one.

In Europe, as a general rule, a man is born to his condition, high, middle, or low. In the United States a man makes his condition, and there is no obstacle, but his own lack of will and enterprise, or defect of natural endowments, in the way of his acquiring wealth, and gaining the highest consideration in the community.

The cause of the difference between the wages of American and the wages of foreign labor, and between the value of American and that of foreign capital, is political, and clearly revealed in the foregoing statements. The high position of American labor, is the award of freedom; the wages of American labor, are freedom-wages; they are true and just; and when they fall, it will only be because freedom has fallen. The high value of American capital, is a freedom value; and when that shall be brought down to a common level with capital in Europe and elsewhere, freedom will be buried in the overthrow. High wages, and a high value of every species of property, as compared with those of Europe, are identical with freedom. The spirit of man falls with his wages-with the reward of his industry, toil, and care. Crush the latter, and he is crushed. Possibly he may rise from the impulse of despair, and make a new effort. He may succeed; but the chances are against him. Who can break the yoke on the neck, and the chains on the hands of the labor of Europe, and of other portions of the world? Can the oppressed break them?-No. Will the oppressors do it?—No.

The power of governments which oppress labor is immense, arising from this source, at home and abroad, in moral and physical means. Suppose that two thirds of the fair reward of the labor of Europe is extorted and appropriated by its kings, princes, courts, nobility, gentry, and manufacturing and commercial millionaires. Two thirds of a fair value, is, in fact, about the average proportion of deprivation of right, which is perpetrated on the labor of that part of the world by the classes above named. It will be seen, that such a fraction of the rightful reward of the labor of Europe, or twice as much as it actually realizes, is an immense power. It is a great power in any single state, nation, kingdom, or empire. No small portion of this goes into the public exchequer, to be disbursed for the augmentation and exertion of power. It is all appropriated directly or indirectly for these objects. The adjuncts and props of power are an essential part of it. The nobility that surrounds a throne, is one of its chief supports. All wealthy proprietors of land or other capital, rich manufacturers, rich merchants, and gentry, have their security in the stability and strength of the govern

ment, and can afford to contribute largely from their large incomes derived from oppressed labor, for the support of the government which protects them. A crown is usually wealthy in itself, and costly to the people; a throne is costly; a nobility is wealthy, and its income great; wealthy proprietors of land, great manufacturers, rich merchants, rich tradesmen, rich bankers, rich holders of funded capital, rich gentlemen, and a variety of classes coming under the category of rich-all occupy a position in a state of society where labor is oppressed, that is interested in the support of power, and in the depression and hard fate of the laboring classes. The power that keeps them down is sustained by robbing them of the reward of their toil. They have neither the spirit to assert, nor the means of vindicating, their rights.

But the power thus derived, is not only efficacious at home, to sustain itself, but it is influential abroad, to diffuse itself. It is morally influential, by its political connexions, in extending and fortifying the empire of its principles; and physically so, if needs be, in propagating them by the force of its arms. It can afford sacrifices, in expectation of a valuable return, which, as is seen by the parties concerned in such cases, will in the end yield ample indemnification.

This, as shown in another chapter, has, for nearly a century, been the policy of Great Britain, in the advocacy of Free Trade, not to practice it herself, but to persuade other nations, especially the United States, to do it, by providing them with the argument of Adam Smith and those of his school, on this point. It is shown, in the chapter here referred to, that this argument is a contrivance of the British government, and that it has been sustained by them, ' ever since those British authors began to write on the side of Free Trade.

All other interests of civilization, as before shown, having a commercial value, are indebted to labor for that value. A thing of commercial value can only be exchanged for money, or for a quid pro quo that is prized by money. There are privileges, rights, and affections, in the social state, which can not be thus prized — which are indeed priceless. These, too, are the fruits of care and pains, public and private, except such as are the spontaneous product of nature, which are also susceptible of improvement by culture. But they are too sacred to be classed among things of commercial value. Though they may have cost money, they can not be exchanged for it.

