'Tis Sixty Years Since Address of Charles Francis Adams (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...of the American people, and consequently in all its theories and ideals, within the last thirty years, I should attribute it to a wholly different cause. Mr. Lecky some years ago, in his book entitled "Liberty and Democracy," made the following statement, in no way original, but, as he put it, sufficiently striking: "The produce of the American mines incident to the discoveries made by Columbus created, in the most extreme form ever known in Europe, the change which beyond all others affects most deeply and universally the material well-being of men: it revolutionized the value of the precious metals, and, in consequence, the price of all articles, the effects of all contracts, the burden of all debts." In other words, referring to the first half of the sixteenth century, --the sixty years, we will say, following the land-fall of Columbus, --the historian attributed the great change which then occurred and which stands forth so markedly in history, to the increased New-World production of the precious metals, combined with the impetus given to trade and industry as a consequence of that discovery, and of the mastery of man over additional globe areas. Now, dismissing from consideration the so-called American protective system, likewise our currency issues and, generally, the patchwork, so to speak, of crazy-quilt legislation to which so much is attributed during the last thirty years, I confidently submit that in the production of the results under discussion, they are quantities and factors hardly worthy of consideration. The cause of the change which has taken place lies far deeper and must be sought in influences of a wholly different nature, influences developed into an increased and still ever increasing activity, over which legislation has absolutely no control. I refer, of course, to man's mastery over the latent forces of Nature. Of these Steam and Electricity are the great examples, which, because always apparent, at once...