The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Pamphlets of Lysander Spooner, Volume Ii
• Our Mechanical Industry, &c.
• Chapter I.: Losses In Our Mechanical Industry Resulting From Our Reliance Upon Gold and Silver As the Basis of Our Currency and Credit.
• Articles of Association of the Spooner Copyright Company For Massachusetts.
• Considerations For Bankers.
• Chapter I.: Explanation of the Author’s New System of Paper Currency.
• Chapter II.: The Author’s System Cannot Be Prohibited By the States.
• Chapter III.: The Author’s System Cannot Be Taxed, Either By the United States, Or the States.
• Chapter IV.: The State Governments Cannot Control, Or In Any Manner Interfere With, the Author’s System.
• Chapter V.: Unconstitutionality of the Legal Tender Acts of Congress.
• Chapter VI.: Unconstitutionality of the National Bank Act.
• Chapter VII.: Exchanges Under the Author’s System.
• Appendix.: the Author’s Copyright.
• Thomas Drew Vs. John M. Clark.
• A New Banking System the Needful Capital For Rebuilding the Burnt District.
• Chapter I.: A New Banking System.
• Chapter II.: Specie Payments.
• Chapter III.: No Inflation of Prices.
• Chapter IV.: Security of the System.
• Chapter V.: The System As a Credit System.
• Chapter VI.: Amount of Currency Needed.
• Chapter VII.: Importance of the System to Massachusetts.
• Chapter VIII.: The True Character of the “national” System.
• Chapter IX.: Amasa Walker’s Opinion of the Author’s System
• Vices Are Not Crimes. a Vindication of Moral Liberty.
• Our Financiers: Their Ignorance, Usurpations, and Frauds.
• The Law of Prices: a Demonstration of the Necessity For an Indefinite Increase of Money.
• Gold and Silver As Standards of Value: the Flagrant Cheat In Regard to Them.
• Universal Wealth.
• Revolution: a Reply to “dunraven.”
• Letter to Scientists and Inventors.

CHAPTER IX.

AMASA WALKER’S OPINION OF THE AUTHOR’S SYSTEM

As Mr. Amasa Walker is considered the highest authority in the country, in opposition to all paper currency that does not represent gold or silver actually on hand, it will not be impertinent to give his opinion of the system now proposed.

He reviewed it in a somewhat elaborate article, entitled “Modern Alchemy,” published in the Bankers Magazine (N. Y.) for December, 1861.

That he had no disposition to do any thing but condemn the system to the best of his ability, may be inferred from the following facts.

After describing the efforts of the old alchemists to transmute the baser metals into gold, he represents all attempts to make a useful paper currency as attempts “to transmute paper into gold.” He says that the idea that paper can be made to serve the purposes of money is “a perfectly cognate idea” with that of the old alchemists, that the baser metals can be transmuted into gold. (p. 407.)

He also informs us that—

These extracts are given to show the spirit and principle of his article, and the kind of arguments he employs against all paper that represents other property than coin; even though that property have equal value with coin in the market.

Yet he says:—

When he says that “it is the best transmutation project he has seen,” the context shows that he means to say that it comes nearer to transmuting paper into gold, than any other system he has seen.

This admission, coming from so violent an opponent of paper currency, may reasonably be set down as the highest commendation that he could be expected to pay to any paper system.

He also says:—

But by way of condemning the system as far as possible, he says:—

No, it was not essentially of the same character. One difference—to say nothing of twenty others—between the two systems was this: that Law’s bank issued notes that it had no means to redeem; whereas Mr. Walker himself admits that “Mr. Spooner’s system makes no promises that it cannot fulfil.” That is to say, it purports to represent nothing except what it actually represents, viz.: property that is actually on hand, and can always be delivered, on demand, in redemption of the paper. Is not this difference an “essential” one? If Mr. Walker thinks it is not, he differs “essentially” from the rest of mankind. What fault was ever found with John Law’s bank, except that it could not redeem its paper? Will Mr. Walker inform us?

VICES ARE NOT CRIMES. A VINDICATION OF MORAL LIBERTY.

I.

VICES are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime—that is, the design to injure the person or property of another—is wanting.

It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practises his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.

Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property; no such things as the right of one man to the control of his own person and property, and the corresponding and co-equal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.

For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.

II.

EVERY voluntary act of a man’s life is either virtuous or vicious. That is to say, it is either in accordance, or in conflict, with those natural laws of matter and mind, on which his physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being depend. In other words, every act of his life tends, on the whole, either to his happiness, or to his unhappiness. No single act in his whole existence is indifferent.

Furthermore, each human being differs in his physical, mental, and emotional constitution, and also in the circumstances by which he is surrounded, from every other human being. Many acts, therefore, that are virtuous, and tend to happiness, in the case of one person, are vicious, and tend to unhappiness, in the case of another person.

Many acts, also, that are virtuous, and tend to happiness, in the case of one man, at one time, and under one set of circumstances, are vicious, and tend to unhappiness, in the case of the same man, at another time, and under other circumstances.

III.

TO know what actions are virtuous, and what vicious,—in other words, to know what actions tend, on the whole, to happiness, and what to unhappiness,—in the case of each and every man, in each and all the conditions in which they may severally be placed, is the profoundest and most complex study to which the greatest human mind ever has been, or ever can be, directed. It is, nevertheless, the constant study to which each and every man—the humblest in intellect as well as the greatest—is necessarily driven by the desires and necessities of his own existence. It is also the study in which each and every person, from his cradle to his grave, must necessarily form his own conclusions; because no one else knows or feels, or can know or feel, as he knows and feels, the desires and necessities, the hopes, and fears, and impulses of his own nature, or the pressure of his own circumstances.

IV.

IT is not often possible to say of those acts that are called vices, that they really are vices, except in degree. That is, it is difficult to say of any actions, or courses of action, that are called vices, that they really would have been vices, if they had stopped short of a certain point. The question of virtue or vice, therefore, in all such cases, is a question of quantity and degree, and not of the intrinsic character of any single act, by itself. This fact adds to the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of any one’s—except each individual for himself—drawing any accurate line, or anything like any accurate line, between virtue and vice; that is, of telling where virtue ends, and vice begins. And this is another reason why this whole question of virtue and vice should be left for each person to settle for himself.

V.

VICES are usually pleasurable, at least for the time being, and often do not disclose themselves as vices, by their effects, until after they have been practised for many years; perhaps for a lifetime. To many, perhaps most, of those who practise them, they do not disclose themselves as vices at all during life. Virtues, on the other hand, often appear so harsh and rugged, they require the sacrifice of so much present happiness, at least, and the results, which alone prove them to be virtues, are often so distant and obscure, in fact, so absolutely invisible to the minds of many, especially of the young, that, from the very nature of things, there can be no universal, or even general, knowledge that they are virtues. In truth, the studies of profound philosophers have been expended—if not wholly in vain, certainly with very small results—in efforts to draw the lines between the virtues and the vices.

If, then, it be so difficult, so nearly impossible, in most cases, to determine what is, and what is not, vice; and especially if it be so difficult, in nearly all cases, to determine where virtue ends, and vice begins; and if these questions, which no one can really and truly determine for anybody but himself, are not to be left free and open for experiment by all, each person is deprived of the highest of all his rights as a human being, to wit: his right to inquire, investigate, reason, try experiments, judge, and ascertain for himself, what is, to him, virtue, and what is, to him, vice; in other words. what, on the whole, conduces to his happiness, and what, on the whole, tends to his unhappiness. If this great right is not to be left free and open to all, then each man’s whole right, as a reasoning human being, to “liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” is denied him.

VI.

WE all come into the world in ignorance of ourselves, and of everything around us. By a fundamental law of our natures we are all constantly impelled by the desire of happiness, and the fear of pain. But we have everything to learn, as to what will give us happiness, and save us from pain. No two of us are wholly alike, either physically, mentally, or emotionally; or, consequently, in our physical, mental, or emotional requirements for the acquisition of happiness, and the avoidance of unhappiness. No one of us, therefore, can learn this indispensable lesson of happiness and unhappiness, of virtue and vice, for another. Each must learn it for himself. To learn it, he must be at liberty to try all experiments that commend themselves to his judgment. Some of his experiments succeed, and, because they succeed, are called virtues; others fail, and, because they fail, are called vices. He gathers wisdom from his failures, as well as from his successes; from his so-called vices, as from his so-called virtues. He gathers wisdom as much from his failures as from his successes; from his so-called vices, as from his so-called virtues. Both are necessary to his acquisition of that knowledge—of his own nature, and of the world around him, and of their adaptations or non-adaptations to each other—which shall show him how happiness is acquired, and pain avoided. And, unless he can be permitted to try these experiments to his own satisfaction, he is restrained from the acquisition of knowledge, and, consequently, from pursuing the great purpose and duty of his life.

VII.

A MAN is under no obligation to take anybody’s word, or yield to anybody’s authority, on a matter so vital to himself, and in regard to which no one else has, or can have, any such interest as he. He cannot, if he would, safely rely upon the opinions of other men, because he finds that the opinions of other men do not agree. Certain actions, or courses of action, have been practised by many millions of men, through successive generations, and have been held by them to be, on the whole, conducive to happiness, and therefore virtuous. Other men, in other ages or countries, or under other conditions, have held, as the result of their experience and observation, that these actions tended, on the whole, to unhappiness, and were therefore vicious. The question of virtue or vice, as already remarked in a previous section, has also been, in most minds, a question of degree; that is, of the extent to which certain actions should be carried; and not of the intrinsic character of any single act, by itself. The questions of virtue and vice have therefore been as various, and, in fact, as infinite, as the varieties of mind, body, and condition of the different individuals inhabiting the globe. And the experience of ages has left an infinite number of these questions unsettled. In fact, it can scarcely be said to have settled any of them.

VIII.

IN the midst of this endless variety of opinion, what man, or what body of men, has the right to say, in regard to any particular action, or course of action, “We have tried this experiment, and determined every question involved in it? We have determined it, not only for ourselves, but for all others? And, as to all those who are weaker than we, we will coerce them to act in obedience to our conclusion? We will suffer no further experiment or inquiry by any one, and, consequently, no further acquisition of knowledge by anybody?”

Who are the men who have the right to say this? Certainly there are none such. The men who really do say it, are either shameless impostors and tyrants, who would stop the progress of knowledge, and usurp absolute control over the minds and bodies of their fellow-men; and are therefore to be resisted instantly, and to the last extent; or they are themselves too ignorant of their own weaknesses, and of their true relations to other men, to be entitled to any other consideration than sheer pity or contempt.

We know, however, that there are such men as these in the world. Some of them attempt to exercise their power only within a small sphere, to wit, upon their children, their neighbors, their townsmen, and their countrymen. Others attempt to exercise it on a larger scale. For example, an old man at Rome, aided by a few subordinates, attempts to decide all questions of virtue and vice; that is, of truth or falsehood, especially in matters of religion. He claims to know and teach what religious ideas and practices are conducive, or fatal, to a man’s happiness, not only in this world, but in that which is to come. He claims to be miraculously inspired for the performance of this work; thus virtually acknowledging, like a sensible man, that nothing short of miraculous inspiration would qualify him for it. This miraculous inspiration, however, has been ineffectual to enable him to settle more than a very few questions. The most important of these are, first, that the highest religious virtue to which common mortals can attain, is an implicit belief in his (the pope’s) infallibility! and, secondly, that the blackest vices of which they can be guilty are to believe and declare that he is only a man like the rest of them!

It required some fifteen or eighteen hundred years to enable him to reach definite conclusions on these two vital points. Yet it would seem that the first of these must necessarily be preliminary to his settlement of any other questions; because, until his own infallibility is determined, he can authoritatively decide nothing else. He has, however, heretofore attempted or pretended to settle a few others. And he may, perhaps, attempt or pretend to settle a few more in the future, if he shall continue to find anybody to listen to him. But his success, thus far, certainly does not encourage the belief that he will be able to settle all questions of virtue and vice, even in his peculiar department of religion, in time to meet the necessities of mankind. He, or his successors, will undoubtedly be compelled, at no distant day, to acknowledge that he has undertaken a task to which all his miraculous inspiration was inadequate; and that, of necessity, each human being must be left to settle all questions of this kind for himself. And it is not unreasonable to expect that all other popes, in other and lesser spheres, will some time have cause to come to the same conclusion. No one, certainly, not claiming supernatural inspiration, should undertake a task to which obviously nothing less than such inspiration is adequate. And, clearly, no one should surrender his own judgment to the teachings of others, unless he be first convinced that these others have something more than ordinary human knowledge on this subject.

If those persons, who fancy themselves gifted with both the power and the right to define and punish other men’s vices, would but turn their thoughts inwardly, they would probably find that they have a great work to do at home; and that, when that shall have been completed, they will be little disposed to do more towards correcting the vices of others, than simply to give to others the results of their experience and observation. In this sphere their labors may possibly be useful; but, in the sphere of infallibility and coercion, they will probably, for well-known reasons, meet with even less success in the future than such men have met with in the past.

IX.

IT is now obvious, from the reasons already given, that government would be utterly impracticable, if it were to take cognizance of vices, and punish them as crimes. Every human being has his or her vices. Nearly all men have a great many. And they are of all kinds; physiological, mental, emotional; religious, social, commercial, industrial, economical, &c., &c. If government is to take cognizance of any of these vices, and punish them as crimes, then, to be consistent, it must take cognizance of all, and punish all impartially. The consequence would be, that everybody would be in prison for his or her vices. There would be no one left outside to lock the doors upon those within. In fact, courts enough could not be found to try the offenders, nor prisons enough built to hold them. All human industry in the acquisition of knowledge, and even in acquiring the means of subsistence, would be arrested; for we should all be under constant trial or imprisonment for our vices. But even if it were possible to imprison all the vicious, our knowledge of human nature tells us that, as a general rule, they would be far more vicious in prison than they ever have been out of it.

