankind, which were 
 not, at that day, revealed to human foresight. The luxuries 
 which always follow in the train of commerce, the resistless 
 power of our enterprise, the manifestations of industry in an 
 endless variety of forms — the genius, with which architecture 
 has elaborated this hall — all denote a spirit of development in 
 civilization and in art, which no vividness of the imagination 
 would have attributed, even at this day, to the wilderness, on 
 the skirts of which that feeble and precarious lodgment had 
 been made. 
 
 Indeed, it was not until the United States had thrown off 
 the colonial shackles, by which the spirit of their enterprise 
 was repressed, and the central government had given strong 
 evidence of its ability to sustain the weight of the system it 
 was designed to uphold, that the elements of this city's growth 
 became fully developed. Since that time its progress has had 
 no parallel in the history of modern improvement. 
 
 Fifty years ago, Canal-street was entirely beyond the set- 
 tled precincts of the city. The place of public execution was 
 in Franklin-street, selected, as all such theatres of the ven- 
 geance of the law were at that day, on account of its distance 
 from the abodes of the people, and the busy haunts of com- 
 merce and industry. Thirty years ago, the spot on which I 
 stand, was an unoccupied space far from the bustle and the 
 activities of the town. Now at least eight of the twenty-two 
 square miles of surface which the island contains, are covered, 
 the population has risen, in half a century, from 60,000 souls 
 to 550,000, and is increasing with augmenting rapidity. A 
 quarter of a century ago, in a pamphlet, which I wrote while 
 a student at law, on the resources of the city of New-York, I 
 expressed the belief that in 1878, twenty-five years hence, the 
 inhabitants would number nearly a million and a half, and 
 that the whole island would be covered with dwellings, and 
 buildings devoted to trade, the mechanic arts and the various 
 other uses, which a large commercial population requires. 
 
 The estimate 'was, by most persons, thought extravagant 
 at the time it was made, and was, by many, derided as a wild 
 
5 
 
 and unwarrantable speculation. And yet it has been thus far 
 outrun by the progress of the city. All past estimates, how- 
 ever unsupported they may have appeared to be by sober 
 calculations, are mere laggards in the race, which we are run- 
 ning against time and the impediments to human progress. 
 It is not probable that I shall live to see my prophecy fulfilled, 
 but there are, no doubt, many within the sound of my voice 
 who will. Setting apart the spaces needed for squares, reser- 
 voirs, railway appurtenances, shops, warehouses, manufacto- 
 ries, and public edifices, and the island will not conveniently 
 contain more than a million and a half of people. But this is 
 by no means the limit to its growth. Its population will flow 
 into surrounding spaces. The process has already commenced. 
 It has crossed the East Eiver, the North Kiver, and the Har- 
 lem. Brooklyn, Williamsburgh, Jersey City, and Morrisania, 
 are all dependencies of the great metropolis, and for ev^ ry 
 practical purpose, parts of it. A circle with a radius of four 
 miles in extent, and with its centre at Union Square, will now 
 inclose seven hundred and fifty thousand people. If the 
 population of the city and the surrounding districts referred 
 to increases as rapidly during the next twenty-eight years, as 
 it has during the last twenty-five, it will number in 1865, a 
 million and a half of souls, and in 1880 three millions. 
 
 If our peaceful relations with other countries continue un- 
 interrupted, I see no reason why there should be any check 
 to this increase. The rapid improvement of the country, the 
 extension of our commerce, the tide of immigration, the num- 
 berless lines of communication pointing to this city as to a 
 centre of radiation — all combine to confirm, and, indeed, to 
 accelerate its growth. In the pamphlet referred to, published 
 in 1827, 1 remember to have stated that the inhabitants of the 
 States of New- York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and of the 
 territory of Michigan, whose industry was subservient to the 
 commercial interests of the city, and dependent on it for for- 
 eign products, numbered nearly a million and a half of souls ; 
 and I estimated that the number would, in 1849, amount to 
 nearly three millions, and in 1878, to more than five millions 
 and a half. This estimate also has already been vastly ex- 
 ceeded by the result. Taking the same basis, modified by 
 
6 
 
 the railway communications, which have been opened to the 
 city, and the population of interior districts now dependent 
 upon us for their commercial supplies, cannot number less 
 than five millions and a half — about equal to the number 
 estimated for the year 1878. We are a quarter of a century 
 in advance of this estimate, and with no apparent limit to the 
 growth of the districts thus connected with us. This extra- 
 ordinary extension of the internal trade of the city is due, in 
 some degree, to railways, which did not enter into the esti- 
 mate of its increase twenty-five years ago, because they had 
 not then been introduced into this State. Our communication 
 with Lake Erie, and the agricultural supplies it receives from 
 the Northwestern States, is now more speedy and more cer- 
 tain than our intercourse was with Dutchess county fifty years 
 ago. Five hundred miles are now more easily and speedily 
 overcome, both as regards travel and transportation, than 
 fifty miles were at the commencement of the present century, 
 One of the practical effects of these facilities of intercourse is 
 to place the products of the interior of this State and of the 
 States I have referred to at the very outskirts of the city, and 
 to bring the immense variety of the products of other coun- 
 tries, which centre here, into virtual contact with the inte- 
 rior. 
 
