field for the employment of labor is not unbounded; its limits are as fixed as those of the field for the use of capital. According to the natural distribution of industry, agriculture ought to be the occupation or the chief resource of a majority of the people. The production of food is the first and greatest want of the human race; as it must be carried on over the whole face of the country, it does not admit of the division and the economy of labor so much as the other two departments of industry. Every square mile, every acre, must be cultivated by itself, wholly irrespective of the work which is done upon the neighboring mile or acre. Improvements in the processes of husbandry may enable us to raise more products from the land, but cannot materially lessen the number of tillers of the ground, or the proportion which they bear to the other classes of society, without diminishing at the same time the gross produce. The facts here are in accordance with the theory. In the whole civilized world, except Great Britain, there is not probably one country which employs less than half of its population in cultivating the soil; the usual proportion is from two thirds to three fourths. The improvements in manufacture and commerce have been proportionably so much greater than in agriculture, that one third of the people can supply the aggregate want of the nation in the two former respects, more easily than two thirds can supply its want of food.

In the extrusion of four fifths of the English people from the pursuits of agriculture, and from any connection with the soil, we find the cause of so large a class of the population being entirely dependent upon wages, of the consequent depression of wages, the extraordinary increase of pauperism, the unnatural development of manufacturing enterprise, and the other peculiar circumstances of the present social condition of Great Britain. In this single fact, we find a sufficient explanation of those social phenomena which first suggested the theories of Malthus and Ricardo respecting population, wages, and rent.

lected into great masses in a greater degree than elsewhere. Hence, if the improvement of the relations between capital and labor by the authority of government should ever become a practical political question, it will assume dimensions unknown in most other countries. It will be a direct appeal to the interests and passions of the majority of the whole nation against a minority; and there will be no third party capable of holding the balance between them."

Deprived of all other means of support, a majority of the population are driven to compete with each other for employment, by offering to work for the smallest amount of wages that will furnish the necessaries of life. Hopeless of any improvement in their condition, they become reckless as to the future, and too often burden themselves with families when their gains are hardly sufficient to preserve their individual existence. Manufactures were the only branch of industry in which any great numbers of them could find employment; and thus labor was rendered so cheap, that manufacturing enterprise has been unduly stimulated, and the persons concerned in it have offered no opposition to the proceedings of the landholders, whereby the towns have been glutted with the surplus of the agricultural population. Great Britain is in the anomalous position of not raising food enough for her own consumption, and still glutting the market of the world with the products of her manufacturing industry. No nation can compete with her in this respect, except by raising a barrier against the influx of her cheap goods, or by allowing its own laboring classes to fall into a condition as dependent and miserable as that of English operatives.

So long as the laws regulating the succession of property remain unchanged here in America, we have a guaranty of the permanency of our republican institutions, and a safeguard against the worst social evils which affect the Old World. Whatever may be the rage of parties or the temporary violence of faction, there is no danger of revolutionary violence, so long as the bulk of the people are either satisfied with their present lot, or believe ease and competency to be within their reach, if they are only willing to use industry and self-denial enough to gain them. The blessings of our peculiar institutions, I suspect, are rather social than political. We ought to prize them, not so much because they guard us against oppression and anarchy, which may be regarded as obsolete evils for an Anglo-Saxon race, as because they foster no inequalities of social condition, but open the avenues to fame and fortune alike to all. The great merit of our government is, that it lets things alone; that it allows matters to take their natural course; that it permits property to change hands as often as caprice or speculation dictates; that it offers no obstacle to

enterprise in the accumulation of a fortune, however great, and no hinderance to the dissipation of it during the lifetime of the owner, or to the equal partition of it after his death among his natural heirs. Under this system of non-interference, it is true, as the English economists urge, that we cannot have permanent family estates or an hereditary aristocracy; and our consolation is, that we are able to get along very well without them.