X.

A GOVERNMENT that shall punish all vices impartially is so obviously an impossibility, that nobody was ever found, or ever will be found, foolish enough to propose it. The most that any one proposes is, that government shall punish some one, or at most a few, of what he esteems the grossest of them. But this discrimination is an utterly absurd, illogical, and tyrannical one. What right has any body of men to say, “The vices of other men we will punish; but our own vices nobody shall punish? We will restrain other men from seeking their own happiness, according to their own notions of it; but nobody shall restrain us from seeking our own happiness, according to our own notions of it? We will restrain other men from acquiring any experimental knowledge of what is conducive or necessary to their own happiness; but nobody shall restrain us from acquiring an experimental knowledge of what is conducive or necessary to our own happiness?”

Nobody but knaves or blockheads ever thinks of making such absurd assumptions as these. And yet, evidently, it is only upon such assumptions that anybody can claim the right to punish the vices of others, and at the same time claim exemption from punishment for his own.

XI.

SUCH a thing as a government, formed by voluntary association, would never have been thought of, if the object proposed had been the punishment of all vices, impartially; because nobody wants such an institution, or would voluntarily submit to it. But a government, formed by voluntary association, for the punishment of all crimes, is a reasonable matter; because everybody wants protection for himself against all crimes by others, and also acknowledges the justice of his own punishment, if he commits a crime.

XII.

IT is a natural impossibility that a government should have a right to punish men for their vices; because it is impossible that a government should have any rights, except such as the individuals composing it had previously had, as individuals. They could not delegate to a government any rights which they did not themselves possess. They could not contribute to the government any rights, except such as they themselves possessed as individuals. Now, nobody but a fool or an impostor pretends that he, as an individual, has a right to punish other men for their vices. But anybody and everybody have a natural right, as individuals, to punish other men for their crimes; for everybody has a natural right, not only to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on the earth. And government has no rightful existence, except in so far as it embodies, and is limited by, this natural right of individuals. But the idea that each man has a natural right to sit in judgment on all his neighbor’s actions, and decide what are virtues, and what are vices,—that is, what contribute to that neighbor’s happiness, and what do not,—and to punish him for all that do not contribute to it, is what no one ever had the impudence or folly to assert. It is only those who claim that government has some rightful power, which no individual or individuals ever did, or ever could, delegate to it, that claim that government has any rightful power to punish vices.

It will do for a pope or a king—who claims to have received direct authority from Heaven, to rule over his fellow-men—to claim the right, as the vicegerent of God, to punish men for their vices; but it is a sheer and utter absurdity for any government, claiming to derive its power wholly from the grant of the governed, to claim any such power; because everybody knows that the governed never would grant it. For them to grant it would be an absurdity, because it would be granting away their own right to seek their own happiness; since to grant away their right to judge of what will be for their happiness, is to grant away all their right to pursue their own happiness.

XIII.

WE can now see how simple, easy, and reasonable a matter is a government for the punishment of crimes, as compared with one for the punishment of vices. Crimes are few, and easily distinguished from all other acts; and mankind are generally agreed as to what acts are crimes. Whereas vices are innumerable; and no two persons are agreed, except in comparatively few cases, as to what are vices. Furthermore, everybody wishes to be protected, in his person and property, against the aggressions of other men. But nobody wishes to be protected, either in his person or property, against himself; because it is contrary to the fundamental laws of human nature itself, that any one should wish to harm himself. He only wishes to promote his own happiness, and to be his own judge as to what will promote, and does promote, his own happiness. This is what every one wants, and has a right to, as a human being. And though we all make many mistakes, and necessarily must make them, from the imperfection of our knowledge, yet these mistakes are no argument against the right; because they all tend to give us the very knowledge we need, and are in pursuit of, and can get in no other way.

The object aimed at in the punishment of crimes, therefore, is not only wholly different from, but it is directly opposed to, that aimed at in the punishment of vices.

The object aimed at in the punishment of crimes is to secure, to each and every man alike, the fullest liberty he possibly can have—consistently with the equal rights of others—to pursue his own happiness, under the guidance of his own judgment, and by the use of his own property. On the other hand, the object aimed at in the punishment of vices, is to deprive every man of his natural right and liberty to pursue his own happiness, under the guidance of his own judgment, and by the use of his own property.

These two objects, then, are directly opposed to each other. They are as directly opposed to each other as are light and darkness, or as truth and falsehood, or as liberty and slavery. They are utterly incompatible with each other; and to suppose the two to be embraced in one and the same government, is an absurdity, an impossibility. It is to suppose the objects of a government to be to commit crimes, and to prevent crimes; to destroy individual liberty, and to secure individual liberty.

XIV.

FINALLY, on this point of individual liberty: Every man must necessarily judge and determine for himself as to what is conducive and necessary to, and what is destructive of, his own well-being; because, if he omits to perform this task for himself, nobody else can perform it for him. And nobody else will even attempt to perform it for him, except in very few cases. Popes, and priests, and kings will assume to perform it for him, in certain cases, if permitted to do so. But they will, in general, perform it only in so far as they can minister to their own vices and crimes, by doing it. They will, in general, perform it only in so far as they can make him their fool and their slave. Parents, with better motives, no doubt, than the others, too often attempt the same work. But in so far as they practise coercion, or restrain a child from anything not really and seriously dangerous to himself, they do him a harm, rather than a good. It is a law of Nature that to get knowledge, and to incorporate that knowledge into his own being, each individual must get it for himself. Nobody, not even his parents, can tell him the nature of fire, so that he will really know it. He must himself experiment with it, and be burnt by it, before he can know it.

Nature knows, a thousand times better than any parent, what she designs each individual for, what knowledge he requires, and how he must get it. She knows that her own processes for communicating that knowledge are not only the best, but the only ones that can be effectual.

The attempts of parents to make their children virtuous are generally little else than attempts to keep them in ignorance of vice. They are little else than attempts to teach their children to know and prefer truth, by keeping them in ignorance of falsehood. They are little else than attempts to make them seek and appreciate health, by keeping them in ignorance of disease, and of everything that will cause disease. They are little else than attempts to make their children love the light, by keeping them in ignorance of darkness. In short, they are little else than attempts to make their children happy, by keeping them in ignorance of everything that causes them unhappiness.

In so far as parents can really aid their children in the latter’s search after happiness, by simply giving them the results of their (the parents’) own reason and experience, it is all very well, and is a natural and appropriate duty. But to practise coercion in matters of which the children are reasonably competent to judge for themselves, is only an attempt to keep them in ignorance. And this is as much a tyranny, and as much a violation of the children’s right to acquire knowledge for themselves, and such knowledge as they desire, as is the same coercion when practised upon older persons. Such coercion, practised upon children, is a denial of their right to develop the faculties that Nature has given them, and to be what Nature designs them to be. It is a denial of their right to themselves, and to the use of their own powers. It is a denial of their right to acquire the most valuable of all knowledge, to wit, the knowledge that Nature, the great teacher, stands ready to impart to them.

The results of such coercion are not to make the children wise or virtuous, but to make them ignorant, and consequently weak and vicious; and to perpetuate through them, from age to age, the ignorance, the superstitions, the vices, and the crimes of the parents. This is proved by every page of the world’s history.

Those who hold opinions opposite to these, are those whose false and vicious theologies, or whose own vicious general ideas, have taught them that the human race are naturally given to evil, rather than good; to the false, rather than the true; that mankind do not naturally turn their eyes to the light; that they love darkness, rather than light; and that they find their happiness only in those things that tend to their misery.

XV.

BUT these men, who claim that government shall use its power to prevent vice, will say, or are in the habit of saying, “We acknowledge the right of an individual to seek his own happiness in his own way, and consequently to be as vicious as he pleases; we only claim that government shall prohibit the sale to him of those articles by which he ministers to his vice.”

The answer to this is, that the simple sale of any article whatever—independently of the use that is to be made of the article—is legally a perfectly innocent act. The quality of the act of sale depends wholly upon the quality of the use for which the thing is sold. If the use of anything is virtuous and lawful, then the sale of it, for that use, is virtuous and lawful. If the use is vicious, then the sale of it, for that use, is vicious. If the use is criminal, then the sale of it, for that use, is criminal. The seller is, at most, only an accomplice in the use that is to be made of the article sold, whether the use be virtuous, vicious, or criminal. Where the use is criminal, the seller is an accomplice in the crime, and punishable as such. But where the use is only vicious, the seller is only an accomplice in the vice, and is not punishable.

XVI.

BUT it will be asked, “Is there no right, on the part of government, to arrest the progress of those who are bent on self-destruction?”

The answer is, that government has no rights whatever in the matter, so long as these so-called vicious persons remain sane, compos mentis, capable of exercising reasonable discretion and self-control; because, so long as they do remain sane, they must be allowed to judge and decide for themselves whether their so-called vices really are vices; whether they really are leading them to destruction; and whether, on the whole, they will go there or not. When they shall become insane, non compos mentis, incapable of reasonable discretion or self-control, their friends or neighbors, or the government, must take care of them, and protect them from harm, and against all persons who would do them harm, in the same way as if their insanity had come upon them from any other cause than their supposed vices.

But because a man is supposed, by his neighbors, to be on the way to self-destruction, from his vices, it does not, therefore, follow that he is insane, non compos mentis, incapable of reasonable discretion and self-control, within the legal meaning of those terms. Men and women may be addicted to very gross vices, and to a great many of them,—such as gluttony, drunkenness, prostitution, gambling, prize-fighting, tobacco-chewing, smoking, and snuffing, opium-eating, corset-wearing, idleness, waste of property, avarice, hypocrisy, &c., &c.,—and still be sane, compos mentis, capable of reasonable discretion and self-control, within the meaning of the law. And so long as they are sane, they must be permitted to control themselves and their property, and to be their own judges as to where their vices will finally lead them. It may be hoped by the lookers-on, in each individual case, that the vicious person will see the end to which he is tending, and be induced to turn back. But, if he chooses to go on to what other men call destruction, he must be permitted to do so. And all that can be said of him, so far as this life is concerned, is, that he made a great mistake in his search after happiness, and that others will do well to take warning by his fate. As to what may be his condition in another life, that is a theological question with which the law, in this world, has no more to do than it has with any other theological question, touching men’s condition in a future life.

If it be asked how the question of a vicious man’s sanity or insanity is to be determined? the answer is, that it is to be determined by the same kinds of evidence as is the sanity or insanity of those who are called virtuous; and not otherwise. That is, by the same kinds of evidence by which the legal tribunals determine whether a man should be sent to an asylum for lunatics, or whether he is competent to make a will, or otherwise dispose of his property. Any doubt must weigh in favor of his sanity, as in all other cases, and not of his insanity.

If a person really does become insane, non compos mentis, incapable of reasonable discretion or self-control, it is then a crime, on the part of other men, to give to him or sell to him, the means of self-injury.* And such a crime is to be punished like any other crime.

There are no crimes more easily punished, no cases in which juries would be more ready to convict, than those where a sane person should sell or give to an insane one any article with which the latter was likely to injure himself.

XVII.

BUT it will be said that some men are made, by their vices, dangerous to other persons; that a drunkard, for example, is sometimes quarrelsome and dangerous toward his family or others. And it will be asked, “Has the law nothing to do in such a case?”

The answer is, that if, either from drunkenness or any other cause, a man be really dangerous, either to his family or to other persons, not only himself may be rightfully restrained, so far as the safety of other persons requires, but all other persons—who know or have reasonable grounds to believe him dangerous—may also be restrained from selling or giving to him anything that they have reason to suppose will make him dangerous.

But because one man becomes quarrelsome and dangerous after drinking spirituous liquors, and because it is a crime to give or sell liquor to such a man, it does not follow at all that it is a crime to sell liquors to the hundreds and thousands of other persons, who are not made quarrelsome or dangerous by drinking them. Before a man can be convicted of crime in selling liquor to a dangerous man, it must be shown that the particular man, to whom the liquor was sold, was dangerous; and also that the seller knew, or had reasonable grounds to suppose, that the man would be made dangerous by drinking it.

The presumption of law is, in all cases, that the sale is innocent; and the burden of proving it criminal, in any particular case, rests upon the government. And that particular case must be proved criminal, independently of all others.

Subject to these principles, there is no difficulty in convicting and punishing men for the sale or gift of any article to a man, who is made dangerous to others by the use of it.

XVIII.

BUT it is often said that some vices are nuisances (public or private), and that nuisances can be abated and punished.

It is true that anything that is really and legally a nuisance (either public or private) can be abated and punished. But it is not true that the mere private vices of one man are, in any legal sense, nuisances to another man, or to the public.

No act of one person can be a nuisance to another, unless it in some way obstructs or interferes with that other’s safe and quiet use or enjoyment of what is rightfully his own.

Whatever obstructs a public highway, is a nuisance, and may be abated and punished. But a hotel where liquors are sold, a liquor store, or even a grog-shop, so called, no more obstructs a public highway, than does a dry goods store, a jewelry store, or a butcher’s shop.

Whatever poisons the air, or makes it either offensive or unhealthful, is a nuisance. But neither a hotel, nor a liquor store, nor a grog-shop poisons the air, or makes it offensive or unhealthful to outside persons.

Whatever obstructs the light, to which a man is legally entitled, is a nuisance. But neither a hotel, nor a liquor store, nor a grog-shop, obstructs anybody’s light, except in cases where a church, a school-house, or a dwelling-house would have equally obstructed it. On this ground, therefore, the former are no more, and no less, nuisances than the latter would be.

Some persons are in the habit of saying that a liquor-shop is dangerous, in the same way that gunpowder is dangerous. But there is no analogy between the two cases. Gunpowder is liable to be exploded by accident, and especially by such fires as often occur in cities. For these reasons it is dangerous to persons and property in its immediate vicinity. But liquors are not liable to be thus exploded, and therefore are not dangerous nuisances, in any such sense as is gunpowder in cities.