 Who shall venture to assign limits to this extension ? 
 London, with far inferior capacities for commerce, foreign or 
 domestic, has a population of two millions and a half, spread 
 over a surface of forty square miles. With the further advan- 
 tage, which New- York possesses, as a general mart, to some 
 extent, for the whole Union, there is no reason why she may 
 not go far beyond the British metropolis. 
 
 There is another element which is destined to exert a 
 powerful influence on her growth. By means of the ware- 
 house system, yet in its infancy, she is rapidly becoming a 
 mercantile depot for the western hemisphere. The foreign 
 products, which are destined for consumption on this side of 
 the Atlantic, will be deposited here for distribution, and thus 
 put largely in requisition our industry and capital. 
 
 This accumulation of men and of commercial wealth must 
 bring with it another consequence of equal significance and 
 
7 
 
 efficacy. New- York, with all these advantages, cannot fail 
 to become, at no distant day, the centre of the pecuniary, as 
 well as the commercial, exchanges for this continent, and per- 
 haps, for the world. Such a consequence is almost insepara- 
 ble from a decided ascendency in commerce. Money, the in- 
 strument of commerce, naturally flows into the channels' where 
 commercial operations are most extended and active. The pre- 
 cious metals of California will not only insure, but must hasten 
 this result. Like the products of foreign industry, they will 
 come here for distribution, stimulating our enterprise and 
 facilitating commercial exchanges, 
 
 I am sure I speak the sentiments of every person here 
 present when I say, that the great prosperity of our own city 
 has not made us indifferent to that of others. Boston, Phila- 
 delphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans, have their 
 commercial offices to perform in their respective spheres, and 
 there is work enough to be done on this continent to keep us 
 all actively and beneficially employed. When the census of 
 1850 apprised us that our industrious and energetic neighbor. 
 Philadelphia, numbered over four hundred thousand inhabit- 
 ants, and was following us closely in enterprise and wealth, 
 I am sure there was no other feeling but of gratification 
 at her prosperity. Between Pennsylvania and New- York 
 there must always be a close and familiar association. We 
 border on each other for a distance of more than three hum 
 dred miles. Though our interests are not in all respects the 
 same, they are coincident in some remarkable particulars. 
 Indeed, there is, in one respect, so striking an adjustment of 
 her capabilities to our wants, that there never can be, in the 
 commercial relations of the two States, any other rivalry than 
 an honorable and beneficial competition. I refer to the inex- 
 haustible and inestimable wealth of her coal fields, which are 
 indispensable to the prosperity of our commercial metropolis, 
 Not only the city of New- York, but a large number of our 
 counties, with a population of a million and a half of souls, 
 and increasing rapidly, are dependent on her supplies of fuel 
 for their comfort. It is a curious fact, that the instant we 
 reach the northern boundary of Pennsylvania from her inte- 
 rior, the coal measures disappear ! Not a trace of this great 
 
8 
 
 article of necessity is to be found on our side of the line. 
 What makes it more singular is,' that this boundary is a mere 
 statistical demarcation, not marked out by any great natural 
 division — not following a water course, or a mountain chain, 
 but traversing both rivers and hills by a line drawn parallel 
 to the equator. May we not regard it as one of those arrange- 
 ments of Providence, which, in our ignorance or our presump- 
 tion, we are too apt to ascribe to blind chance ? I say, may 
 we not regard it as an arrangement of Providence to bind in- 
 separably to each other these two great States (constituting, 
 as they do, the heart of the American Confederacy), and to 
 give them the influence they may possibly need, in the pro- 
 gress of events, to maintain the integrity of the Union, by 
 holding together in the same bonds of friendship the other 
 associated States ? 
 
 Heavy responsibilities, grave questions of social and do- 
 mestic duty, grow out of our commercial pre-eminence. Ex- 
 traordinary aggregations of wealth, unless rightly employed, 
 are never desirable. "When they become the ministers of 
 luxury and extravagance, they misdirect industry, pervert 
 the public taste, and endanger the purity of society and the 
 safety of the government. This is the great danger we have 
 to guard against. It is the greater because the chief security 
 of our free institutions has always been deemed to rest essen- 
 tially upon the maintenance of a simple and economical gov- 
 ernment. I do not believe it to be possible for such a gov- 
 ernment to be continued in existence for any length of time, 
 unless the social spirit conforms to it. A luxurious and ex- 
 travagant people cannot maintain a simple and frugal govern- 
 ment. No matter with what safeguards it may be surrounded ; 
 they will be silently relaxed until they conform to the social 
 condition of the people. Private profusion comes first, next 
 corporate recklessness and extravagance, and last of all public 
 corruption. This, then, is the great duty which devolves on 
 us — to make the spirit of the social conform to the political 
 organization, and maintain both in simplicity and econo- 
 my. I know it is a very difficult duty where wealth abounds, 
 and draws after it the temptations to profuse expenditure, with 
 which it is always beset. But let us hope that it is not impos- 
 