The English economists who favor the aggregation of landed estates, ought to have more regard to their own favorite maxim, laissez faire. In respect to the distribution of property, more than in any other case, is there good reason for not interfering with the natural constitution of society, and the wise arrangements of Providence. As already stated, it is not the mere inequality of fortunes, but the fixedness of them in a few families, which is to be dreaded. There are natural causes enough which favor the former, and obstruct the latter, if their operation be not impeded by laws of man's device. Thus, it is a natural law, that wealth favors the growth of wealth, and poverty tends to generate poverty. In explaining the causes of the diminished rate of profit as a nation advances in opulence, it was mentioned, that large capitals tend constantly, more and more, to crowd small ones out of employment, because the owners of the former can afford to work for smaller returns, and can sustain greater reverses. This is well explained by M. Passy. "Other things being equal," he says, "the profits of each capitalist decrease in the same ratio in which the national capital increases. The little capitalist thus finds himself obliged, on account of the diminution of his income, to break in upon his capital; while the great capitalist, finding in the mass of his profits an income still superior to his wants, constantly adds to his riches by new savings. Besides, who does not know, that, being able to use the most costly machines, to carry to the utmost the division of labor, and to reduce the general expenses to the lowest point, the great capitalist can produce more cheaply than the smaller ones, and thus make himself absolute master of the market?"

Other natural causes tending to the same result are, the differences existing among men in point of natural endowments; the occurrence of unforeseen events; and the law of population itself, which makes the destitute classes multiply with great

rapidity, because misery renders them reckless, while the rich tend to decrease in number, and, from the lack of male heirs, estates come to be united by marriage and collateral inheritance. Thus there will always be inequality enough in the distribution of property to allow those enterprises to be carried out which require great accumulations of wealth, and to operate as a spur to the industry and frugality of the community, by manifesting the comforts and luxuries, the higher social position, which riches alone can give.

On the other hand, in the order of Providence, there is a natural check or limitation to the excessive accumulation of property in the hands of a few, and to the consequent debasement and misery of the multitude; and this natural corrective, when not interfered with or rendered powerless by unwise laws or a bad government, tends so rapidly and effectually towards an equalization of wealth in the community, that no considerable number of persons can possibly be brought to extreme destitution, certainly, cannot be exposed to the danger of perishing with hunger, except by their own obvious fault. Such a check, we maintain, exists in the very circumstance or cause to which the English school of political economists are fond of attributing the whole evil, the natural multiplication of the human species. Property in the hands of an individual unquestionably tends to accumulate; one who has both money and industry can make greater gains, other things being equal, than his competitor who is obliged to depend on industry alone. But from the shortness of human life, an individual can hold this property only for a brief period of years; when he dies, it descends to his offspring; and by the law of nature, as they are all equally near to him, it is equally divided among them. When this law is not abrogated by human legislation, it causes so frequent a distribution of estates as effectually to overcome the tendency of capital to accumulate, or to continue in a single line of heirs. No sooner is wealth heaped up than it is parcelled out again, and a constant movement or circulation is thus maintained, which sends the lifeblood of capital into every part of the body politic. This distribution tends as powerfully to political as to social equality, for the former, indeed, depends upon and is regulated by the latter; hence it is the safeguard of republics, and the bane of aristocratic governments.

The faster the population increases, the more rapidly does this great corrective of the accumulation of property operate; the greater the number of heirs, the more minute is the division of the parent's wealth.

The

I have already remarked at length (Chap. X.) on the tendency of frequent mutations of fortune, of numerous and sudden changes from poverty to opulence and the reverse, to keep down popular discontent, to increase the security of property, and to incite the activity and enterprise of the community. These results are displayed here in America to an extent which excites the never-ending astonishment of foreigners. English system has precisely the opposite effect. So far as it extends, it chills exertion by hemming it round with barriers which no effort can overleap. In the case of real property, these impediments are such that partition or alienation in most cases is impossible, and the land is permanently placed extra commercium. The dignity and other advantages of a landholder's position may be inherited by the accident of birth, but cannot often be bought. Land in small parcels is seldom brought into market, as the stamp duties for the transfer are high out of all proportion with those which are charged for the conveyance of large properties; and as there is no registration of deeds and mortgages in England, the expense of investigating the title is very great, and just as heavy for a small estate as a large one. Personal property is not so well guarded; but the causes which have been mentioned, the policy of the law and the general desire to secure the possession of wealth to one's descendants, tend powerfully to heap it together; waste is possible, but natural causes, aided by legal provisions, tend strongly towards accumulation. Small capitals find a constantly increasing difficulty in competing with larger ones; industry alone, unaided by inherited wealth, has little chance in the strife. The consequence is, that the mass of the people, the laboring classes generally, sit down, not contented, but sullen and reckless, in their poverty; the great aim of life for them is reduced to the attainment of a mere subsistence.

Isolated facts give only a vague conception of the great inequality of fortune, the frightful extremes of opulence and misery, which deform the social aspect of Great Britain. The knowledge thus gained is very partial and indefinite; and it