But it is said, again, that drinking-places are frequently filled with noisy and boisterous men, who disturb the quiet of the neighborhood, and the sleep and rest of the neighbors.

This may be true occasionally, though not very frequently. But whenever, in any case, it is true, the nuisance may be abated by the punishment of the proprietor and his customers, and if need be, by shutting up the place. But an assembly of noisy drinkers is no more a nuisance than is any other noisy assembly. A jolly or hilarious drinker disturbs the quiet of a neighborhood no more, and no less, than does a shouting religious fanatic. An assembly of noisy drinkers is no more, and no less, a nuisance than is an assembly of shouting religious fanatics. Both of them are nuisances when they disturb the rest and sleep, or quiet, of neighbors. Even a dog that is given to barking, to the disturbance of the sleep or quiet of the neighborhood, is a nuisance.

XIX.

BUT it is said, that for one person to entice another into a vice, is a crime.

This is preposterous. If any particular act is simply a vice, then a man who entices another to commit it, is simply an accomplice in the vice. He evidently commits no crime, because the accomplice can certainly commit no greater offence than the principal.

Every person who is sane, compos mentis, possessed of reasonable discretion and self-control, is presumed to be mentally competent to judge for himself of all the arguments, pro and con, that may be addressed to him, to persuade him to do any particular act; provided no fraud is employed to deceive him. And if he is persuaded or induced to do the act, his act is then his own; and even though the act prove to be harmful to himself, he cannot complain that the persuasion or arguments, to which he yielded his assent, were crimes against himself.

When fraud is practised, the case is, of course, different. If, for example, I offer a man poison, assuring him that it is a safe and wholesome drink, and he, on the faith of my assertion, swallows it, my act is a crime.

Volenti non fit injuria, is a maxim of the law. To the willing no injury is done. That is, no legal wrong. And every person who is sane, compos mentis, capable of exercising reasonable discretion in judging of the truth or falsehood of the representations or persuasions to which he yields his assent, is “willing,” in the view of the law; and takes upon himself the entire responsibility for his acts, when no intentional fraud has been practised upon him.

This principle, that to the willing no injury is done, has no limit, except in the case of frauds, or of persons not possessed of reasonable discretion for judging in the particular case. If a person possessed of reasonable discretion, and not deceived by fraud, consents to practise the grossest vice, and thereby brings upon himself the greatest moral, physical, or pecuniary sufferings or losses, he cannot allege that he has been legally wronged. To illustrate this principle, take the case of rape. To have carnal knowledge of a woman, against her will, is the highest crime, next to murder, that can be committed against her. But to have carnal knowledge of her, with her consent, is no crime; but at most, a vice. And it is usually holden that a female child, of no more than ten years of age, has such reasonable discretion, that her consent, even though procured by rewards, or promises of reward, is sufficient to convert the act, which would otherwise be a high crime, into a simple act of vice.*

We see the same principle in the case of prize-fighters. If I but lay one of my fingers upon another man’s person, against his will, no matter how lightly, and no matter how little practical injury is done, the act is a crime. But if two men agree to go out and pound each other’s faces to a jelly, it is no crime, but only a vice.

Even duels have not generally been considered crimes, because each man’s life is his own, and the parties agree that each may take the other’s life, if he can, by the use of such weapons as are agreed upon, and in conformity with certain rules that are also mutually assented to.

And this is a correct view of the matter, unless it can be said (as it probably cannot), that “anger is a madness” that so far deprives men of their reason as to make them incapable of reasonable discretion.

Gambling is another illustration of the principle that to the willing no injury is done. If I take but a single cent of a man’s property, without his consent, the act is a crime. But if two men, who are compos mentis, possessed of reasonable discretion to judge of the nature and probable results of their act, sit down together, and each voluntarily stakes his money against the money of another, on the turn of a die, and one of them loses his whole estate (however large that may be), it is no crime, but only a vice.

It is not a crime, even, to assist a person to commit suicide, if he be in possession of his reason.

It is a somewhat common idea that suicide is, of itself, conclusive evidence of insanity. But, although it may ordinarily be very strong evidence of insanity, it is by no means conclusive in all cases. Many persons, in undoubted possession of their reason, have committed suicide, to escape the shame of a public exposure for their crimes, or to avoid some other great calamity. Suicide, in these cases, may not have been the highest wisdom, but it certainly was not proof of any lack of reasonable discretion.* And being within the limits of reasonable discretion, it was no crime for other persons to aid it, either by furnishing the instrument or otherwise. And if, in such cases, it be no crime to aid a suicide, how absurd to say that it is a crime to aid him in some act that is really pleasurable, and which a large portion of mankind have believed to be useful?

XX.

BUT some persons are in the habit of saying that the use of spirituous liquors is the great source of crime; that “it fills our prisons with criminals;” and that this is reason enough for prohibiting the sale of them.

Those who say this, if they talk seriously, talk blindly and foolishly. They evidently mean to be understood as saying that a very large percentage of all the crimes that are committed among men, are committed by persons whose criminal passions are excited, at the time, by the use of liquors, and in consequence of the use of liquors.

This idea is utterly preposterous.

In the first place, the great crimes committed in the world are mostly prompted by avarice and ambition.

The greatest of all crimes are the wars that are carried on by governments, to plunder, enslave, and destroy mankind.

The next greatest crimes committed in the world are equally prompted by avarice and ambition; and are committed, not on sudden passion, but by men of calculation, who keep their heads cool and clear, and who have no thought whatever of going to prison for them. They are committed, not so much by men who violate the laws, as by men who, either by themselves or by their instruments, make the laws; by men who have combined to usurp arbitrary power, and to maintain it by force and fraud, and whose purpose in usurping and maintaining it is, by unjust and unequal legislation, to secure to themselves such advantages and monopolies as will enable them to control and extort the labor and properties of other men, and thus impoverish them, in order to minister to their own wealth and aggrandizement.* The robberies and wrongs thus committed by these men, in conformity with the laws,—that is, their own laws,—are as mountains to molehills, compared with the crimes committed by all other criminals, in violation of the laws.

But, thirdly, there are vast numbers of frauds, of various kinds, committed in the transactions of trade, whose perpetrators, by their coolness and sagacity, evade the operation of the laws. And it is only their cool and clear heads that enable them to do it. Men under the excitement of intoxicating drinks are little disposed, and utterly unequal, to the successful practice of these frauds. They are the most incautious, the least successful, the least efficient, and the least to be feared, of all the criminals with whom the laws have to deal.

Fourthly. The professed burglars, robbers, thieves, forgers, counterfeiters, and swindlers, who prey upon society, are anything but reckless drinkers. Their business is of too dangerous a character to admit of such risks as they would thus incur.

Fifthly. The crimes that can be said to be committed under the influence of intoxicating drinks are mostly assaults and batteries, not very numerous, and generally not very aggravated. Some other small crimes, as petty thefts, or other small trespasses upon property, are sometimes committed, under the influence of drink, by feebleminded persons, not generally addicted to crime. The persons who commit these two kinds of crime are but few. They cannot be said to “fill our prisons;” or, if they do, we are to be congratulated that we need so few prisons, and so small prisons, to hold them.

The State of Massachusetts, for example, has a million and a half of people. How many of these are now in prison for crimes—not for the vice of intoxication, but for crimes—committed against persons or property under the instigation of strong drink? I doubt if there be one in ten thousand, that is, one hundred and fifty in all; and the crimes for which these are in prison are mostly very small ones.

And I think it will be found that these few men are generally much more to be pitied than punished, for the reason that it was their poverty and misery, rather than any passion for liquor, or for crime, that led them to drink, and thus led them to commit their crimes under the influence of drink.

The sweeping charge that drink “fills our prisons with criminals” is made, I think, only by those men who know no better than to call a drunkard a criminal; and who have no better foundation for their charge than the shameful fact that we are such a brutal and senseless people, that we condemn and punish such weak and unfortunate persons as drunkards, as if they were criminals.

The legislators who authorize, and the judges who practise, such atrocities as these, are intrinsically criminals; unless their ignorance be such—as it probably is not—as to excuse them. And, if they were themselves to be punished as criminals, there would be more reason in our conduct.

A police judge in Boston once told me that he was in the habit of disposing of drunkards (by sending them to prison for thirty days—I think that was the stereotyped sentence) at the rate of one in three minutes! and sometimes more rapidly even than that; thus condemning them as criminals, and sending them to prison, without mercy, and without inquiry into circumstances, for an infirmity that entitled them to compassion and protection, instead of punishment. The real criminals in these cases were not the men who went to prison, but the judge, and the men behind him, who sent them there.

I recommend to those persons, who are so distressed lest the prisons of Massachusetts be filled with criminals, that they employ some portion, at least, of their philanthropy in preventing our prisons being filled with persons who are not criminals. I do not remember to have heard that their sympathies have ever been very actively exercised in that direction. On the contrary, they seem to have such a passion for punishing criminals, that they care not to inquire particularly whether a candidate for punishment really be a criminal. Such a passion, let me assure them, is a much more dangerous one, and one entitled to far less charity, both morally and legally, than the passion for strong drink.

It seems to be much more consonant with the merciless character of these men to send an unfortunate man to prison for drunkenness, and thus crush, and degrade, and dishearten him, and ruin him for life, than it does for them to lift him out of the poverty and misery that caused him to become a drunkard.

It is only those persons who have either little capacity, or little disposition, to enlighten, encourage, or aid mankind, that are possessed of this violent passion for governing, commanding, and punishing them. If, instead of standing by, and giving their consent and sanction to all the laws by which the weak man is first plundered, oppressed, and disheartened, and then punished as a criminal, they would turn their attention to the duty of defending his rights and improving his condition, and of thus strengthening him, and enabling him to stand on his own feet, and withstand the temptations that surround him, they would, I think, have little need to talk about laws and prisons for either rum-sellers or rum-drinkers, or even any other class of ordinary criminals. If, in short, these men, who are so anxious for the suppression of crime, would suspend, for a while, their calls upon the government for aid in suppressing the crimes of individuals, and would call upon the people for aid in suppressing the crimes of the government, they would show both their sincerity and good sense in a much stronger light than they do now. When the laws shall all be so just and equitable as to make it possible for all men and women to live honestly and virtuously, and to make themselves comfortable and happy, there will be much fewer occasions than now for charging them with living dishonestly and viciously.

XXI.

BUT it will be said, again, that the use of spirituous liquors tends to poverty, and thus to make men paupers, and burdensome to the tax-payers; and that this is a sufficient reason why the sale of them should be prohibited.

There are various answers to this argument.

1. One answer is, that if the fact that the use of liquors tends to poverty and pauperism, be a sufficient reason for prohibiting the sale of them, it is equally a sufficient reason for prohibiting the use of them; for it is the use, and not the sale, that tends to poverty. The seller is, at most, merely an accomplice of the drinker. And it is a rule of law, as well as of reason, that if the principal in any act is not punishable, the accomplice cannot be.

2. A second answer to the argument is, that if government has the right, and is bound, to prohibit any one act—that is not criminal—merely because it is supposed to tend to poverty, then, by the same rule, it has the right, and is bound, to prohibit any and every other act—though not criminal—which, in the opinion of the government, tends to poverty. And, on this principle, the government would not only have the right, but would be bound, to look into every man’s private affairs, and every person’s personal expenditures, and determine as to which of them did, and which of them did not, tend to poverty; and to prohibit and punish all of the former class. A man would have no right to expend a cent of his own property, according to his own pleasure or judgment, unless the legislature should be of the opinion that such expenditure would not tend to poverty.

3. A third answer to the same argument is, that if a man does bring himself to poverty, and even to beggary,—either by his virtues or his vices,—the government is under no obligation whatever to take care of him, unless it pleases to do so. It may let him perish in the street, or depend upon private charity, if it so pleases. It can carry out its own free will and discretion in the matter; for it is above all legal responsibility in such a case. It is not, necessarily, any part of a government’s duty to provide for the poor. A government—that is, a legitimate government—is simply a voluntary association of individuals, who unite for such purposes, and only for such purposes, as suits them. If taking care of the poor—whether they be virtuous or vicious—be not one of those purposes, then the government, as a government, has no more right, and is no more bound, to take care of them, than has or is a banking company, or a railroad company.

Whatever moral claims a poor man—whether he be virtuous or vicious—may have upon the charity of his fellow-men, he has no legal claims upon them. He must depend wholly upon their charity, if they so please. He cannot demand, as a legal right, that they either feed or clothe him. And he has no more legal or moral claims upon a government—which is but an association of individuals—than he has upon the same, or any other individuals, in their private capacity.

Inasmuch, then, as a poor man—whether virtuous or vicious—has no more or other claims, legal or moral, upon a government, for food or clothing, than he has upon private persons, a government has no more right than a private person to control or prohibit the expenditures or actions of an individual, on the ground that they tend to bring him to poverty.

Mr. A, as an individual, has clearly no right to prohibit any acts or expenditures of Mr. Z, through fear that such acts or expenditures may tend to bring him (Z) to poverty, and that he (Z) may, in consequence, at some future unknown time, come to him (A) in distress, and ask charity. And if A has no such right, as an individual, to prohibit any acts or expenditures on the part of Z, then government, which is a mere association of individuals, can have no such right.

Certainly no man, who is compos mentis, holds his right to the disposal and use of his own property, by any such worthless tenure as that which would authorize any or all of his neighbors,—whether calling themselves a government or not,—to interfere, and forbid him to make any expenditures, except such as they might think would not tend to poverty, and would not tend to ever bring him to them as a supplicant for their charity.

Whether a man, who is compos mentis, come to poverty, through his virtues or his vices, no man, nor body of men, can have any right to interfere with him, on the ground that their sympathy may some time be appealed to in his behalf; because, if it should be appealed to, they are at perfect liberty to act their own pleasure or discretion as to complying with his solicitations.