But, it will be found, that all things of a proper commercial value, are usually the products of labor. Accident, or good luck, may put a person in possession of a valuable exchangeable commodity, that cost little or no trouble. But such exceptions do not impair the general rule. Labor, therefore, in civilized society, occupies an elevated, important, commanding position-a position that supplies the wants of man, and gratifies his desires. It may, therefore, justly be denominated the great interest of civilization. But labor is especially the great interest of the American people. This republican empire was founded on labor, and was intended to be sustained by it. The fathers of the country were working men. The mothers and their daughters worked. They claimed the right of supplying their own wants, by their own arts, industry, and toil. This right was denied by the mother-country. They asserted it by force, and acquired it by victory. The policy of their oppressors was to keep the wages of American labor down to the European level, by prohibiting the manufacturing arts and profitable commerce, and by confining the people of the colonies to as few vocations as possible, chiefly agricultural, thus making and holding them dependent. The great object of the American revolution was to vindicate the rights of labor, which, with the American fathers, comprehended all other valuable rights.

Therefore, the rights of labor are political. And they are political in relation to a foreign state of political society to which they are opposed. This is a great practical point of this subject, which claims special attention and the gravest consideration.

That state of political society, to which the rights of American labor, as acquired in the establishment of American independence, are opposed, and which is for ever hostile to these rights, is that already referred to in European nations-it may be found elsewhere which always has kept, and still keeps down the wages of labor to a bare subsistence, the average of which is not more than one third of its fair reward. This is the state of society on which European systems of political economy are founded, which gave birth to them, which they are designed to perpetuate, not even meditating any change in favor of labor; and labor, in those systems, is a principal and fundamental element. The consequence is a political result, originally the cause-a seeming paradox, that a thing should be father to itself-a result, planned by those who framed and who maintain the system, viz., that the working classes live and die, as they were born, poor and dependent. It is impos

sible it should be otherwise, in such a state of things. The laboring classes have no chances to improve their condition, and to rise; it is not intended they should. They have no pride, no courage, no ambition, no hope. These sentiments are extinguished by the severity of their doom. They were born, they live and die, slaves to political tyranny.

In the meantime, American political society, founded on the rights of labor, has grown up-has established itself-has secured to labor a fair reward-and the practical operation of it has demonstrated to the world, that any man, though born poor, may die rich; and that his personal qualities, and not his birthright, give him consideration in society.

In the meantime, also, that old political system, which depresses labor, and holds it in bondage, has maintained and fortified its position; though it has changed its mode of warfare against the rights of labor, it has not given up the contest; what it could neither arrest, nor subdue, by force of arms, it has undertaken to conquer by policy; and the great political contest of the age is, whether THE RIGHTS OF LABOR, as established on American soil, and nourished by American blood, shall be maintained, and extend their empire; or whether they shall be crushed by political devices-no man rising to say he will die for them-and the world fall back to where it was two centuries ago.

This strife consists in the array of the money and labor of Europe, as producing powers-of the money and labor of all those countries with which we have commercial intercourse, the average joint value or cost of which is ONE-against the money and labor of the United States, as opposing producing powers, the average joint value or cost of which is Two. It needs no prophet to predict the result. In a contest of arms, one may chance to beat two a small force may rout a much larger one. But in the peaceful pursuits of trade, a merchant can never stand before a rival in the same market, who can afford to sell cheaper-and a good deal cheaper. The case settles itself, and the result is an absolute certainty.

The wages of labor in Europe, and in other countries foreign to the United States, have been kept down by oppression-by force —and money, and all capital, derived from it, cost in proportion to what is paid for labor. The wages of labor in the United States, as the result of political freedom, have risen to three for one of labor in Europe; and money, and all other capital here, cost in pro

portion. Now, it is proposed, by Free Trade, to put the products of the money and labor of the United States in open competition with the products of the money and labor of Europe. Does not every one see what will be the result, and that American labor must come down to the same price, before it can compete with the labor of Europe? In other words, that European policy and oppression shall govern the prices of American labor? Such is the question, and such, on a Free-Trade platform, must be the result, unless it can be shown, that men will give two for that which they can buy for one, or for one and a half, or for one and three fourths, or for one and nine tenths. No matter what the difference is, they who can sell lowest, will have the market.

It must be seen, that this is an infallible commercial principle, destined, everywhere and in all cases, to control results, on the basis of Free Trade. It does not follow, however, that foreigners will sell us cheaper, as a matter of course, in the long run. They will do it only to gain and hold the market; and we shall yet show, that a Free-Trade system is the most costly to the people of the United States, even in the very things proposed to be obtained cheaper by it; much more in the general result.