9 
 
 sible. Certainly, the most superficial view of our social orga- 
 nization should be sufficient to indicate the folly of all private 
 extravagancies, which partake of the character of permanent 
 investments. The most common manifestation of lavish ex- 
 penditure at the present moment, is in costly private dwellings. 
 We have, like Genoa, our streets of palaces, but without her 
 apology for them. We have no orders of nobility, no per- 
 manent estates to support large establishments. Private for- 
 tunes are exceedingly evanescent with us. The regular ope- 
 ration of our laws is to dissolve the accumulations of wealth 
 which are the fruit of successful enterprise. There are very 
 few instances in which property remains in a family beyond 
 the second or third generation. Our forefathers abolished 
 rules of primogeniture, because they considered them incon- 
 sistent with the genius of our institutions. The spirit of the 
 community has conformed to this view of social duty, and no 
 man thinks of leaving his property by will (as he may) to one 
 child, for the purpose of keeping up a large establishment. A 
 juster feeling has become universal, and children are endowed 
 equally with the ancestral goods, or at least in proportion to 
 their respective claims or merits, as the ancestor appreciates 
 them. Under these circumstances, nothing can be more un- 
 wise than the erection of costly dwellings, which can only be 
 maintained by princely fortunes. At the death of the head 
 of the family, and the division of the ancestral property, no 
 one of the children, as a general rule, has enough to support 
 the establishment, and it passes into other hands. Nothing 
 can ~be more unjust to children than to bring them up with 
 expectations, which cannot be fulfilled, or with habits of life, 
 which they are compelled to abandon. The parent, for the 
 sake of a few years of ostentation, invests a large portion of 
 his estate in a splendid dwelling, with the certainty that his 
 death will be the signal for the expulsion of his children from 
 it. Look for the splendid mansions of thirty years ago, and 
 see what has become of them. Scarcely one remains in the 
 family by which it was constructed. They are boarding- 
 houses, places of public exhibition, or the workshops of 
 fashion. The daughter enters the house of which her father 
 was the master, and chaffers for a Parisian mantilla or bon- 
 
10 
 
 net in the sacred chamber in which she drew her first breath. 
 In a large commercial city, extending rapidly, the currents of 
 business and fashion sometimes change and bring with' them 
 these consequences. But they are more frequently the result 
 of other causes. They are generally the consequence of the 
 inability of any one of the children to maintain the paternal 
 mansion, with the share of the estate which has fallen to 
 him. 
 
 Under these social disabilities, no man of fortune should 
 build a house, which any one of his children, with the share 
 of the property he is likely to inherit, will not be able to re- 
 tain. If he does, the chances are ten to one' that his descend- 
 ants, before a single generation shall have passed away, will 
 be compelled to quit the paternal mansion, and do violence to 
 all the endearing associations, which connect themselves with 
 the family fireside and the natal roof. Nothing can be more 
 heart-sickening if this necessity is met with sensibility, or more 
 demoralizing to the feelings, if it is submitted to with indiffer- 
 ence. It has sometimes been said of us reproachfully, that 
 we have no local attachments — no ancestral associations, which 
 endear to us the places occupied by those who have preceded 
 us in the journey of life. In a community like ours, in a 
 state of rapid progression and change, and in which the philo- 
 sophy of jurisprudence looks to the distribution rather than 
 the accumulation of the proceeds of labor, local ties are un- 
 questionably apt to be loosely worn. This is more especially 
 true in cities, where private residences are often forcibly ex- 
 pelled by the irresistible encroachments of commerce and 
 traffic. In the broader spaces which the country affords, there 
 is happily room left for the sanctity of local attachments, and 
 for the cultivation of those associations, which cling to the 
 spots where the bones of our ancestors repose, and where our 
 own eyes, or those of our children, first saw the light. 
 
