two good ones, and
the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is better
directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at
variance and cross-purposes with each other.
And the same is true in all joint operations wherein those engaged can
have none but a common end in view and can differ only as to the choice
of means. In a storm at sea no one on hoard can wish the ship to sink, and
yet not unfrequently all go down together because too many will direct and
no single mind can be allowed to control.
It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not
exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government--the
rights of the people. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most
grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the general
tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the abridgment of the
existing right of suffrage and the denial to the people of all right to
participate in the selection of public officers except the legislative
boldly advocated, with labored arguments to prove that large control of
the people in government is the source of all political evil. Monarchy
itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the
people.
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 favor 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, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor
is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless
somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to
labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital
shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or
buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so
far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers
or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a
hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.
Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is
there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life
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