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study frugality: yet refuse them education to give them a knowledge of virtue, and deny them that justice, which would rescue them from beggary. The problem lies in the insincerity of their concern, and is solved by the pertinacity of their injustice. By imposing the compulsion to labour for a meagre subsistence, they have degraded the minds and obliterated the principles of those, upon whom they make a requisition for qualities, which can only belong to intelligence and competence. If those who labour are already despised, they have little motive for virtue. If they are oppressed by the extortion of capital within the narrow confines of "keeping soul and body together," they have as little motive as they have room for economy. It is, therefore, a mere pretence, to affect regard for the happiness of society, and at the same time deny the means by which alone it can be happy. It is worse than pretence to say, our children cannot meet you in COMMON SCHOOLS, but we will give you for yourselves a CHARITY SCHOOL -we cannot consent to receive and pay for your labour on principles of equity-but we will provide you a POORHOUSE to die in-we cannot agree to treat you as equals, and furnish you education to meet us on equal terms-but we will build PENITENTIARIES, in which to incarcerate you, when you commit crime. This is the PHILANTHROPY OF THE AGE-it is worse than the tyranny of the twelfth century.

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Nor yet is it the best possible physical condition of man that can make him virtuous and happy. His MORAL state controls his destiny. As he is treated by society, so will he rise or fall in the scale of human excellence and infirmity. Contemned-despised-degraded-he sinks to the lowest level of the brute. Respected, cherished, honoured, he becomes ambitious of esteem, and

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aspires to excel in all that confers reputation, or extorts applause. By the one, he becomes happy himself, and the source of happiness to others: by the other, he is driven to degradation and misery, and becomes the cause of degradation and misery to others.

The virtual distinctions of rank, which too frequently extend into forms and titles, and which have for their basis injustice and extortion, which are the adjuncts of wealth, and which draw the line of exclusion 'where labour commences, are the cause of all that moral depravity, over which the pampered man of opulence affects to shed tears of compassion, and projects systems of amelioration. When the children of toil are as much shunned in society, as if they were leprous convicts just emerged from loathsome cells the most powerful obstacle is erected between them and all that can make them estimable and happy. The family tie of the race is snapt asunder; and man thus degraded and oppressed, would be less than man, if he did not feel enmity towards his oppressor, and view with resentment an order of things so contrary to the dictates of justice and humanity—so broadly in contradiction to his political rights, and so basely in violation of his equal attributes as a man. Here is the fountain, the sacred fountain of all revolutions-this is the point at which nature revolts-this is the point to which the productive classes have been depressed, and at which they now rebel-claiming their rights, and resolving to attain them, not by violence and bloodshed, but through the constitutional channels of action-the press, the ballotboxes, and the power of legislation.

It is a perversion of the aims of the enlightened advocates of labour, to represent that they are contending for an equality of wealth, or a community of property.

Our object is as remote from that, as the existing system of extortion is from justice.-Aware that there exists in nature no equality of industry, skill, strength, talent, wit, or any of the attributes which are essential to production; we could not advocate an equality of possessions, without committing an infraction of the rights of others and being guilty of that very injustice, of which we now accuse capital. Equality of rights to what we produce, is not equality of possession-for some will produce more than others. As this is one of the great perversions of our enemies, to bring odium and opposition upon our cause, it is necessary here to mark a distinction, which I shall note more at large in the succeeding pages.

If ever a party set out upon scientific principles grounded on mathematical precision, it is surely that of the working men. They are a philosophical, political, economical party. They have gone to the fountain-head of first principles, and dragged forth justice from the waters of time. They have analysed the elements of national wealth, and individual happiness-they have detected the errors of established systems, and exposed the injustice of privileged orders, vested with exclusive rights, to accumulate wealth at the sacrifice of those who produce it. Constituting in fact, though not under the banner of an organized party, a large majority of society, they have at length discovered, that they have heretofore been voting for representatives to make laws, and for governors to suggest and ratify them-on principles directly inimical to their industry, prosperity, and interest—instead of supporting men for those high trusts, who will be true to the grand fundamental doctrines of constitutional equity. Forming the bulwark of the nation in time of war, as well as the source of its

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opulence at all times-they have found themselves op-. pressed in a period of profound peace, by a militia system, as onerous, as degrading, and as futile, as immoral-a system which never reaches to the idle drove of society, and which it smiles on with contempt. Finding their want of education an impediment to the correction of the abuses practised on them, they have claimed PUBLIC INSTRUCTION for their children, and have been answered by the sneer of derision on the one hand, and the cry of revolution on the other. It is even pronounced dangerous to let them know, what no art can now conceal from them, and no sophistry induce them to disbelieve-that they produce all the wealth of society without sharing a thousandth part of it :that they do all the work-elect all the public functionaries-fight all our battles-gain all our victoriescause all our enjoyments to flow upon us-generation after generation, and age after age, and still remain destitute of the frugal store of competence, which ought to be the reward of industry. If there is danger in the announcement of this monstrous system of injustice, let wrong be removed, and the danger will cease: but the danger ought to exist, whilst such an oppressive result flows with mathematical precision, from the present perverted organization of government.

It is a common and sound objection to all pre-existing parties, that they are mercenary, personal and selfish-hingeing entirely upon the exchange of places by successful, over defeated politicians; not only without regard to merit in men, or truth and justice in principles-but most frequently in utter defiance of all the usual causes of rational preference of men, and public tests of benefit to the commonwealth. What a splendid contrast does the party of the Working Men

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present, to such grovelling and besotted factions!-It must be matter of astonishment, to a mind divested of the yoke and harness of party, that even one solitary working man, should be found among those, who drag the car of faction, for the exclusive benefit of a few interested leaders, and inane demagogues; patricians in spirit, if not in fortune, and to their own detriment, their own disadvantage, their own oppression:-it is indeed marvellous, and not less lamentable than marvellous.

The inequality of property in this country has chiefly arisen from two causes-first, the MONOPOLY OF LANDsecond, the monopoly of stock, or PUBLIC FUNDED Debt! Let us examine into these sources of fortune!

By what title, founded in justice, did William Penn, and the other original proprietors of land in the United States, obtain possession of princely dominions? By the gift of the British king-by royal grants and imperial charters! What right had he to give that which the God of nature had bestowed upon another?-Was the land untenanted, was it without proprietors, and did it not furnish nourishment, shelter, and home, to thousands of great nature's unsophisticated children?-The land thus given was the property of another-the gift, therefore, was null and void-as was subsequently confessed by the proprietary again becoming a purchaser, from him who held it in possession-the hapless, deluded, and defrauded Indian.

But even the second purchase from the ignorant savage, was still less valid and binding; and while it strikingly illustrates the extortion and guile of one party, it shows in strong colours the unhallowed means which cupidity adopts to impose on ignorance, and make that very ignorance the foundation of a title, which it presumes to style just. For, is it within the

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