 I consider it as one of the greatest securities of this city, so 
 far as a cultivation of the social affections and virtues is con-, 
 cerned, that it is so closely connected by railways with the 
 rural districts in its vicinity. In one hour, the man of busi- 
 ness or the mechanic may pass from the close confinement of 
 his office, his counting-room, or his workshop, into the pure 
 
11 
 
 atmosphere of the country. The effect of these facilities is to 
 withdraw from the city, during the genial seasons of the 
 year, a large portion of its inhabitants — to take men away 
 from the town, where they are busy only with their own 
 works, and place them where they must necessarily become 
 conversant with the works of nature and of nature's God. 
 As the clear atmosphere of the country is the best purifier of 
 the malaria of the great cities, so are the quietude and the 
 simple occupations of rural life the most salutary and efficient 
 corrective of their extravagancies and luxurious habits. There 
 is nothing so full of hope and of promise for the purity and 
 the invigoration of our social condition, as the growing, T 
 might almost say the prevailing, disposition to escape from the 
 bustle, the show and the ceremoniousness of the city, as soon 
 as the genial season returns, and take refuge from them all in 
 the quietude, the simplicity and the freedom of the country. 
 Indeed, large numbers of the working classes have made per- 
 manent changes in their homes. No one can go from the 
 city on any of the great railroads terminating here, without 
 being struck with the number of villages, which have sprung 
 into life within the last three years. They consist, for the most 
 part, of cottages, each with its little garden and grassplot, 
 with here and there a larger enclosure answering better to the 
 designation of a field. These new creations are the work of 
 the mechanics of the city, who have wisely exchanged close 
 streets and crowded dwellings, where space and pure air are 
 alike unattainable, for rural habitations where they can enjoy 
 both. They have their schools and churches and their quiet 
 neighborhoods, where their children may be brought up with- 
 out being exposed to the contaminations of the town. What 
 an improvement is this upon the former estate of the indus- 
 trious man — upon summer evenings in town, when the labors 
 of the day were over, passed in close apartments rarely visited 
 by a breath of pure air, or upon side- walks, with pavements 
 and brick walls sending out in fiery streams the heat they had 
 accumulated while the sun was upon them ! Now a railway 
 takes him from his rural home in the morning to his work in 
 town, and after his ten hours of labor, he returns to his home 
 again, and passes what remains of daylight in his garden, or 
 
12 
 
 sits down with his family at his own porch, with the bosom of 
 his mother earth unveiled before him, and with the shrubs 
 and flowers he has planted, sending out freshness and fra- 
 grance to soothe and invigorate him for the labors of another 
 day. 
 
 The healthy influence of this new life upon the mind, the 
 moral affections and the physical energies of the industrious 
 classes, is beyond all power of appreciation. 
 
 To the man of independent circumstances, who can afford 
 to have a house in town, and another in the country, a simi- 
 lar change of life, for a portion of the year at least, would be 
 equally beneficial, under all its moral as well as its physical 
 aspects. It is the love for rural scenes and rural occupations, 
 which, above all other causes combined, lias given to the higher 
 classes in England an intellectual and corporeal vigor un- 
 known to the same classes in most other countries of Europe. 
 Where the country residence ranks first and the town house 
 second in the scale of the affections, — where the thoughts are, 
 as it were, embalmed in the purifying influences of rural life 
 — there is no danger that a community will fall into decrepi- 
 tude on the one hand, or dissoluteness on the other. The 
 most seductive capitals and the most demoralizing, so far as 
 all elevation of thought is concerned, are those which concen- 
 trate all the attractions of life in themselves, and where the 
 districts by which they are surrounded are devoid of rural 
 beauty. 
 
 A rural residence, if it be simple and unpretending, is one 
 of the best moral teachers to the inhabitant of the town. If 
 it have all the show of the town house, and the " pomp and 
 circumstance" of the winter are maintained in summer, he 
 will gain little by the change. The most friendly wish to the 
 wealthy would be that every family might have its cottage, 
 where the ostentation of equipage, the ceremoniousness of 
 fashionable attendance, and the luxurious habits of the city, 
 might be laid aside for a portion of the year, and where chil- 
 dren might be taught the salutary lesson (a hard one, when 
 necessity is the first to teach it,) that the trappings of artificial 
 life may be thrown off without sacrificing enjoyment or per- 
 sonal dignity. The cost of half a dozen city entertainments 
 
13 
 
 would provide such au establishment, and it would be repaid 
 an hundredfold in health and intellectual vigor. 
 
 Nature has given us around the city a country singularly 
 varied in its outline, from the quiet shores of the East Kiver 
 and the Sound to the majestic scenery of the Hudson ; and 
 with one half the expenditure which is wasted upon frivolous 
 embellishment, it may in twenty -five years be made the most 
 beautiful suburban district on the face of the globe. 
 