This right to refuse charity to the poor—whether the latter be virtuous or vicious—is one that governments always act upon. No government makes any more provision for the poor than it pleases. As a consequence, the poor are left, to a great extent, to depend upon private charity. In fact, they are often left to suffer sickness, and even death, because neither public nor private charity comes to their aid. How absurd, then, to say that government has a right to control a man’s use of his own property, through fear that he may sometime come to poverty, and ask charity.

4. Still a fourth answer to the argument is, that the great and only incentive which each individual man has to labor, and to create wealth, is that he may dispose of it according to his own pleasure or discretion, and for the promotion of his own happiness, and the happiness of those whom he loves.*

Although a man may often, from inexperience or want of judgment, expend some portion of the products of his labor injudiciously, and so as not to promote his highest welfare, yet he learns wisdom in this, as in all other matters, by experience; by his mistakes as well as by his successes. And this is the only way in which he can learn wisdom. When he becomes convinced that he has made one foolish expenditure, he learns thereby not to make another like it. And he must be permitted to try his own experiments, and to try them to his own satisfaction, in this as in all other matters; for otherwise he has no motive to labor, or to create wealth at all.

Any man, who is a man, would rather be a savage, and be free, creating or procuring only such little wealth as he could control and consume from day to day, than to be a civilized man, knowing how to create and accumulate wealth indefinitely, and yet not permitted to use or dispose of it, except under the supervision, direction, and dictation of a set of meddlesome, superserviceable fools and tyrants, who, with no more knowledge than himself, and perhaps with not half so much, should assume to control him, on the ground that he had not the right, or the capacity, to determine for himself as to what he would do with the proceeds of his own labor.

5. A fifth answer to the argument is, that if it be the duty of government to watch over the expenditures of any one person,—who is compos mentis, and not criminal,—to see what ones tend to poverty, and what do not, and to prohibit and punish the former, then, by the same rule, it is bound to watch over the expenditures of all other persons, and prohibit and punish all that, in its judgment, tend to poverty.

If such a principle were carried out impartially, the result would be, that all mankind would be so occupied in watching each other’s expenditures, and in testifying against, trying, and punishing such as tended to poverty, that they would have no time left to create wealth at all. Everybody capable of productive labor would either be in prison, or be acting as judge, juror, witness, or jailer. It would be impossible to create courts enough to try, or to build prisons enough to hold, the offenders. All productive labor would cease; and the fools that were so intent on preventing poverty, would not only all come to poverty, imprisonment, and starvation themselves, but would bring everybody else to poverty, imprisonment, and starvation.

6. If it be said that a man may, at least, be rightfully compelled to support his family, and, consequently, to abstain from all expenditures that, in the opinion of the government, tend to disable him to perform that duty, various answers might be given. But this one is sufficient, viz.: that no man, unless a fool or a slave, would acknowledge any family to be his, if that acknowledgment were to be made an excuse, by the government, for depriving him, either of his personal liberty, or the control of his property.

When a man is allowed his natural liberty, and the control of his property, his family is usually, almost universally, the great paramount object of his pride and affection; and he will, not only voluntarily, but as his highest pleasure, employ his best powers of mind and body, not merely to provide for them the ordinary necessaries and comforts of life, but to lavish upon them all the luxuries and elegancies that his labor can procure.

A man enters into no moral or legal obligation with his wife or chidren to do anything for them, except what he can do consistently with his own personal freedom, and his natural right to control his own property at his own discretion.

If a government can step in and say to a man,—who is compos mentis, and who is doing his duty to his family, as he sees his duty, and according to his best judgment, however imperfect that may be,—“We (the government) suspect that you are not employing your labor to the best advantage for your family; we suspect that your expenditures, and your disposal of your property, are not so judicious as they might be, for the interest of your family; and therefore we (the government) will take you and your property under our special surveillance, and prescribe to you what you may, and may not do, with yourself and your property; and your family shall hereafter look to us (the government), and not to you, for support”—if a government can do this, all a man’s pride, ambition, and affection, relative to his family, would be crushed, so far as it would be possible for human tyranny to crush them; and he would either never have a family (whom he would publicly acknowledge to be his), or he would risk both his property and his life in overthrowing such an insulting, outrageous, and insufferable tyranny. And any woman who would wish her husband—he being compos mentis—to submit to such an unnatural insult and wrong, is utterly undeserving of his affection, or of anything but his disgust and contempt. And he would probably very soon cause her to understand that, if she chose to rely on the government, for the support of herself and her children, rather than on him, she must rely on the government alone.

XXII.

STILL another and all-sufficient answer to the argument that the use of spirituous liquors tends to poverty, is that, as a general rule, it puts the effect before the cause. It assumes that it is the use of the liquors that causes the poverty, instead of its being the poverty that causes the use of the liquors.

Poverty is the natural parent of nearly all the ignorance, vice, crime, and misery there are in the world.*

Why is it that so large a portion of the laboring people of England are drunken and vicious? Certainly not because they are by nature any worse than other men. But it is because their extreme and hopeless poverty keeps them in ignorance and servitude, destroys their courage and self-respect, subjects them to such constant insults and wrongs, to such incessant and bitter miseries of every kind, and finally drives them to such despair, that the short respite that drink or other vice affords them, is, for the time being, a relief. This is the chief cause of the drunkenness and other vices that prevail among the laboring people of England.

If those laborers of England, who are now drunken and vicious, had had the same chances and surroundings in life as the more fortunate classes have had; if they had been reared in comfortable, and happy, and virtuous homes, instead of squalid, and wretched, and vicious ones; if they had had opportunities to acquire knowledge and property, and make themselves intelligent, comfortable, happy, independent, and respected, and to secure to themselves all the intellectual, social, and domestic enjoyments which honest and justly rewarded industry could enable them to secure,—if they could have had all this, instead of being born to a life of hopeless, unrewarded toil, with a certainty of death in the workhouse, they would have been as free from their present vices and weaknesses as those who reproach them now are.

It is of no use to say that drunkenness, or any other vice, only adds to their miseries; for such is human nature—the weakness of human nature, if you please—that men can endure but a certain amount of misery, before their hope and courage fail, and they yield to almost anything that promises present relief or mitigation; though at the cost of still greater misery in the future. To preach morality or temperance to such wretched persons, instead of relieving their sufferings, or improving their conditions, is only insulting their wretchedness.

Will those who are in the habit of attributing men’s poverty to their vices, instead of their vices to their poverty,—as if every poor person, or most poor persons, were specially vicious,—tell us whether all the poverty and want that, within the last year and a half,* have been brought so suddenly—as it were in a moment—upon at least twenty millions of the people of the United States, were brought upon them as a natural consequence, either of their drunkenness, or of any other of their vices? Was it their drunkenness, or any other of their vices, that paralyzed, as by a stroke of lightning, all the industries by which they lived, and which had, but a few days before, been in such prosperous activity? Was it their vices that turned the adult portion of those twenty millions out of doors without employment, compelled them to consume their little accumulations, if they had any, and then to become beggars,—beggars for work, and, failing in this, beggars for bread? Was it their vices that, all at once, and without warning, filled the homes of so many of them with want, misery, sickness, and death? No. Clearly it was neither the drunkenness, nor any other vices, of these laboring people, that brought upon them all this ruin and wretchedness. And if it was not,what was it?

This is the problem that must be answered; for it is one that is repeatedly occurring, and constantly before us, and that cannot be put aside.

In fact, the poverty of the great body of mankind, the world over, is the great problem of the world. That such extreme and nearly universal poverty exists all over the world, and has existed through all past generations, proves that it originates in causes which the common human nature of those who suffer from it, has not hitherto been strong enough to overcome. But these sufferers are, at least, beginning to see these causes, and are becoming resolute to remove them, let it cost what it may. And those who imagine that they have nothing to do but to go on attributing the poverty of the poor to their vices, and preaching to them against their vices, will ere long wake up to find that the day for all such talk is past. And the question will then be, not what are men’s vices, but what are their rights?

OUR FINANCIERS: THEIR IGNORANCE, USURPATIONS, AND FRAUDS.

Our Financiers:

THEIR IGNORANCE, USURPATIONS, AND FRAUDS.

By LYSANDER SPOONER.

REPRINTED FROM “THE RADICAL REVIEW.”

BOSTON:

SOLD BY A. WILLIAMS AND COMPANY,

283 Washington Street.

1877.

I.

THE great battle in Ohio for more money,—by which is here meant the political canvass for the year 1875,—in which the whole country participated, is still worthy of notice, not only because there is doubtless a widespread determination to fight it over again, but also because it affords a ludicrous, but much needed, illustration, as well as an irrefutable proof, of the prevailing ignorance on the subject of money.

That that violent, but ridiculous, contest may serve as a caution to the people against being drawn into the same, or any similar one, in future, is one purpose of this article. Its other purposes are to expose the usurpations and frauds by which the people are deprived of money, and to vindicate, as far as its limits will permit, the right of the people, by the use of their own property and credit, to supply themselves with such money as they can, and as much of it as they please, free of all dictation or interference from the government.

The question at issue in Ohio, in 1875, was the 3.65 interconvertible bond scheme; a scheme, of the practical operation of which the writers and speakers, on neither side, seemed to have the least real knowledge whatever. It would have had neither the good effects which its friends expected, nor the bad effects which its enemies predicted. That is to say, it would neither have provided “a currency equal to the wants of trade,” as claimed by its friends, nor would it have flooded the country with a depreciated currency, as predicted by its opposers. As a system for furnishing a permanent currency, either good or bad, it would have fallen utterly dead. Worse than that, instead of furnishing a permanent currency in place of that we now have, it would have deprived us of the one we now have, without furnishing any substitute at all.

That such would have been its effect is evident from these considerations, namely:—

It is a settled principle that a paper currency depends, for its true and natural market value, wholly upon the redemption that is provided for it. It has, and it can have, no more true or natural market value than the property with which it is to be redeemed. A paper currency, therefore, that has no other redemption than that of being convertible into interest-bearing bonds, can be worth no more in the market than are the bonds themselves, and, consequently, no more than it is worth for conversion into the bonds. And it is worth nothing for conversion into bonds, unless there are some one or more persons who wish thus to convert it. In other words, it is this demand for the bonds, as investments, that alone gives the currency any value in the market. A convertible note of this kind, therefore, circulates as money only because some one or more persons want it for conversion. And it circulates only until it falls into the hands of such a person. When it falls into his hands, he converts it, and thus takes it out of circulation.

The destiny, therefore, of all such convertible paper, that is in circulation as money, is finally to be converted into bonds, and thus taken out of circulation. And there is then an end of it, so far as its being currency is concerned.

We saw the operation of this principle so long as the greenbacks were convertible into bonds. The conversion went on so rapidly that we should soon have had no greenbacks at all in circulation, had not the conversion of them into bonds been stopped by law. And our greenbacks now remain in circulation only because they are not convertible into bonds.

For the reasons now given, if our whole national debt were today in circulation as currency, having no other redemption than that of being convertible into 3.65 bonds, it would be worth for circulation no more than it would be worth for such conversion; and, as a natural consequence, it would rapidly, though not instantly, be converted, and thus taken out of circulation; and we should then have entirely lost it as a currency. And, as the scheme proposes to prohibit all other currency, we should then be left with no currency at all.

The 3.65 bond scheme, therefore, instead of being a scheme for providing the country with a currency, is perfectly suicidal, so far as furnishing a currency is concerned. It is simply a scheme for providing a paper currency for circulation by withdrawing all such currency from circulation! It is absurdity run mad.

II.

But the advocates of the scheme will say that it provides that these bonds may be reconverted into currency. Yes, it does indeed provide that they may, but not that they must, be thus reconverted. And it offers no inducements whatever for such reconversion; because, if reconverted, the currency will then be worth no more in the market than the bonds are worth as investments; since all that will give the currency any value at all in the market will then, as before, be the simple fact that it (the currency) is convertible back into the same bonds from which it has just been reconverted!

The bonds are to be holden by men who preferred the bonds to the currency, when both had the same value in the market. And now the scheme contemplates that the country will go without any currency at all, until these same bondholders shall change their minds, and prefer the currency to the bonds, when both have still the same value in the market! Who can tell when the bondholders will do that? The bonds are their estates, their investments, on which they rely for their daily bread. They are the estates which they have preferred to all others, as a means of living. To presume that they will reconvert them into currency, is just as absurd as it would be to presume that a man who has just bought a farm, and relies upon it for his living; will sell it for money that will enable him to do nothing else so good for himself as to buy back the same farm that he parts with.

III.

But General Butler, who, I believe, claims to have been the author of this scheme, says that, “in case of a scarcity of money,” “a demand for money by a high rate of interest will call forth these bonds.”1

He means by this that, in times of “scarcity of money,” “a high rate of interest”—that is, a higher rate than the bonds themselves bear—will induce a holder of these bonds to reconvert them into legal tender notes, in order to lend them!

This is certainly furnishing “more money” with a vengeance. The real value of the notes corresponds precisely to the value of a 3.65 interest-bearing bond, and General Butler would allow the people to have no money at all, except in some rare emergency, when the “scarcity” is so great as to induce them to give a higher rate of interest than the money is really worth,—enough higher to induce the bondholder to surrender his investments, and become a money lender instead.

This is equivalent to saying that nobody shall be permitted to borrow money, except in those emergencies when he will submit to be fleeced for the sake of getting it!

And to make it impossible for any body to borrow money, except at this extortionate rate, he would “prohibit by the severest penalties every other person, corporation, or institution from issuing any thing that might appear in the semblance of money!”

And this proposition comes from a man who proposes to furnish the people with “more money,” and thus save them from the extortions of the present money dealers!

However such an extortion might occasionally relieve an individual, who was so sorely pressed as to consent to be fleeced, it would do nothing towards supplying the people at large with money; because the money thus issued to an individual would not continue in circulation, unless it should constantly pass from hand to hand at a price beyond its true value; that is, at a price beyond its value for conversion. The result would be that the people could have no money at all, except upon the condition of their constantly giving more for the money than it was worth!

