In my present position, I could scarcely be justified were I to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favour of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention.  It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labour, in the structure of government.  It is assumed that labour is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labours, unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow, by the use of it, induces him to labour.  This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire labourers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent.  Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all labourers are either hired labourers, or what we call slaves.  And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired labourer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now, there is no such relation between capital and labour as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired labourer.  Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labour is prior to and independent of capital.  Capital is only the fruit of labour, and could never have existed if labour had not first existed.  Labour is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.  Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.  Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labour and capital, producing mutual benefits.  The error is in assuming that the whole labour of the community exists within that relation.  A few men own capital, and that few avoid labour themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labour for them.  A large majority belong to neither class,—­neither work for others, nor have others working for them.  In most of the Southern States, a majority of the whole people, of all colours, are neither slaves nor masters; while in the Northern, a majority are neither hirers nor hired.  Men with their families—­wives, sons, and daughters—­work for themselves, on their farms, in their houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and asking no favours of capital on the one hand, nor of hired labourers or slaves on the other.  It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their own labour with capital—­that is, they labour with their own hands, and also buy or hire others to labour for them; but this is only a mixed and not a distinct class.  No principle stated is disturbed by the existence of this mixed class.