 In connection with this subject, I cannot forbear to con- 
 gratulate you on the marked improvement which has taken 
 place within the last twenty-five years in our domestic archi- 
 tecture. The era of Grecian pediments and colonnades for 
 private dwellings is happily past, and, it is to be hoped, to 
 return no more. The substitution of the Norman, Gothic, 
 modern Italian, and English cottage styles is a great gain both 
 as regards convenience and rural embellishment. The most 
 simple of these forms are always in best taste. There is great 
 danger of running too much into ornament, and giving a 
 meretricious cast to our domestic improvements. While in 
 the city the prevailing tendency to overload with ornament 
 literally revels in stucco, and developes itself in the most 
 unmeaning shapes, in the country it runs wild in pinnacles, 
 fantastic vergeboards, and in the endless foliations and efflores- 
 cences of the mediaeval styles. All this is in the worst taste. 
 A chaste simplicity adapted to our institutions, to the nature 
 of our government, the character of our people and the 
 equalizing spirit of our laws, is demanded by every considera- 
 tion of congruity and every dictate of good sense. It were 
 greatly to be desired that some architect would give the rein 
 to his genius, and, rising above the tyranny of rules, would 
 give birth to an American style — a style suited to our means, 
 our tastes, our wants, and the peculiarities of our climate. 
 The English cottage style, the most picturesque of all for 
 rural architecture, would not be suited to us without essential 
 modifications. We must have deep verandahs and protected 
 attics to shelter us from the scorching heat of our summer 
 sun. Our interior arrangements must have their modifications 
 also, to meet peculiarities in our social condition. No man is 
 equal to the work who is not thoroughly imbued with the 
 
14 
 
 spirit of our system, and who has not the strength to burst 
 away from all the bonds with which the Delilahs of fashion 
 will strive to fetter his genius and his independence of 
 thought. 
 
 There is one sphere of embellishment in which there can 
 be no excess — in the cultivation of trees and plants, and in 
 the enrichment by artificial culture of the numberless forms 
 under which exuberant nature manifests herself in the realms 
 of vegetable life. The simplest dwelling, surrounded by shade 
 and verdure, is always attractive. It is in these accessories to 
 rural architecture that the great charm of the country in Eng- 
 land consists. Her country houses are very rarely faultless 
 when brought to the test of strict architectural rules. Indeed, 
 they are often ungraceful in design and rude in execution. 
 But with the woodbine covering up the porch, and the ivy 
 climbing up the gable and the oriel, and enveloping them in 
 verdure and in shade, they have a charm which no others 
 possess. Such as these I should wish our rural habitations to 
 be. Let the wealthy go forth from their luxurious city dwell- 
 ings, and make themselves familiar with the beauties of na- 
 ture, while there is time left to enjoy them Let them busy 
 themselves in planting trees around their rustic abodes, let 
 them teach the vine where to entwine itself, and the shrub 
 where to grow and to flower. Let their children mingle with 
 them in these primeval occupations, the purest and the most 
 grateful which life affords, and they shall be stronger, happier 
 and better men. Their children will grow up with juster 
 views of their responsibilities and duties, with more vigorous 
 frames and purer affections, and with stouter hearts for the 
 battle of life. 
 
 No man can look out upon the living forms, which are 
 gathering beauty and strength from his fostering care, without 
 feeling his thoughts elevated and purified. He knows that 
 Lis own hand is laboring with the hand of God, and that he 
 himself, though but a created being with limited capacities, is 
 giving to the works of the Almighty, a beauty and a grace, 
 which but for his care they would never have possessed- 
 Thoughts like these diminish the distance between him and 
 the Author of his existence, and strengthen the hope that 
 
15 
 
 there may be, when the fulness of time shall come, a higher, 
 a closer, and a holier co-operation. 
 
 But, ladies and gentlemen, I fear I am dwelling too long 
 upon this branch of my subject. Before I resign it, I cannot 
 forbear to direct your attention to a series of works on rural 
 embellishment, which, by a painful dispensation of Providence 
 has been suddenly brought to a close. I mean the writings of 
 the late Mr. Downing, of Newburgh. I know no works so 
 well calculated to give elevated conceptions of the dignity 
 and the charm of rural occupations — none which have done 
 and are doing so much for the embellishment of our glorious 
 country. Nor do I know any which teach a purer morality. 
 It is now understood that another of the series, more extended, 
 and far surpassing its predecessors in its eloquence, and the 
 beauty of its illustrations, was in a course of preparation. 
 Under any circumstances, the death of such a man is a public 
 bereavement. Coming as it did, it was still more deplorable. 
 It is an irreparable loss. The country could better have spared 
 more than one of its most distinguished statesmen, or jurists, 
 or divines. Their places might have been supplied, but his 
 is not likely to be in our day. It is only once in an age that 
 a man rises up so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his 
 profession, and with the sacred flame of art kindled in his 
 bosom by the breath of Heaven. 
 
 There is one subject of great interest, which was briefly re- 
 ferred to by the distinguished gentleman, who delivered the 
 opening lecture, and which, I am sure my auditors will par- 
 don me for presenting to them with greater particularity. It 
 is a subject on which I have bestowed some thought, and, in 
 respect to which, I made, a few years ago, an attempt (I am 
 sorry to say an unsuccessful one) to enlist the co-operation of 
 some of our wealthy citizens. I mean the establishment in 
 this city of an American Academy of Art, the foundation of 
 which shall be a collection of pictures and statuary open to 
 the public, furnished with all the facilities which artists require 
 for study and "improvement in their professions, and with 
 schools of design for the gratuitous instruction of young per- 
 sons without pecuniary means. With the exception of a public 
 park of proper extent, I consider this nearly the only great 
 