IV.

Another device of General Butler, by which he appears to think he could keep at least some of the currency in circulation, is this: He would make it “the legal tender of the United States for all debts due to or by the government or individuals.”

But this would add nothing at all to its real value; and it would have no appreciable, or certainly no important, effect in preventing the conversion of the currency into bonds; or, what is the same thing, in preventing a withdrawal of the currency from circulation; for the currency would still have no more real or true value for circulation than it would for conversion.

General Butler’s plan, therefore, amounts practically to this: He would allow the people no money at all, except on rare occasions, when, as he thinks, the “scarcity” would be so severe as to induce them to pay an extortionate price for it!

But, under such a system, there would really be no such thing as a rare and occasional “scarcity;” there would be nothing but constant, perpetual, and utter destitution. At least such would be the case, so soon as all the notes should have been converted into bonds.

The idea of allowing the people no money at all, except occasionally in times of “scarcity,” corresponds to one that should forbid the people to have any food at all, except occasionally in times of famine. Under such a system, it is plain there would never be a rare or occasional famine; but there would be, instead of it, a constant and perpetual one. So, under Butler’s scheme, there would never be any rare or occasional “scarcity of money;” but there would be a constant and perpetual destitution of it.

Yet he calls it a scheme for providing the people with more money! In reality, it is merely a scheme for depriving them of money altogether.

V.

Such being the real character of this 3.65 scheme, we are enabled to see the true character of the late battle in Ohio for and against it. And it is important to consider that, although the battle was nominally fought in Ohio, the whole country took part in it. The whole country took part in it, because it was considered that the result in Ohio would very likely decide the result in the whole country.

Thus we had the ludicrous and humiliating spectacle of forty millions of people fighting a fierce and bitter contest for and against a scheme, of the real nature of which neither party knew any thing! One party thought it was a scheme for furnishing the money really needed for industry and trade. The other party thought it was a scheme for overwhelming the country with a depreciated currency. In reality, it was a scheme to deprive the country of money altogether!

If any body had any thing to fear from this system, it was the very party that advocated it; for they wanted more money and not less. And if any body had any thing to hope from the system, it was the party that opposed it; for they wanted less money and not more.

Here, then, were two opposing armies, each fighting with all fury against itself, under the belief that it was fighting its antagonist!

VI.

The question now arises: If all the statesmen (so-called), all the financiers and bankers, all the editors, all the violent writers and speakers, who took part in this contest, know no more about finance than to take such parts as they did either for or against this ridiculous and absurd scheme, how much do they know about the system which the industry and prosperity of the country really require?

And if we shall conclude that they do not know any thing, perhaps we may conclude that they should not quite so arrogantly assume to dictate to us what, or how much, money we shall, or shall not, have; nor, consequently, to decide (as it is their purpose to do) what, or how much, money all other property shall be sold for.

Perhaps we may even conclude that men who have demonstrated their ignorance beyond all cavil or controversy, as they have, and who, by their ignorance, or something worse, have brought upon forty millions of people such ruin and misery as they have, ought to be exceedingly modest for the rest of their lives, especially on the subject of money.

Perhaps we may conclude that to paralyze the industry of the country for four, five, or six years together, at a loss of three, four, or five thousand millions of dollars per annum,—say, twenty thousand millions in all,—under pretence that it is necessary in order to raise, by five, ten, or fifteen per cent., the market value of eight hundred millions,—that is, to raise their value, say, one hundred millions in all,—perhaps, I say, we may conclude that to thus impoverish a people to the extent of twenty thousand millions, under pretence of saving or giving to somebody one hundred millions, is neither good financiering, good morals, nor good government; and that it indicates that there is something a great deal worse than sheer ignorance at work in the plans of the government.

Perhaps we may conclude that a dollar, in order to be a standard of value, must have something like a fixed value itself, which it will maintain against all competition; that, if it has any thing like such a fixed value, then ten, a hundred, a thousand, or a million of dollars must necessarily have ten, a hundred, a thousand, or a million times more value than one dollar has; and to say that, by the prohibition of all other money, one dollar can be made to have as much “purchasing power” as ten, a hundred, a thousand, or a million dollars, is only to say that, by the prohibition of all other money, the holder of the one dollar will be enabled to extort, in exchange for it, ten, a hundred, a thousand, or a million times more of other men’s property than the money is worth.

Perhaps we may conclude that the holders of the present stock of money, whose cardinal financial principle is that, by the prohibition of all other money, any small amount becomes invested with a “purchasing power” indefinitely greater than its true and natural market value, and who openly avow that that is their reason for insisting that all money shall be suppressed, except that small amount which they themselves hold, thereby virtually proclaim their purpose to be to so use their money as to extort, in exchange for it, an indefinite amount more of other men’s property than the money is worth. And perhaps we may conclude that a government which, on this ground, as avowed by its most conspicuous members and partisans, maintains a hard monopoly of money, thereby virtually acknowledges itself to be a mere instrument in the hands of these extortioners, for accomplishing the purposes they have in view.

Perhaps we may conclude that it is indispensable to all honest and equitable traffic that the money that is paid for any other property should have the same amount of true and natural market value as the property that is given in exchange for it; and that the moment this principle is acknowledged, all justification for the interference of the government ceases; since it is the sole right of the parties to contracts to decide for themselves, in each case, what money, and what amount of money, is, and is not, a bona fide equivalent for the property that is to be given in exchange for it.

Perhaps, also, we may conclude that the notes of private persons or private companies, who have property with which to pay their notes, and who can be sued and compelled to pay them, with interest and costs from the time of demand, are quite as likely to give us a specie-paying currency, and are quite as deserving of the name of “honest money,” as are the notes of a government that has no property to pay with; that cannot be sued or compelled to pay; and that has no intention of paying, unless, or until, it can do so without relaxing the monopoly it is determined to maintain.

Perhaps we may conclude that a government, which, for ten years together, prohibits, by a ten per cent. tax, all specie-paying notes, and at the same time, by the grossest usurpation, makes its own irredeemable, depreciated, non-specie-paying notes a legal tender in payment of all private debts, cannot reasonably be credited (however loud may be its professions) with any burning desire either for “specie payments,” or for “honest money.”

Perhaps we may conclude that any privileged money whatever, whether issued by a government or by individuals, is necessarily a dishonest money; just as a privileged man is necessarily a dishonest man; and just as any other privileged thing is necessarily a dishonest thing. For this reason we may perhaps conclude that a government that constantly cries out for “honest money,” when it all the while means and maintains, and insists upon maintaining, a privileged money, acts the part only of a blockhead or a cheat.

Perhaps we may conclude that, when the fraudulent pretences by which the monopoly of money has been thus far maintained, and the fraudulent purposes for which it has been maintained, have been so fully demonstrated that they can no longer be concealed or denied, and after the effects of the monopoly have been to impoverish the country to an amount at least twenty times greater than the whole amount of the privileged money,—perhaps we may conclude that, after all these results, the responsibility of the authors of the monopoly is not to be evaded, nor their motives justified, by any such mock freedom in banking as is offered to us, provided we will use only government bonds as banking capital, and come under all such regulations and conditions as the government may prescribe, and thus give up all right to bank upon any portion of the thirty thousand millions of other property which we have (or once had, and may have again); at least twenty thousand millions of which are better banking capital than any government bonds can be; and which we have a perfect right to use as banking capital, without asking any permission of the government, or coming under any of its regulations or conditions.

Perhaps we may conclude that this attempt of the government to delude us into the idea that we can have perfect freedom in banking, while deprived of our right to use the twenty or thirty thousand millions of banking capital we already have, and while restricted to the contemptible amount of capital we can have, or can afford to have, under the system proposed by the government, is very much like a proposal to establish perfect freedom in farming by requiring men to give up all the farms they now have, and buy some of the government lands in Oregon or Alaska, and there come under all such regulations and conditions as the government may prescribe.

Perhaps we may conclude that the establishment of a monopoly of money is equivalent to the establishment of monopolies in all the businesses that are carried on by means of money,—to wit, all businesses that are carried on at all in civilized society; and that to establish such monopolies as these is equivalent to condemning all persons, except those holding the monopolies, to the condition of tributaries, dependents, servants, paupers, beggars, or slaves. Perhaps we may conclude that the establishment of a monopoly of money is also equivalent to a prohibition upon all businesses, except such as the monopolists of money may choose to license. And perhaps we may conclude that, if government were to prohibit directly all businesses, except such as it should choose to license, and, by direct grants, were to make all these licensed businesses subjects of monopoly, its acts, in so doing, would be no more flagrant tyrannies, and no more flagrant violations of men’s natural rights, than are its acts in establishing the single monopoly of money.

Perhaps, after we shall have been insulted and impoverished by a few more such cheats as the “specie payment” cheat, the “honest money” cheat, the “free banking” cheat, and all the other cheats to which the government has resorted, for the one sole purpose of maintaining that monopoly of money on which the last administration relied for its support, and which the present administration is evidently determined to maintain, we may conclude that it is time for the people to take the matter of money into their own hands, and assert their right to provide their own money, in their own way, free of all dictation or interference from the government.

Perhaps we may conclude that the right to live, and to provide ourselves with food, clothing, shelter, and all the other necessaries and comforts of life, necessarily includes the right to provide ourselves with money; inasmuch as, in civilized life, money is the immediate and indispensable instrumentality for procuring all these things. Hence we may perhaps conclude that a people who surrender their natural right to provide themselves with money, practically surrender their right to provide for their own subsistence; and that a government that demands such a surrender, or attempts to take from them that right, and give it as a monopoly to a few, is as necessarily and as plainly the mere instrument of that few, as it would be if it were to require the people to surrender their right to follow their occupations as farmers, mechanics, and merchants, and give all these occupations as monopolies into the hands of the same few to whom it now gives the monopoly of money.

Perhaps we may conclude that we want no special laws whatever, either of license, prohibition, or regulation, on the subject of banking; that bankers, like other men, should be free to make their own contracts, and then, like other men, be compelled to fulfil them; and that their private property, like the private property of all other men, should be holden to pay their debts.

Perhaps we may conclude that it is the natural right of every man, who has a dollar’s worth of property that can be taken by legal process and applied to the payment of a promissory note, to offer his note for that amount in the market; and that it is the natural right of every body that pleases, to accept that note in exchange for other property; and that it is also a natural right of every subsequent holder of that note to offer it again in the market, and exchange it for other property with whomsoever may choose to accept it.

And since, in this way, it is not only theoretically possible, but absolutely practicable, that, to say the least, a very large amount of the material property of the country should be represented by promissory notes, and thus made to aid in furnishing a solvent and legitimate currency; and since nobody can be required to accept such a currency unless he pleases; and since nobody who chooses to accept it can either say that he is wronged, or be said to wrong any body else, by accepting it,—perhaps we may conclude that such a currency as this—if the people, or any portion of them, prefer it to any other that is offered them—can not rightfully be prohibited.

Perhaps we may conclude that no considerable accumulations of coin are necessary to maintain specie payments; that, where banking is free, and the private property of the bankers is holden for the debts of the banks, the business of banking naturally and necessarily falls into the hands of men of known wealth, whose notes challenge the scrutiny, and command the confidence, of the whole community; that, as these men, if permitted to do it, are always ready to supply the market with the greatest amount of notes that can be kept in circulation, the public have no temptation to accept any doubtful notes, and doubtful notes can consequently get no circulation; that, when the public are thus satisfied of the solvency of the notes they hold, they prefer them to coin, and the bankers rarely have any occasion to redeem them otherwise than by receiving them in payment of the notes they discount; that, as all the bank notes issued are wanted to pay the notes discounted, and are, at short intervals after their issue,—say in two, three, or four months, on an average,—returned to the banks in payment of notes discounted, the bankers, as a general rule, have no need to provide for any other redemption; and that, consequently, coin, unless in very small amounts, is merely dead capital, for which the bankers have no use whatever.

And, if the practicability or utility of this system should be doubted, perhaps we may refer the doubters to the example of Scotland, where, for eighty years,—from 1765 to 1845,—all the banks of Scotland, with two or three exceptions, stood upon the principle of the individual liability of their stockholders; enjoying perfect freedom in the issue of their notes, subject only to these restrictions, namely, that they should issue no notes below one pound, and none except those made payable on demand.1 The result was that Scotland had the best system of banks, or at least the best association of banks, for solvency, stability, and utility, that was ever known in Europe.2 During all that period of eighty years, while the banks of England were failing by the hundreds, and many of them proving utterly rotten, and while all that did not prove rotten repeatedly suspended specie payments,—at one time for more than twenty years,—the banks of Scotland never suspended specie payments, and their notes were always equal to coin. And, by introducing manufactures, they raised Scotland, within that period, from a miserable poverty-stricken condition (the effect of her cold climate and barren soil) to a condition of prosperity and wealth second to that of no other people in Europe. These facts, and others that cannot here be enumerated at length, demonstrate that, where banks rest upon the individual liability of stockholders, or upon any other basis that gives to the public an absolute guarantee of the solvency of the banks, banking may be made perfectly free, and the amount of currency as great as can be kept in circulation, and yet that it will always be equal to coin. And they prove also that all the arguments that are now used to justify restraints upon banking, and limitations upon the amount of currency, in order to maintain specie payments, proceed wholly from gross ignorance or fraud.1

Perhaps we may conclude that money is simply property that is cut up, or divided, into such pieces or parcels as are convenient and acceptable to be given and received in exchange for other property; and that any man who has any property whatever that can be cut up, or divided, into such pieces or parcels, has a perfect legal and moral right thus to cut it up, and then freely offer it in the market, in competition with all other money, and in exchange for any other commodity, that may there be offered in competition with, or in exchange for, it. Perhaps we may conclude that the simple fact of these pieces or parcels being called money, or not called money,—of their bearing the stamp or license of the government, or not bearing it,—has nothing to do with his right to offer them in the market, or to sell them, or lend them, or exchange them, on such terms as the parties to the contracts may mutually agree upon; that the simple facts that they are property,—property that is naturally vendible,—and that they are his property, entitle him to sell them, or lend them, to whomsoever may wish to buy, or to borrow, them; and to do all this on such terms as the parties, free of all interference from the government, may agree upon. And perhaps we may conclude that these pieces or parcels may as rightfully be bought, sold, and exchanged (if the parties so agree) by means of contracts on paper—notes, checks, drafts, bills of exchange, or whatever else—promising to deliver them on demand, or at times agreed on, as by actual delivery of the parcels themselves, at the time of the contract.

