"Now I say that the country is in danger. It is in very great danger, the
greatest danger that can threaten any community. The institutions of a
nation are like the habits of a man, except that they are harder to
improve and easier to spoil. We have got into bad habits, and if we do not
mend them they will take us to a more certain destruction than revolution,
famine, or war,--or all three together. It is easier to fight a thing that
has a head to it and a name, than a thing that is everywhere and has no
name, because no one has the courage to christen it.

"We are like a man who has grown from being a peddler of tape and buttons
to be the greatest dry-goods-man in his town, and then to being a great
dealer for many towns. When he was a peddler he could carry the profit and
loss on his buttons and tape in his head, because the profits were
literally in his pocket, and the losses were literally out of it. But when
he has grown into a great merchant he must keep books, and he must keep a
great many of them, and they must be kept accurately, or he will get into
trouble and go to ruin. That is true, is it not? And when he was a peddler
he could buy his stock-in-trade himself, and be sure that it was what he
wanted; but when he is one of the great merchants he must employ other
people to help him, and unless they are the right people and understand
the business, he will be ruined. Nobody can deny that.

"Very well. We began in a small way as a nation, without much stock-in-
trade, and we kept our accounts by rule of thumb. But it seems to me we
are doing a pretty large business as a nation just now."

There was a laugh, and sundry remarks to the effect that the audience
understood what John was driving at.