16 
 
 want of the city, which can be supplied by ourselves. Popular 
 education is amply provided for by public law. The preach- 
 ing of the Gospel is extended, by the unassisted operation of 
 the voluntary system, to every portion of the city. The sick 
 are healed, the hungry fed, and the naked clothed, by muni- 
 ficent public charities. A noble library, already the most 
 valuable in the world in proportion to the number of volumes 
 it contains, is about to be opened to the public, and will give 
 to the name of Astor a duration as lasting as the city itself. 
 Another popular institution, designed for the special benefit 
 of the industrious classes, and endowed with the same princely 
 liberality, will insure to the name of Cooper an undying life. 
 These institutions are, in some degree, local, though they are 
 to be open to the whole American public. But an Academy 
 of Art, containing specimens of the best schools of painting, 
 ancient and modern, casts of ancient statues, and modern sta- 
 tuary of the most eminent masters, would become immediately 
 a national institution. It would make New-York the empo- 
 rium of Art for the western hemisphere. Artists would flock 
 to it from all sections of the Union, and from every portion 
 of this continent, and return to the study of nature, with a 
 full knowledge of all that the genius of man has done for the 
 perfection of the processes by which she may be most faith- 
 fully and feelingly copied. I believe I may safely say that no 
 country, which has had so short a life as ours, has done more 
 for art. But it is all the work of artists themselves, and the 
 private encouragement by which they have been sustained. 
 Neither the public nor the private wealth of the country has 
 come forward with any great or permanent scheme of-endow- 
 ment for the encouragement of American art. It has strug- 
 gled on unaided, battling dauntlessly with all the discourage- 
 ments which have beset its path — discouragements arising 
 from the want of elementary instruction at home, and the 
 rivalry of better disciplined competitors abroad — and yet it 
 has gained for some of its votaries an immortal name. 
 
 It was thought that such an institution as I have described, 
 might be founded upon an extended individual subscription. 
 I have abandoned all such hope. It must be the work of 
 some one man — some one of our wealthy and enlightened citi- 
 
17 
 
 zens like Astor and Cooper, who, under the influence of a 
 good inspiration, shall see in the accomplishment of a great 
 public work for the benefit of present and future generations, 
 a better motive and a higher fame than the brief possession of 
 the few hundred thousand dollars which are necessary for it. 
 I would not have him underrate the cost of such an institu- 
 tion. I do not think less than four hundred thousand dollars 
 would suitably accomplish it — one hundred and fifty thousand 
 for the ground and the building, an equal amount for the 
 purchase of pictures and statuary, and a hundred thousand 
 more to be invested to meet its annual wants. There are men 
 enough in this city whose fortunes would not be incon- 
 veniently diminished by such a contribution, who may, in a 
 year, or a month, in the order of human life, be summoned to 
 surrender all they possess into the hands of those who do not 
 need it, or by whom it may be uselessly employed. I believe 
 no higher niche remains to be filled in the temple of our city's 
 fame than this — no work, by which a man may more certainly 
 inscribe his name upon its loftiest pediment — there to stand 
 until the last column which sustains it, shall crumble into 
 dust. 
 
 It is in establishments and institutions like these that the 
 munificence of Kepublics and Republicans is best displayed. 
 While all individual profusion is at war with the spirit of the 
 system under which we live, and can only bring with it un- 
 mixed evil, public institutions for the elevation of industry 
 and the perfection of art — institutions in which all can meet 
 on the footing of equality inherent in our political organiza- 
 tion — are at once the conservative agencies and the glory of 
 free governments. 
 
 But it is time for me to return to a topic, to which I briefly 
 alluded at the commencement of my remarks. I mean the 
 necessity of a practical conformity of the social movement to 
 the principles on which the political organization is founded. 
 I believe there is only one condition to be fulfilled in order to 
 ensure for our system of government all the stability of which 
 human institutions are capable. It must be carried out in the 
 spirit in which it was created. Society must not set up dis- 
 tinctions unknown to the system itself, and give them, by 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 habit or conventional sanctions, an influence at war with it, 
 We must not weaken what was designed to be secure, or in- 
 troduce what was designed to be excluded. 
 
 And 1st, let it be distinctly understood, that the law must 
 be inflexibly maintained. I use the term law in its largest 
 sense, not only as including what has been specifically decreed, 
 but as comprehending the general order, on the preservation 
 of which the inviolability of all public authority depends. 
 The law is the will of the people constitutionally expressed. 
 Whoever arrays himself against it, excepting to procure its 
 repeal in the mode prescribed by the fundamental compact, 
 commits an act of treachery to the people themselves. The 
 law is the basis of all popular supremacy. It is the very fea- 
 ture by which free government is distinguished from despot- 
 ism. To uphold it is one of the highest duties which is de- 
 volved on us as freemen. It is always possible that those who 
 are intrusted with its execution, may err in the performance 
 of their duty. They may employ unnecessary, arbitrary, or 
 even wanton severity in enforcing it. For all this they may 
 be held to a rigid account. But no error in the execution can 
 impair the obligation to uphold it. It must be understood, 
 and without reservation, that the law is to be inflexibly main- 
 tained. 
 