Perhaps we may conclude that, instead of Congress having the right, in General Butler’s phrase, to “prohibit, by the severest penalties, every other person, corporation, or institution [than the government itself, or those whom it licenses] from issuing any thing that might appear in the semblance of money,” it has no such right whatever, nor any semblance of such a right; that it has no color of right in the matter, beyond the simple “power to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;” that, so far from their having any such right, it is one of the first and most sacred of all the duties of any and every government (that has any duties at all) to protect every man in his natural right to offer in the market every vendible or loanable commodity he has to sell, or to lend; and to sell it, or lend it, to any and every man who wishes to buy it, or borrow it; and that it is the duty of the government to protect him in his liberty to do this by any and every possible form of contract—whether check, note, draft, bill of exchange, or whatever else—that is naturally and intrinsically just and obligatory.

Perhaps we may conclude that it is as much the duty of government to protect each and every man, who has any thing deserving the name of money, or that men may choose to call money, in his right to sell or lend it to any and every other man who may choose to accept it as money, as it is to protect him in his right to sell or lend any other property whatever, which he may wish to sell or lend, and which other men may wish to buy or borrow.

Perhaps we may conclude that the simple fact that men may, or may not, choose to call any particular commodity money, makes no difference whatever in the nature, character, quality, or value of the commodity itself; and therefore cannot affect the right of men to buy, or sell, or lend, or borrow it; or to give it in exchange for any other property, on such terms as the parties (without fraud) may mutually agree upon.

Perhaps we may conclude that all men, who are presumed competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts, must also be presumed to be just as competent to judge of the value of any money that may be offered them, as the men who offer it are to judge of the value of the commodities they are to receive in exchange for it.

Perhaps, in short, we may conclude that it is one of the natural rights of men to sell their property for such money, and as much of it, as is offered to them for it, and as they choose to accept.

Perhaps we may also conclude that the idea of providing the people with money by prohibiting all money except such as the government itself may specially provide or license, is just as absurd, preposterous, and tyrannical as would be the idea of providing the people with food, clothing, or shelter, by prohibiting all food, clothing, or shelter, except such as the government itself may specially provide or license.

Perhaps we may conclude that, as it is with all other commodities, so it is with money, namely, that free competition in producing it and offering it in the market is the sure, and only sure, way of guaranteeing to us the greatest supply, the best article, and on the best terms; that, inasmuch as banking is but a very recent invention,—but one on which all industry and all other inventions depend mainly for their efficiency,—it is just as absurd to suppose that we have already attained perfection in it, as it would be to suppose we had attained perfection in any or all the other arts by which industry is carried on; that it is, therefore, just as absurd and suicidal to prohibit all new experiments and inventions in banking, as it would be to prohibit all new experiments and inventions in agriculture, mechanics, or any of the other arts of life; and that, to be consistent, those who would prohibit all new experiments and inventions in banking ought also to insist that the patent office be closed, and that all new experiments and inventions in any and every art and science whatsoever be prohibited.

Perhaps we may conclude that, however much money, or however many kinds of money, may be offered in the market, there is no danger that the holders will give any more of it in exchange for other men’s property or labor, than such property or labor is worth; and that, therefore, there is no danger that the prices of either property or labor will ever be too high; or, what is the same thing, that property or labor will ever bring any more money than it is worth.

Perhaps we may conclude that it is time that those men who claim that gold and silver coins, by the monopoly now given to them as money, are kept at a price far above their true and natural value as metals, and who claim that they should still be kept at that price by restrictions upon all other money, were taught that all honest and equitable commerce requires that each and every commodity that may be sold at all—whether it be called money, or by any other name—should be sold only at the price it will bear in free and open market, and subject to the free competition of every other commodity that may there be offered in competition with, or in exchange for, it; that the free and open market is as much the true and only test of the true and natural market value of every thing that can be called money, as it is of the true and natural market value of every thing that is exchanged for money.

Perhaps we may conclude that, since industry is an animal, so to speak, that feeds and lives on money; since its strength, activity, and growth depend mainly upon the amount of money that is furnished to it; since we as yet know of no limits to its increase in power, except the limits set by the money that is supplied to it; since, when it is fully supplied with money, it will create two, five, ten, a hundred, often thousands, sometimes millions, and even hundreds and thousands of millions, of dollars of wealth, for every dollar that it consumes,1 but, when stinted or deprived of money, necessarily languishes or dies; and since, when it languishes or dies, mankind languish or die with it,—perhaps, in view of these facts, we may conclude that to stint or deprive it of money is not merely bad economy, but fatuity and suicide.2

And, finally, perhaps we may conclude that a government that sacrifices a million of lives to maintain its power, and then uses that power to trample in the dust all the natural rights of the survivors, and to cheat, plunder, and starve them, for the mere profit of the holders of eight hundred millions of money, is not a government that should be tolerated for any great length of time.

Lysander Spooner.

THE LAW OF PRICES:

A DEMONSTRATION OF THE NECESSITY FOR AN INDEFINITE INCREASE OF MONEY.

THE

LAW OF PRICES:

a demonstration of

THE NECESSITY FOR AN INDEFINITE INCREASE OF MONEY.

by

LYSANDER SPOONER.

reprinted from “the radical review.”

BOSTON:

A. WILLIAMS AND COMPANY,

283 Washington Street.

1877.

I.

THE writers on money seem never to have obtained the first glimpse of the fundamental law which governs prices, and which necessitates a constant and indefinite increase in the volume of money. That law may be illustrated in this manner:

Suppose an island cut off from all communication with the rest of the world, and inhabited by one hundred men. Suppose that these hundred men know no industry except the production of wheat; that they produce annually one thousand bushels, each man producing ten bushels, which is enough for his own consumption. Suppose further that these hundred men have money to the amount of five dollars each in gold, silver, and copper coins, and that these coins are valued by them as highly as similar coins are now by us. What will be the price of wheat among these men, compared with the coins? Plainly, it will bear no price at all. Each man producing for himself all he can eat, no one has any occasion to buy. Therefore none can be sold at any price.

But suppose that one after another of these hundred men leave wheat-growing and engage in the production of other commodities,—each producing a different commodity from all the others,—until there shall be a hundred different commodities produced; only one man being left to produce wheat. And suppose that this one man has increased his product from ten bushels to one thousand. There is now just as much wheat as there was when all were employed in producing it. The only differences are, first, that the whole amount is produced now by one man, where before it was produced by a hundred men; and, secondly, that the ninety-nine men have each engaged in the production of some commodity different from that produced by any other, but of which, we will suppose, all the others wish to purchase each his proportionate share for consumption.

There is now a hundred times as much wealth produced as when all produced wheat and nothing else. But each kind has only a single producer, while it finds a hundred consumers. And each man’s product, we will suppose, has the same value with every other man’s product.

What, now, will be the price of wheat among these hundred men, relatively to the coins? Doubtless a dollar a bushel. When the first man abandoned wheat-growing, and betook himself to some other occupation, he created a demand for ten bushels of wheat, which he still wanted for consumption as before. This demand for ten bushels would doubtless be sufficient to give wheat the price of one cent per bushel where it had no price before. When a second man of the hundred abandoned wheat-growing, he created a demand for ten bushels more; making twenty bushels in all. This increased demand would doubtless be sufficient to raise the market price of wheat to two cents a bushel. When a third man of the hundred left wheat-growing for some other pursuit, his demand for ten bushels would raise the market price another cent; and so on, until by the time the ninety-nine had left wheat-growing, the continually increasing demand would have raised the price to ninety-nine cents a bushel; for convenience of round numbers, say a dollar a bushel.

Here, then, wheat has been raised from no price at all to a dollar a bushel, not because there is any less wheat produced, or any more consumed, than before, but solely because the whole thousand bushels are now produced by one man, instead of being produced, ten bushels each, by the hundred different men who were to consume it; and because, further, each of the ninety-nine men who have left wheat-growing is able to purchase wheat, inasmuch as he has been producing some other commodity which brings him as good a price as the wheat brings to the man who still produces wheat.

Under this new state of things, then, the man who continues to produce wheat produces a thousand bushels, worth a dollar a bushel; that is, a thousand dollars’ worth in all. Each of the other ninety-nine produces an equal amount of market value in some other commodity. The whole hundred men, then, produce wealth that has now a market value of one hundred thousand dollars, where originally they had produced nothing that had any market value at all.

This change in the price of wheat has been produced, then, solely by reason of the diversity of industry and production that has taken place among these hundred men. And the market prices of all the other ninety-nine commodities have been affected by the same law, and to the same extent, as has been the price of wheat.

Here, then, is a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of commodities produced, each man producing a thousand dollars’ worth.

As each man retains a hundredth part of his product—that is, ten dollars’ worth—for his own consumption, he has nine hundred and ninety dollars’ worth for sale. The whole hundred men, therefore, have one hundred times nine hundred and ninety dollars’ worth for sale, which is equal to ninety-nine thousand dollars in all; for convenience of round numbers, say one hundred thousand dollars.

The hundred men, having each five dollars in coins, have in the aggregate five hundred dollars. To make the purchases and sales of these hundred thousand dollars’ worth of commodities will require each of these five hundred dollars to be exchanged for commodities, on an average, two hundred times. That is, in carrying on the commerce of these hundred men for a year, their whole stock of money must be exchanged, on an average, once in a little less than two days. Or if we reckon but three hundred business days in a year, we shall find that the whole stock of money must be exchanged, on an average, once in every day and a half.

Such rapidity of exchange would be practicable enough if the holders of the coins should all part with them readily at their true and natural value, instead of holding them back in the hope of getting for them more than they were really worth. But where there was so active a demand for the coins as to require that the whole stock be sold, on an average, once in every day and a half, it is natural to suppose that the holders of the coins would hold them back, in order to get more for them than their true and natural value. And in so far as they should do so, they would obstruct trade, and by obstructing trade obstruct and discourage production, and thus obstruct the natural increase of wealth.

II.

But suppose, now, that the number of men on this island be increased from one hundred to one thousand, and that they are all engaged in producing wheat only; each man producing ten bushels, which is all he wants for his own consumption. And suppose that each man has five dollars in gold, silver, and copper coins. What will be the price of wheat among these men, relatively to the coins? Clearly, it will have no market price at all, any more than it had when there were but a hundred men.

But suppose that nine hundred and ninety-nine of these thousand men leave wheat-growing, and engage each in the production of a commodity different from that produced by any one of the others. And suppose that the one who still continues to produce wheat is able, from his increased science, skill, and machinery, to produce ten thousand bushels—ten bushels for each of the thousand men—where before he produced only ten bushels for himself.

There is now just as much wheat produced as there was before. But it is now all produced by one man—nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of it being produced for sale—instead of being produced by a thousand men, each producing ten bushels for his own consumption.

What, now, will be the price of wheat among these thousand men? Why, being governed by the same law that has already been illustrated in the case of the hundred men, it will go on rising one cent at a time as each man leaves wheat-growing for some other pursuit, until, when nine hundred and ninety-nine shall have left wheat-growing, and shall have become purchasers of wheat, instead of producers, the price will be nine hundred and ninety-nine cents a bushel—for convenience of round numbers, say ten dollars a bushel—where before it bore no price at all.

In this state of things, then, the man who still continues to produce wheat will produce ten thousand bushels; worth, in the market, ten dollars a bushel, or a hundred thousand dollars in all.

Here, then, we have the price of a hundred thousand dollars for ten thousand bushels of wheat, which, when produced by a thousand different men, each producing ten bushels for his own consumption, had no market value at all. And the other nine hundred and ninety-nine men, we will suppose, produce each a different commodity from all the others; the whole annual produce of each having the same market value as the wheat-grower’s crop of wheat. The market value, then, of all the products of the whole thousand men will be one thousand times one hundred thousand dollars—that is, one hundred million dollars—where before, when they were all producing wheat and nothing else, their whole products had no market price at all.

When we consider that each producer retains for his own consumption but a thousandth part of his products (a hundred dollars’ worth), and that, consequently, nine hundred and ninety-nine parts of all these products are not only to be sold, but to be sold twice, as they would now have to be,—that is, once by the producer to the merchant, and once by the merchant to the consumer,—we see that there will be sales to the amount of one hundred and ninety-nine million eight hundred thousand dollars—for convenience of round numbers, say two hundred million dollars—where before, when all were producing wheat, there was no such thing as a sale of a cent’s worth of any thing.

These thousand men, we have supposed, had each five dollars in coins—making five thousand dollars in all—with which to make these purchases and sales of two hundred millions. How many times over will all these coins, on an average, have to be bought and sold, in order to effect these exchanges? Dividing two hundred millions by five thousand, we have the answer; namely, forty thousand times! Dividing this number by three hundred,—which we will suppose to be the number of business days in a year,—we find that, in order to make their exchanges, their whole stock of money must be bought and sold, on an average, one hundred and thirty-three times every day!

