maintain a large family by the wages of a journeyman; but give him a small capital of two or three hundred dollars, and he immediately derives a profit from the labour of others, in addition to his own, as it enables him to hire two or three young labourers, or journeymen; so that instead of one hand (himself) he has the product of the labour of four, six, or ten.

But as small capitals are conducive to happiness and industry, in this way, large ones become pernicious, by giving to one great capitalist, the profit of the wages of hundreds and thousands of workmen! In some immense factories of England, (as well as in this country, though on a smaller scale) thousands of workmen drag out a half famished existence; whilst the capitalist who lives at ease in London, perhaps rioting in all the sensuality of a court life, amasses million upon million. Here then, we behold capital degrading and enslaving mankind; making society vicious, wretched, and ferocious on the one hand; and proud, cruel and oppressive on the other. In this country, we are daily approximating to the same horrible inequality; owing to that tendency in capital to attract, extort, and accumulate from the wages of labour; besides legalized monopolies -grinding down industry to the scanty pittance necessary to sustain life. Man, selfish, ambitious, proud, avaricious, and vain, delights in being superior to his fellows; and even when the desire of fortune is gratified, the habit of extortion and the ambition of riches remain, to torture himself, and oppress the poor!

If capital were always auxiliary to the objects of la bour, and assisted in the equitable distribution of its wages, we should have so few poor, ignorant, and vicious, that almshouses, public schools, and penitentiaries would be unknown among us ; whereas, under the

existing system, science, genius, and philanthropy, are baffled by these overgrown and bloated remedies of a spurious and oppressive method of government.

If capital were not the enemy of industry, in most of its forms, we should not behold it in the shape of monopoly ; nor giving birth to combinations on the part of labour to counteract its baneful operations. "Who's born for sloth?" I answer, the capitalist-the idle, luxurious, extortionate capitalist! And as truly as the sun drinks up the morning's dew, so does the idle capitalist absorb the just substance of the man of labour; strip. ping from his children's limbs what should clothe them -taking from their mouths what should feed them; and keeping from their immortal souls what should instruct, enlighten, and save them-"Who's born for sloth?" Yet, how many thousands upon thousands live upon the sweat of the poor man's labour, in idle pleasure, and suicidal vice. Nature decrees it otherwisejustice decrees it otherwise-reason proclaims it ought not to be so; but proud, oppressive, overbearing, cruel man, while he admits the fact with feigned regret, ascribes it to "circumstances ;" and insists that wisdom and virtue are only compatible with satiety on the one hand, and starvation on the other!

In more forms than I can exhibit, the testimony of history, and the voice of experience announce, the full force of my position-that all wealth is produced by labour; for what is wealth but the sum of our necessaries, comforts, possessions, and enjoyments? Is not labour necessary to produce these? Can capital, idle and inert, add to them? No, capital is dead, inert, passive, and can only be an active agent in the hands of him who labours; therefore capital never adds to

them;-but industry, assisted by that capital. Let us illustrate this position.

Suppose a person possessed of $55,000 capital, resolves to purchase a sugar plantation in Louisiana, and from this investment derives an annual increase of $10,000. I ask, does his capital produce this result? Let us analyze into the elements of this operation. He pays for land $10,000-for utensils $5,000-for slaves and cattle $40,000. His slaves are the working-men -they plough the ground, plant the cane, gather it, press it, and perform every office of labour. Take away his slaves, and in place of them, let him have his $40,000, and he will never produce another crop. Yet the capital remains entire, though it fails to produce the increase. The labour, then, is the efficient cause of his wealth; without which, he can obtain no product. How then can it be ascribed to the inert and passive mass of capital? In the same manner, trace the source of the income of the stockholder capitalist. The money is loaned to, and the interest paid by, somebody who employs it upon labour, directly or indirectly, and the labourer pays six per cent. of his industry for the use of the money. It is not the capital that produces the interest, but the labour. Suppose the planter of sugar, as above stated, to be the borrower of $55,000-he pays the stockholder capitalist, out of the product of his crop $3,300 per annum; and instead of making $10,000, he makes for himself but $6,700, by being obliged to share his profits. All stock or capital, in this manner, produces its gains through the action of labour. The merchant, like the planter, grows rich by absorbing the labour of others; but which he speciously covers by saying he is usefully employed-and truly he is usefully employed in regard to himself, when

he proves fortunate in his speculations, and finds a good market for the produce he trades in. He is also usefully employed in proportion as he stimulates others to labour and industry, ingenuity and invention.

The true and just mode of distributing labour is, by giving value for value. The sugar planter must subsist his slaves and his family, and he transfers to the wheat producer a sufficiency of sugar to supply them. with bread-and the same to the manufacturer of cloth, blankets, muslins, &c. His exchange of values may be justly carried on by a metallic currency, either gold or silver. But the moment it is effected by bank bills, funded debt, or any capital of a fictitious character, fraud is introduced, and value for value is no longer given or received. Hence, charters and monopolies of banking, the funding system, and government patronage, create what Taylor calls "an aristocracy of interest, because these laws divide the nation into a minority enriched, and a majority furnishing the riches." This minority became rich by fraud-by passing off fictions for value, because the law has made it obligatory for the producer of value to receive these fictions as an equivalent, when they are not equivalent. Most of our capital is of this fictitious kind. If we had none but what is really capital-gold, silver or real property-perhaps capital would no longer prove the enemy of labour, nor the cormorant of industry. Such, however, is not the fact. What is monopoly? Capital combined; to acquire the product of labour without value, and to dispose of it for more than value. In this brief definition, we have a full display of the extortionate character of capital, as it generally appears in the present age. In not more than one instance in a hundred, can capital now be found separate and dis

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tinct from monopoly, in the current operations of trade and commerce. On this subject I have challenged, and do still challenge, any specification to the contrary; save only partial exceptions which cannot invalidate the general principle. By no other means than this fraud, monopoly, and unjust distribution of labour, could the idle few grow rich, and the industrious majority remain poor. But not only is the capital a monopoly, but by these means credit also becomes a monopoly, confined to the idle few, and denied to the labouring majority, who are thus pressed down by a double act of injustice and oppression, to poverty and want.

Capitalists live and grow rich by the labour of others. The labouring man lives by his own industry, enriches others by his own industry, but very seldom grows rich himself. Is this just?

Manufacturers and husbandmen form the bulk of every nation; and now, that all the world is producing for itself, for its own consumption, we may perceive the utter insignifiance of merchants to the wealth of a nation. It is not a creditable assertion, to represent the great body of this, and indeed of every nation, as tribes of wandering Arabs, and uncivilized Indians. It would not be just to affirm that this was done with the intention of contumely and contempt; yet it has certainly been too much the disposition of those who riot in palaces, to hold the working people in contempt; looking down upon them with the glance of scorn, and arrogating a right, to not only undervalue their importance in the scale of being, but to extort their earnings in virtue of the monopoly of capital? For capital is naturally a tyrant; always standing on the alert to grind down the mere operative, who lives from hand to mouth, and who must sell, because he must eat. Capital commands