perty to pay, no justice is violated; and to persecute, oppress, and harass him by imprisonment, is to commit the worst injustice, and overthrow the very ends for which society was instituted.

Is it compatible with the exercise of equal rights, and the possession of civil liberty?

It seems scarcely possible to answer this question without being guilty of repetition; so much of our preceding arguments being applicable to this point. It may certainly be questioned whether, under a government whose basis is equality of rights, imprisonment for debt can be justly ordained. If personal servitude can be rightfully imposed on ourselves, in consideration of money, the principle of equitable slavery would at once be established; but as this cannot be, it follows as a corollary, that the penalty now exacted of the debtor, is as repugnant to the constitution as it is to the spirit of the age, which rests every question upon reason, justice, humanity, and truth. I now speak solely of the matter of debt. Fraud is another question, and, as an indubitable crime, is liable to merited and reasonable punishment.

The end of all civilized institutions is happiness. Property is secured and guarded by just laws, because money, or wealth, is an essential means to human comfort, without which, happiness cannot exist; but to make property the end of government, is to prostitute laws to the lust of insatiable avarice. It can always be seen when refinement borders upon barbarism, by its confounding means with ends, and losing all sight of happiness, by directing its aims exclusively after gold, ambition, distinction, pride and pomp. Rapacity and avarice are the great obstacles to human enjoyments. Instigated by these, legislatures extend laws to protect

property so far, that they assume an opposite character, and instead of being the barriers of personal rights, become the perpetrators of personal wrongs. Such is that cupidity, which pursues property, until it invades personal rights, destroys human happiness, and too often extends to the heart of the wretched victim.

If the principles that regulate the 'distribution of wealth were more equitable, and more in accordance with the principles of its production, there would exist less necessity for adopting laws for the compulsory payment of debts. Poverty is never voluntary. The unequal laws that compel penury should be repealed, and the inability of payment in this manner removed, instead of enacting penal laws to punish an inevitable consequence of unjust ones.

The total abolishment of imprisonment for debt by the United States, is an evidence yet to be given, that the spirit of our laws and institutions keeps pace with the boasted improvements of the age, in what has been fantastically denominated "the march of mind." A march, however, is very different from a conquest— and even a conquest would fall far short of the establishment and settled perfection of reason. Before we can justly boast of either, we must expunge from our statute book the barbarous custom of feudal tyranny, which substitutes vengeance for justice, and decrees the absurdity that the torture shall extract gold from poverty and misfortune.

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A government such as ours, based on the principles of reason and justice, should be consistent throughout. The practice of holding insolvent merchants to full and eternal liability, is one of those absurdities that often defeats the object it aims to accomplish-paymentby condemning its victim, even when not imprisoned,

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to perpetual idleness and inactivity. Such a custom, the twin brother of that just denounced, would itself refute the pretensions of the age to perfected reason, and throw ridicule on the vain boast of our intellectual acclimation. The obvious cause of this deplorable discrepancy, is to be found, as already intimated, in the adoption of a theory founded on reason, and the practice of customs originating in despotism, that have devolved to us from the dark ages of feudal violence and vandal barbarity.

To the present era of enlightened statesmanship, and liberalized philanthropy, the people look with a just confidence for the total abolishment of imprisonment for debt, as wholly inconsistent with the first principles of the rights of man, and incompatible with the enjoy ment of social happiness.

Upon the people themselves rests an awful responsibility for the effectuation of the same beneficent and equitable purpose. Among the most productive résources of the nation, is the activity, industry, talents and enterprise of her citizens; and when any portion of these are palsied by unjust laws, the country languishes in proportion, and the grand object of our civil compact has been measurably defeated.

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CHAPTER XXV.

Of Education.

NOTHING is so essentially connected with the wealth of nations, and the happiness of the people, as the proper cultivation, expansion, and discipline of the popular mind. Upon this depends not only the amount of public virtue and happiness-but the aggregate of industry, ingenuity, temperance, economy, and vigour.

When we look back to the small states of GREECE, so diminutive in extent, so trivial in physical resources, yet so colossal in all the moral grandeur of nations; so happy in peace, so blessed with abundance, so invincible in war, so inimitable in letters, so exquisite in taste, so unparalleled in the arts, so splendid in all thingswe are compelled to refer all her transcendent excellences to her mind-her education, her literature, her science, and her philosophy. The example of ROME, not more extended in physical limits, and not less renowned in imperishable glory-extorts the judgment to the same acknowledgment of the supremacy of intellect over matter; and the all-powerful influence of public intelligence, in forming the national character, deciding its destiny, and moulding its people. In fine, the history of the world is but a repetition of the same truth illustrated by the same renown, tracking the career of intellect in the path of glory, and showing, that kingdoms, the most insignificant in magnitude, have, by the force of knowledge, eclipsed all their gigantic rivals in wealth, resources, and fame. We

might contrast England with Russia-France with China-and Greece and Rome with all!

When history glares her blaze of truth in our eyes, let us not close them to its lessons. When the intellect of Rome was quenched by a barbarian deluge, what was the condition of the world?-To what era of all those blackened by crime, and debased by ignorance, do we look back, with the greatest horror? To the DARK AGES, to the midnight of mind that overspread the world, and permitted depravity to wage an unrestricted warfare upon virtue, knowledge, science, industry, and happiness. Sufficiently admonitory, then, is the lesson of the past, to urge us to the improvement of the present, and the perfection of the future. Cast upon the stage of existence in a new era, let us not disgrace our destiny by failing to make our advancement conform to our opportunities.

The spirit of the age, which now points to the universal education of the people, is an unavoidable effect of that law of our nature, which ordains that means must be adapted to ends, and that causes must conform to their consequences;—that as time rolls on, and reflection lights the torch of intellect, prejudice, bigotry, and superstition, must give place to reason, and humanity maintain her rights in defiance of prejudice or interest, riches or ambition. When, as a people, we inscribed the holy precepts of justice and of truth of our declaration of independence-proclaiming that all men were created free and equal-with the same rights to the pursuit and enjoyment of happiness; we commenced the foundation, because we created the necessity of universal education, by adopting a form of government, whose existence and purity depended on the exercise of reason, and the preservation of public