Thus we see that one thousand men, with such a diversity and amount of production as we have supposed, would have two thousand times as many purchases and sales to make as the one hundred men. And in making these purchases and sales, we see that their whole stock of money would have to be bought and sold two hundred times oftener than would the whole stock of money of the one hundred men in making their purchases and sales of one hundred thousand dollars. We see, too, that, if we call eight hours a day,—that being the usual number of business hours,—their whole stock of money would have to be bought and sold, on an average, sixteen times over every hour, or once in every four minutes; whereas the whole stock of money of the one hundred men would have to be bought and sold only once in a day and a half; or—calling eight hours a day—once in twelve hours.

Such, let it be specially noticed, is the difference in the rapidity required in the purchase and sale of money in making the exchanges among a thousand men, on the one hand, and a hundred men, on the other, although the thousand men have the same amount of money, man for man, as the hundred men; the thousand men having five thousand dollars, and the hundred having but five hundred dollars.

This illustration gives some idea of the effect produced upon prices by the expansion of industry and the diversity of production. And yet the writers on money tell us that a large number of men need no more money, man for man, than a small number; that, if a hundred men need but five hundred dollars of money, a thousand men will, by the same rule, need but five thousand dollars.

In the case already supposed,—of the one thousand men,—how far would their five thousand dollars avail as money towards making their exchanges of two hundred million dollars? Plainly, they would avail nothing. The holders of them, seeing the necessities of the people for money, would hold back their coins, and demand so much more than their true and natural value as to put a stop substantially to all production, except of such few things as could be exchanged by barter, or as each one could produce for his own consumption.

The obvious truth is that, in order to carry on their commerce with money at its true and natural value, and consequently without obstruction or extortion from the money holders, it is necessary that these thousand men, with their increased diversity and amount of production, should have two hundred times as much money, man for man,—and two thousand times as much in the aggregate,—as was necessary for the one hundred men, as before supposed.

In other words, the thousand men have two hundred million dollars of sales to make, where the hundred men had but one hundred thousand. Dividing two hundred million by one hundred thousand, we find that the thousand men, with such diversity and amount of production as we have supposed, have two thousand times as many sales to make as the one hundred had, and consequently that they require two thousand times as much money as did the one hundred.

III.

But to show still further the ratio in which diversity of industry tends to increase the prices of commodities, relatively to any fixed standard, let us suppose that the number of men on this island be still further increased from one thousand to ten thousand. And suppose that all these ten thousand are engaged in producing wheat alone; each producing ten bushels for his own consumption, that being all he wants. And suppose they have each five dollars in gold, silver, and copper coins. What will be the price of wheat, relatively to the coins? Clearly, it will have no price at all, not even so much as one cent a bushel.

But suppose that all but one of these ten thousand men should leave wheat-growing, and engage in other industries; each one producing a different commodity from all the others. And suppose that the one who still continues wheat-growing has acquired such science, skill, and machinery, that he is now able to produce a hundred thousand bushels—that is, ten bushels each for ten thousand men—where before he only produced ten bushels for himself.

What will now be the price of wheat among these ten thousand men? Why, by the same law that has been already illustrated it will be ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents a bushel—for convenience of round numbers, say one hundred dollars a bushel—where before it had no market value at all.

And yet there is just as much wheat produced as there was before, and every man gets just as much wheat to eat as he had before, when all were producing wheat.

In this state of things, the one hundred thousand bushels of wheat produced by one man at a hundred dollars a bushel—which will then be its market value—are worth one hundred thousand times one hundred dollars; that is, ten million dollars. And suppose that all the other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine men are each engaged in an industry as profitable as that of the remaining wheat-grower. The aggregate production of the whole ten thousand men will now have a market value equal to ten thousand times ten million dollars; that is, one hundred thousand million dollars.

And if we suppose that all these commodities are to be sold1three times over,—that is, once by the producer to the wholesale dealer, once by the wholesale dealer to the retailer, and once by the retailer to the consumer,—we shall see that there are to be sales equal to three hundred thousand million dollars, where before, when all were producing wheat and nothing else, there was no sale of a cent’s worth of any thing, and no market value at all for any thing.

Now suppose that the coins which these men had have remained fixed at the same value they had when the men were all producing wheat. How many times over, then, must they necessarily be bought and sold in the course of a year, in order to effect the purchase and sale of these three hundred thousand millions—or one hundred thousand millions three times over—of property that are to be exchanged?

There are ten thousand men, each having five dollars in coins; that is, fifty thousand dollars in all. Dividing three hundred thousand millions by fifty thousand, we find that the whole of these fifty thousand dollars in coins must be bought and sold six million times! Six million times annually, to effect the exchanges of the products of ten thousand men!

Dividing six million by three hundred (which we will suppose to be the number of business days in a year), we find that, on an average, their whole stock of money must be bought and sold twenty thousand times over every day. Or supposing the business day to be eight hours, the coins would all have to be bought and sold twenty-five hundred times over every hour; equal to forty-one and two-thirds times every minute.

And this happens, too, when the ten thousand men have the same amount of coin, man for man, as the one hundred and the one thousand men had in the cases before supposed.

Thus we see that, with such a diversity and amount of production as we have supposed, the exchanges of the ten thousand men would require that their whole stock of money should be bought and sold one hundred and fifty times oftener than the whole stock of the one thousand men, and thirty thousand times oftener than the whole stock of the one hundred men.

We also see that, in the cases supposed, the ten thousand men, having three hundred thousand millions of exchanges to make, have fifteen hundred times as many as the one thousand men, who had but two hundred millions; and that they have three million times as many exchanges to make as the one hundred men. Consequently the ten thousand men require fifteen hundred times as much money as the one thousand men, and three million times as much money as the one hundred men.

IV.

According to the foregoing calculations, the ratio of increase required in the volume of money is this: Supposing the diversity and amount of production to keep pace with the increase in the number of men, and supposing their commodities to be sold but once,—that is, directly from producer to consumer,—a hundred men would require a thousand times as much money as ten men; a thousand men would require a thousand times as much money as a hundred men; ten thousand men would require a thousand times as much money as a thousand men; and so on.

But inasmuch as, in the case of a thousand men, their commodities would have to be sold twice,—that is, once by the producer to the merchant, and once by the merchant to the consumer,—the thousand men would require two thousand times as much money as the hundred men. And inasmuch as, in the case of the ten thousand men, their commodities would have to be sold three times over,—that is, once by the producer to the wholesale dealer, once by the wholesale dealer to the retailer, and once by the retailer to the consumer,—the amount of money required, instead of being either one thousand or two thousand times as much as in the case of the one thousand men (whose commodities were sold but twice), would be one and a half thousand times (as three sales are one and a half times as much as two)—that is, fifteen hundred times—as much as in the case of the one thousand men.

Stating the results of the preceding calculations in the simplest form, we find that different numbers of men, having a diversity and amount of production corresponding to their numbers, in making their exchanges with each other, require money in the following ratios, relatively to each other; namely,—

But as the same money could be used many times over in the course of a year, they would not need an amount of money equal to the amount of their annual exchanges. If, then, we suppose the aggregate of their annual exchanges to be as above, and their whole stocks of money to be used three hundred times over in a year,—that is, once a day, calling three hundred the number of business days in a year,—we find that the stocks of money required would be as follows:—

Or, to state the case in still another form, supposing their aggregate annual exchanges to be as above, and supposing their whole stocks of money to be bought and sold three hundred times over in the year, the money required, per man, would be as follows:—

If any body thinks he can dispute these figures, let him attempt it. If they cannot be disputed, they settle the law of prices.

V.

The foregoing suppositions are, first, that the ten thousand men came finally to have ten thousand different kinds of commodities where they originally had but one,—namely, wheat; secondly, that they finally came to have ten thousand times as much wealth, in quantity, as they had originally, when all were producing wheat; thirdly, that wheat, which at its first sales brought only one cent a bushel, came afterwards to sell for ten thousand cents a bushel,—although the amount of wheat produced, and the supply of wheat for each individual, were the same in the one case as in the other; fourthly, that the same effect is produced upon the prices of all the rest of the ten thousand different kinds of commodities as upon the price of wheat; and, fifthly, that the annual sales made by the ten thousand men amounted finally to three hundred thousand million dollars, where their first sales had amounted to but ten cents,—the amount which the first man who left wheat-growing paid for his yearly supply of ten bushels.

It is not necessary to suppose that such a diversity and amount of production will ever be realized in actual life, although that is not impossible. It is sufficient that these figures give the law that governs prices, and consequently demonstrate that a constant and enormous increase of money must be necessary to keep pace with the increase of population, wealth, and trade, if we wish to give free scope to diversity and amount of production.

Unless money should be increased so as to keep pace with this increased demand, the result would be, first, obstruction to trade; secondly, obstruction to, and discouragement of, industry; and thirdly, a corresponding obstruction to the increase of wealth.

In fact, unless the amount of money were increased, these hundred men, thousand men, and ten thousand men, instead of having a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand different kinds of commodities, would advance very little beyond the state they were in when all were producing wheat and nothing else. Some feeble attempts at other industries might possibly be made, but their money, like the shells and wampum of savages, would aid these attempts but slightly; and the men, unless they invented some other money, would either remain absolute savages, or attain only to a very low state of barbarism.

The practical question, then, is whether it is better that these ten thousand men should remain mere savages, scratching the earth with rude sticks and stones to produce each ten bushels of wheat, or whether it is better that they should all have the money—which stands in political economy for all the ingenuity, skill, science, machinery, and other capital which money can buy—that may be necessary to enable them to produce, in the greatest possible abundance, and of the greatest possible excellence, all the ten thousand commodities which will contribute to their happiness.

A full discussion of this subject would require much more space than can here be given to it. It may perhaps be continued at a future time, if that should be necessary. But enough has doubtless now been said to show the general law that governs prices, and consequently to show the necessity for an immense increase of money; an increase dependent upon the diversity and amount of production and the natural laws of trade applicable thereto; such an increase as no legislation can ascertain beforehand, or consequently prescribe.

Lysander Spooner.

GOLD AND SILVER AS STANDARDS OF VALUE:

THE FLAGRANT CHEAT IN REGARD TO THEM.

Gold and Silver

as

STANDARDS OF VALUE:

THE FLAGRANT CHEAT IN REGARD TO THEM.

By LYSANDER SPOONER.

reprinted from “the radical review.”

BOSTON:

A. WILLIAMS AND COMPANY,

283 Washington Street.

1878.

ALL the usurpation, and tyranny, and extortion, and robbery, and fraud, that are involved in the monopoly of money are practised, and attempted to be justified, under the pretence of maintaining the standard of value. This pretence is intrinsically a false one throughout. And the whole motive for it is to afford some color of justification for such a monopoly of money as will enable the few holders of gold and silver coins (or of such other money as may be specially licensed and substituted for them) to extort, in exchange for them, more of other men’s property than the coins (or their substitutes) are naturally and truly worth. That such is the fact, it is the purpose of this article to prove.

In order to be standards by which to measure the values of other things, it is plain that these coins must have a fixed and definite—or, at least, something like a fixed and definite—value of their own; just as a yard-stick, in order to be a standard by which to measure the length of other things, must necessarily have a fixed and definite length of its own; and just as a pound weight, in order to be a standard by which to measure the weight of other things, must necessarily have a fixed and definite weight of its own. It is only because a yard-stick has a fixed and definite length of its own that we are enabled to measure the length of other things by it. It is only because a pound weight has a fixed and definite weight of its own that we are enabled to measure the weight of other things by it. For a like reason, unless gold and silver coins have fixed and definite—or, at least, something like fixed and definite—values of their own, they can serve no purpose as standards by which to measure the values of other things.

The first question, then, to be settled is this,—namely, what is that fixed or definite value (or something like a fixed or definite value) which gold and silver coins have, and which enables them to be used as standards for measuring the values of other things?

The answer is that the true and natural market value of gold and silver coins is that value, and only that value, which they have for use or consumption as metals,—that is, for plate, watches, jewelry, gilding, dentistry, and other ornamental and useful purposes. This is the value at which they now stand in the markets of the world, as is proved by the fact that doubtless not more than one-tenth, and very likely not more than one-twentieth, of all the gold and silver in the world (out of the mines) is in circulation as money. All the rest is in plate, watches, jewelry, and the like; except that in some parts of the world, where property in general is unsafe, large amounts of gold and silver are hoarded and concealed to prevent their being taken by rapacious governments, or public enemies, or private robbers. Leaving these hoards out of account, doubtless ninetenths, and very likely nineteen-twentieths, of all the gold and silver of the world are in other forms than coin.

And as fast as new gold and silver are taken out of the mines, they are first carried to the mints, and made into coins; then they are carried all over the world by the operations of commerce, and given in exchange for other commodities. Then the goldsmiths and silversmiths, in every part of the world (unless among savages), are constantly taking these coins and converting them into such articles of plate, jewelry, and the like as they have call for. In this way the annual crops of gold and silver that are taken from the mines are worked up into articles for use as regularly as the annual crops of breadstuffs are consumed as food, or as the annual crops of iron, and cotton, and silk, and wool, and leather are worked up into articles for use.

And when the coins have thus been wrought into articles for use, they for ever remain so, unless these articles become unfashionable, or for some other reason undesirable. In that case, they are sent again to the mint, and converted again into coin; then put into circulation again as money; then taken out of circulation again by the goldsmiths and silversmiths, and wrought again into plate, jewelry, and the like, for use. They remain in circulation as money only while they are going from the mint to the goldsmiths and silversmiths. And this route is a very short and quick one. An old coin is rarely seen, unless it has been hoarded.1

Unless new gold and silver were being constantly taken from the mines, and old and unfashionable plate and jewelry were being constantly recoined, these metals would soon disappear altogether as money.

All this proves that they have no true or natural value as money beyond their value for use or consumption as metals. If they were worth more as money than they are for use or consumption as metals, they would, after being once coined, remain for ever in circulation as money, instead of being taken out of circulation and appropriated to these other uses.