 2d. Kindred to the inviolability of the law, is the inviola- 
 bility of rights of property. Under our system of government 
 life is always secure, except from private passion, hatred and 
 revenge, and these the law visits with a retribution which 
 many regard as incompatible with the humanity of the age. 
 The inviolability of private property rests upon the same basis 
 as security to life. It is one of the leading objects of all social 
 compacts. Life, liberty, property — security to those is the 
 great end for which men enter into society. We believe it 
 to be prejudicial to the general interest that property shall be 
 kept in masses by the operation of law. We have declared 
 that children, in cases of intestacy, shall inherit equally. We 
 believe that accumulations of wealth should not be made per- 
 manent. We have abolished entails. We believe that the 
 distribution of property should not be unduly restricted. We 
 have provided that the absolute power of alienation shall not 
 
19 
 
 be suspended beyond the period of two lives in being at the 
 creation of the state. All these provisions are designed to 
 distribute as soon as possible, without discouraging individual 
 enterprise and industry, accumulations of property, which su- 
 perior sagacity, good fortune or accident, has created. None 
 of these restrictions are invasions of the rights which social 
 compacts are designed to secure. We may go farther, and as- 
 sign limits to future accumulation or to the investment of the 
 proceeds of industry in particular objects. These are ques- 
 tions of practical wisdom and policy, which may be fairly set- 
 tled by reference to their probable influence upon the general 
 interest and prosperity. But any regulation, which has the 
 effect of rendering an existing tenure insecure or worthless, is 
 a direct violation of one of the great purposes, for which we 
 entered into society, and must weaken the security of liberty 
 and life, by impairing the fundamental obligations by which 
 all are supported. This is a question in which the many have 
 a far deeper interest than the few. The tens of millions which 
 are held by large proprietors, are as nothing in comparison 
 with the hundreds of millions distributed in smaller portions 
 among the great body of people. The security of all must 
 stand or fall together. 
 
 3d. The different members of the general society, must un- 
 derstand and be willing to do justice to each other. External 
 forms of organization, rules of political conduct, do much. But 
 the internal spirit which animates the system and imparts its 
 vital powers, must be in harmony with its formal constitution, 
 in order that its movements may meet with no interruption or 
 shock from the antagonism of the elements of which it is com- 
 posed. One of the theories of our government is, that all are 
 politically equal. We have reduced the theory to practice by 
 making suffrage universal, and public employments and honors 
 accessible to all. Let us forbear to set up social distinctions, 
 which may practically affect, though certainly to a limited ex- 
 tent, what political distinctions produce in other countries. Let 
 us avoid, as far as in us lies, all which tends to divide society 
 into classes — for all such divisions imply diversity of inter- 
 ests, and almost always produce isolation. Social distinctions 
 must of necessity be, in the highest degree, evanescent with 
 
20 
 
 us. We have neither orders of nobility nor permanent estates 
 to sustain or perpetuate them. They rest almost exclusively 
 upon commercial wealth, and they partake of its vicissitudes 
 and its instability. To seek to found distinctions upon wealth 
 alone, where accumulations of property are so transient, is not 
 only vainly attempting what is unattainable, but its tendency 
 is to make wealth the object of pernicious jealousies, and thus 
 to inflict upon society a great public evil. Absolute equality 
 in the possession of property, as a practical condition of life, is 
 but the dream of the enthusiast. Nature has so pronounced 
 it by endowing her children unequally. But in the enjoy- 
 ment of all the comforts of life, and in the means of satisfying 
 all our necessary wants, the condition of men approaches much 
 nearer to equality than is generally supposed. We rarely 
 consider how little is needed where there are no artificial wants 
 to disquiet us — how much is required in circles where conven- 
 tional exactions are the rule of expenditure. Misunderstand- 
 ing on this subject — ignorance, on the part of one portion of 
 the community, of the objects, desires and wants of other por- 
 tions, lie at the foundation of all the jealousies which exist 
 between those whose condition is unequal. This misunder- 
 standing should becorrected — these jealousies removed ; and 
 he who, instead of contributing to objects of such vital im- 
 portance, shall attempt to excite in one portion of the commu- 
 nity prejudices against another, should be ranked among the 
 most dangerous enemies of the republic. 
 
