f
attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing, 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
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 in the condition of a hired laborer.
Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are
groundless.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit
of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed.
Labor 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 capital and labor, producing mutual benefits.
The error is in assuming that the whole labor of a community exists within
that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labor themselves,
and, with their capital, hire or buy another few to labor 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 colors, are neither slaves nor masters; while in the
Northern, a large 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 favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hired
laborers or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable
number of persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, they labor
with their own hands, and also buy or hire others to labor 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.

"Again,