 I have already spoken of divisions into classes as undesi- 
 rable and pernicious in their tendency. They carry with them 
 the idea of opposite interests. Dissociation, separate action, 
 alienation, jealousy, unkindness, opposition, hatred, collision; 
 these are the steps by which their progress to maturity is to 
 be traced in other countries- Let us, then, regard each other 
 as members of a single association, standing in the same rela- 
 tion to the system, of which we are a part, and having none 
 but common interests- Let him who has little property, con- 
 sider that those who possess it, take with it burdens and re- 
 sponsibilities from which he himself is exempt, — that they 
 contribute, in proportion to their possessions, to the public ex- 
 penditure, that their anxieties are increased, and that great 
 
21 
 
 wealth, as the experience of all ages attests, does not contribute 
 to augment the sum of human happiness. On the other hand, 
 let those who have much, consider that much is required of 
 them, — that their possessions are a sacred trust which will be 
 best fulfilled by a liberal and confiding regard for those, whom 
 fortune has less highly favored. In a word, gentlemen, sym- 
 pathy and fraternal feeling must take the place of indifference 
 and distrust in the intercourse of those whose condition is 
 unequal. Organize society as you will, however correct }-our 
 formulas, or however wisely adjusted the different parts of 
 the system, you cannot make it independent of the passions 
 and affections of men. It is by enlightening and purifying 
 these that the great ends of society are to be wrought out. 
 
 And finally, fellow citizens, let us bear ever in remem- 
 brance, as a motive to the fulfilment of our social obligations, 
 that we stand before the world as the chief representatives of 
 free institutions. The great features of this continent seem to 
 mark it out for the accomplishment of labors and destinies of 
 corresponding magnitude — the Mississippi pouring into the 
 ocean the majestic current it has accumulated in its course of 
 three thousand miles — the Niagara, collecting the waters of an 
 inland Sea, and precipitating them into another in a cataract 
 of gigantic volume and Herculean power — the Rocky Moun- 
 tain chain, pushing up its snowy summits to the heavens, with 
 its deep indentation cut down to its base, and indicating a 
 design as palpable as if the Omniscient Power that created it 
 had said, " Through this pass thousands of years hence, the 
 railway which is to unite the Columbia River with the Hudson, 
 shall bear the burdens of associated continents and oceans. ' 
 A county thus strongly marked in its physical lineaments, is 
 a fit theatre for the great experiment we are making of the 
 competency of mankind to self-government, and for the social 
 developments which are in progress here on so vast a scale. 
 
 This city, as the metropolis of such a country, should cor- 
 respond with it in the magnitude of its improvements. Though 
 yet in its infancy, it has proved itself, in all it has done, not 
 unworthy of the distinction. Pere La Chaise sinks into insig- 
 nificance when contrasted with the sylvan grandeur of Green- 
 wood. The aqueduct which conveys the Croton River across 
 
22 
 
 the Harlem, compares well in the solidity and beauty of its 
 architecture with the kindred work spanning the Valley of 
 Alcantara, or with those magnificent structures, which, after 
 the lapse of two thousand years, though now falling into 
 rains, still stretch across the Campagna, and by the agency of 
 which, Imperial Rome was perpetually refreshed by the pure 
 waters of her distant hills. 
 
 For what remains to be done — for popular institutions, on 
 ;t scale so broad as to embrace her whole population, and to 
 endow all with the capacities necessary for the discharge of 
 their social and political duties — for the facilities which her 
 industrious classes require to prepare them for the exercise of 
 t heir various avocations — for the depositories of art, and the 
 elementary training which are needed to call out genius and to 
 refine the public taste — she must look to her commercial 
 wealth. Her mercantile men have a reputation as wide as the 
 world itself for their activity, the grasp of their enterprise, and 
 their fidelity to their pecuniary engagements. Under their 
 influence, aided by the unrivalled energy and skill of her 
 ship-builders, her commerce has been pushed to the very con- 
 fines of the habitable globe. Neither equatorial heat, nor 
 polar frosts, nor barbarism, nor the conflicts of civilized races, 
 have constituted an impediment to the execution of their com- 
 mercial adventures. In the beauty, the speed and the internal 
 arrangements of their ships they have left all rivals at an im- 
 measurable distance behind. They have accomplished all this 
 by their own unassisted energies. They have not, like the 
 mercantile classes of England, been aided by a direct trade 
 with extensive colonial dependencies, from which, until a very 
 recent day, other nations were shut out. They have cast them* 
 selves upon the ocean, self-reliant and fearless, and entered 
 into triumphant competition with the whole commercial world. 
 Their boldness, their perseverance, and their success have con- 
 tributed, in an eminent degree, to the practical vindication of 
 the great element of freedom, as the true basis of international 
 communications and exchanges, and have had a powerful 
 agency in compelling other nations to relax the rigor of their 
 commercial systems. One more great truth remains to be as- 
 serted and verified by a stern adherence to the fundamental 
 
principles of our institutions in their social as well as their 
 political requirements — a truth to which we should cling with 
 undying faith — that extended commerce, social refinement and 
 accumulated wealth, are perfectly compatible with public 
 order, domestic purity and national strength. 
 
When you leave, please leave this hook 
 
 Because it has heen said 
 "Sver'thincj comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned hook." 
 
 Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library