In Asia, where these metals have been accumulating from time immemorial, and whither all the gold and silver of Europe and America—except so much as is caught up and converted into plate, watches, jewelry, etc.,—is now going, and has been going for the last two thousand years,2 very small amounts only are in circulation as money. Instead of using them as money, the people—or so many of them as are able—cover themselves with jewelry, fill their houses with plate, and their palaces and temples with gold and silver ornaments. Instead of investing their surplus wealth in fine houses, fine clothing, fine furniture, fine carriages, etc., as Europeans and Americans do, it is nearly all invested in gold, silver, and precious stones. In every thing else they are miserably poor. Even the rich are so poor that they cannot afford to indulge, as we do, in such luxuries as costly dwellings, clothing, furniture, and the like, which require frequent repairs, or quickly decay, or wear out with use. Hence their preference for ornaments of gold, silver, and precious stones, which never wear out, and retain their value for ever.

In China, which has at least a fourth, and perhaps a third, of all the population of the globe, gold and silver are not coined at all by the Government. The only coin that is coined by the Government, and that is in circulation as money, is a small coin, of a base metal, worth no more than a fifth, sixth, or seventh of one of our cents. This coin is the common money of the people. And gold and silver are not in circulation at all as money, except some few foreign coins, and some plates, bars, or nuggets of gold and silver that pass by weight, and are generally weighed whenever they pass from one person to another.

In India, among two hundred millions of people, although the few rich have immense amounts of gold and silver plate and ornaments, very little gold and silver is in circulation as money. The mass of the people have either no money at all,—taking their pay for their labor in rice or other articles of food,—or have only certain shells, called cowries, of which it takes from fifty to a hundred to be worth one of our cents.1

In still other parts of Asia, gold and silver have little more circulation as money than in China and India. And yet Asia, I repeat, is the great and final market whither all the gold and silver of Europe and America—except what has been caught up and converted into plate, jewelry, and the like—is now going, and has been going for two thousand years, and whence they never return.

In Europe and America, the great increase of gold from the mines of California and Australia within the last thirty years has added only moderately to the amount of gold in circulation as money. But it has added very largely to the use of gold for plate, watches, jewelry, and the like. This greatly increased consumption of gold for ornamental purposes in England and America, and the increased flow of gold to Asia, to be there devoted to the same uses, account for the fact—which to many persons seems unaccountable—that the great amounts of gold taken from the mines have added so little to the amount in circulation as money.

And even though the amounts of gold and silver taken from the mines should hereafter be still greater—no matter how much greater—than they ever have been heretofore, they would all be disposed of in the same way; namely, first be converted into coin and put into circulation as money, and then taken out of circulation and converted into plate, jewelry, and the like. They would exist in the form of money only while they were performing their short and predestined journey from the mint to the goldsmiths and silversmiths.

These facts—let it be emphatically repeated—prove beyond all color of doubt, or possibility of refutation, that the true and natural market value of gold and silver coins is that value, and only that value, which they have for use or consumption as metals. Consequently it is at that value, and only at that value, that they have the least claim to be considered standards by which to measure the value of any thing else. And any body who pretends to write about the value of money from any other basis than this is either an ignoramus or an impostor,—probably the latter.

II. But that gold and silver coins can have no true or natural market value as money beyond their value for use or consumption as metals will still more clearly appear when we consider why it is that they are in demand at all as money; why it is that they have a market value; and why it is that every man will accept them in exchange for any thing he has to sell.

The solution of these questions is that the original, primal source of all the demand for them as money—the essential and only reason why they have market value, and sell so readily in exchange for other commodities—is simply because they are wanted to be taken out of circulation, and converted into plate, jewelry, and other articles of use.

They are wanted for these purposes by all the people on the globe. Hence they are carried at once from the countries in which they are first obtained—the mining countries—to all the other countries of the world as articles of commerce, and given in exchange for such other commodities as the holders of them prefer for the gratification of their wants and desires.

If they were not wanted to be taken out of circulation and wrought into articles of use, they would have no market value as money, and could not circulate at all as money. No one would have any motive to buy them, and no one would give any thing of value in exchange for them.

The reason of this is that gold and silver, in the state of coin, cannot be used.1 Consequently, in the state of coin, they produce nothing to the owner. A man cannot afford to keep them as an investment, because that would be equivalent to losing the use of his capital. He must, therefore, either exchange them for something he can use—something that will be productive and yield an income; or else he must convert them into plate, jewelry, etc., in which form he can use them and get an income from them.

It is, therefore, only when gold and silver coins have been wrought up into plate, watches, jewelry, etc., that they can be said to be invested; because it is only in that form that they can be used, be productive, or yield an income.

The income which they yield as investments—that is, the income which they yield when used in the form of plate, jewelry, etc.—is yielded mostly in the shape of a luxurious pleasure—the pleasure of gratified fancy, vanity, or pride.

This pleasure is the same as that which is derived from the use of ornaments generally; such as feathers, and ribbons, and laces, and precious stones, and many other things that have no value at all as food, clothing, or shelter, yet bring great prices in the market simply for their uses as ornaments.

The amount of this income we will suppose to be six per cent. per annum on their whole value. That is to say, a person who is able, and has tastes in that direction, will give six dollars a year for the simple pleasure of using one hundred dollars’ worth of plate, jewelry, etc.

This six dollars’ worth of pleasure, then, or six dollars’ worth of gratified fancy, vanity, or pride, is the annual income from an investment of one hundred dollars in gold and silver plate, jewelry, and the like.

This, be it noticed, is the only income that gold and silver are capable of yielding; because plate, jewelry, and the like are the only forms in which they can be used. So long as they remain in coin, they cannot be used, and therefore cannot yield an income.

It is, then, only this six per cent. annual income, this six dollars’ worth of pleasure, which gold and silver yield as ornaments,—that is, as investments,—that is really the cause of all the demand for them in the market, and consequently of their being bought and sold as money.

By this it is not meant that every man who takes a gold or silver coin as money takes it because he himself wants a piece of gold or silver plate or jewelry; nor because he himself intends or wishes to work it into plate or jewelry,—for such is not the case probably with one man in a thousand, or perhaps one man in ten thousand, of those who take the coin. Each man takes it as money simply because he can sell it again. But he can sell it again solely because some other man wants it, or because some other man will want it, in order to convert it into articles for use. He can sell it solely because the goldsmith, the silversmith, the dentist, the gilder, etc., will sometime come along and buy it, take it out of circulation, and work it up into some article for consumption,—that is, for use.

This final consumption or use, then, is the main-spring that sets the coins in circulation, and keeps them in circulation, as money.

It is solely the consumption or use of them, in other forms than coin, that creates any demand for them in the market as money.

It is, then, only the value which gold and silver have as productive investments in articles of use,—in plate, watches, jewelry, and the like,—that creates any demand for them, or enables them to circulate as money.

And since this value which the coins have for use or consumption as metals is the only value that enables them to circulate at all as money, it is plain that it necessarily fixes and limits their true and natural value as money. Consequently any body who gives more for them as money than they are worth for use or consumption as metals gives more for them than they are worth for any purpose whatever,—more, in short, than their true and natural market value.

We all can understand that, if wheat were to circulate as money, it could have no more true or natural market value as money than it had for use or consumption as food; since it would be its value for food alone that would induce anybody to accept it as money. All the wheat that should be in circulation as money would be destined to be taken out of circulation, and consumed as food; and if anybody should give more for it as money than it was worth for food, he, or some subsequent owner, would have to submit to a loss, whenever the wheat should come to be consumed as food.

For these reasons, the wheat as money could be no true or natural equivalent for any commodity that had more true or natural market value for use or consumption than the wheat.

So anybody can understand that, if silk, wool, cotton, and flax were to circulate as money, they could have no more true or natural market value as money than they had for use or consumption for clothing, or other analogous purposes. Their value for these other purposes would alone give them their value as money. Of course, then, their true and natural market value as money would be fixed and limited by their value for these other uses. They could plainly have no greater value as money than they had for clothing and other articles of use. As they would all be destined to be taken out of circulation, and converted into clothing or other articles of use, it is plain that, if anybody should give more for them as money than they were worth for clothing and other articles of use, he, or some subsequent owner, would have to submit to a loss whenever they should come to be converted into clothing, or any other article of use.

The same reasons that would apply to wheat, and silk, and wool, and cotton, and flax, if they were to circulate as money, and that would fix and limit their value as money, apply equally to gold and silver coins, and fix and limit their value as money.

We are brought, therefore, to the same conclusion as before,—namely, that the value which the coins have for use or consumption as metals is their only true and natural value as money. Consequently, this value which they have as metals is the value, and the only value, at which they can be said to be standards by which to measure the value of any thing else.

III. Assuming it now to be established that the true and natural market value of gold and silver coins as money is absolutely fixed and limited by their value for use or consumption as metals, and that their value for use or consumption as metals is the only value at which they can be called standards for measuring the values of other things, we come to another proposition,—namely, that the use or circulation of any possible amount of paper money has no tendency whatever to reduce the coins below their true and natural market value as metals, or, consequently, to diminish their value as standards.

Plainly the paper can have no such power or tendency, because the paper does not come at all in competition with the coins for any of those uses which alone give them their value. We cannot make a watch, a spoon, a necklace, or an ear-ring out of the paper, and, therefore, the paper cannot compete with the coins for those uses. Consequently it cannot diminish their market value for those uses, or—what is the same thing—their value as standards.

If the coins were never used at all as money, they would have the same true and natural market value that they have now. Their use or circulation as money adds nothing to their true and natural market value as metals, and their entire disuse as money would take nothing from their true and natural market value as metals. Consequently it would not diminish their value as standards. In other words, it would not reduce the coins below their true and natural value as standards.

Every dollar’s worth of other vendible property in the world has precisely the same amount of true and natural market value as has a dollar in coin. And if every dollar’s worth of other vendible property was bought and sold as money in competition with the coins, the true and natural market value of the coins would not be lessened thereby. They would still have their true and natural amount of market value,—that is, their value for plate, jewelry, and the like,—the same as though all this other property were not bought and sold in competition with them. The coins and all other property would be bought and sold as money only at their true and natural market values, respectively, for their different uses. One dollar’s worth of any one kind of property would have the same amount of true and natural market value for its appropriate use that a coin, or any other dollar’s worth of property, would have for its appropriate use. But none of them would have any additional value on account of their being bought and sold as money.

Now, all the other vendible property of the world cannot be actually cut up into pieces or parcels, each capable of being carried about in the pocket, and each having the same amount of true and natural market value as a dollar in coin. But it is not only theoretically possible, but actually practicable, that nearly or quite all this other vendible property should be represented by contracts on paper,—such as certificates, notes, checks, drafts, and bills of exchange,—and that these contracts shall not only have the same value with the coins in the market as money, but that, as money, they generally shall be preferred to the coins.

These contracts are preferred to the coins as money not only because they are more convenient, but also because we can have so many times more of them.1

Every solvent piece of paper that can circulate as money—whether it be a certificate, note, check, draft, bill of exchange, or whatever else—represents property existing somewhere that is legally holden for the redemption or payment of the paper, and that can either be itself delivered in redemption of it, or be otherwise made available for its payment. And if every dollar’s worth of such property in the world could be represented in the market by a contract on paper promising to deliver it on demand, and if every dollar’s worth could be delivered on demand in redemption of the paper that represented it, the world then could have an amount of money equal to its entire vendible property. And yet clearly every dollar of paper would be equal in value to a dollar of gold or silver. Clearly, also, all this paper would do nothing towards reducing gold and silver coins below their true and natural market values,—that is, their values for use or consumption as metals.

The gold and silver coins would be good standards—as good perhaps as any that can be had—by which to measure the values of all this other property. But a gold dollar, or a silver dollar, would have no more true or natural market value than would each and every other dollar’s worth of property that was measured by it.2

Under such a system of currency as this, there could evidently be no inflation of prices, relatively to the true and natural market values of gold and silver. Such a currency would no more inflate the prices of one thing than of another. It would just as much inflate the prices of gold and silver themselves as of any thing else. Gold and silver would stand at their true and natural market values as metals; and all other things would also stand at their true and natural values for their respective uses.

No more of this currency could be kept in circulation than would be necessary or convenient for the purchase and sale of commodities at their true and natural market values, relatively to gold and silver; for if at any time the paper was not worth as much, or would not buy as much, in the market as gold or silver, it would be returned to the issuers for redemption in gold and silver, and thus be taken out of circulation.1

Thus we are brought again to the conclusion that it is only when gold and silver coins are suffered to stand at their true and natural values as metals—which are also their true and natural values as standards—that they can be said to measure truly the values of other things.

At their values as metals the coins serve as standards by which to measure the value of all other money, as well as of all other property. But at any other than their true and natural values as metals they will naturally and truly measure the value of nothing whatever,—neither of other money, nor of any thing else.

IV. We come now to still another proposition,—namely, that no possible amount of paper money that can be put in circulation in any one country that is open to free commerce with the rest of the world can affect the true or natural market value of gold or silver coins in that country.

If the coins should be entirely excluded from circulation by the paper, they still would have the same true and natural market value as if they were the only money in circulation; for, in both cases alike, their true and natural market value in that country would be determined by their value in the markets of the world.

The coins can be carried from any one part of the world to any other part at so small an expense that they can have no appreciably greater market value in any one part than in any other. And their true and natural market value in all parts of the world depends upon the general consumption of them as metals, and not at all upon their circulation as money. They are everywhere simply merchandise in the market of the world, waiting for consumption, like any other merchandise.

This fact—that the disuse of the coins as money in any one country cannot reduce their value in that country below their value in the markets of the world—was fully tested in the United States for fourteen or fifteen years,—that is, from 1861, or 1862, to 1876. During the whole of that time gold and silver were wholly absent from general circulation as money. Yet they had the same value here as metals that they had in other parts of the world either as money or as metals. And they were as much used during that time for plate, watches, jewelry, and the like as they ever were.

The people of the United States comprise not more than a twenty-fifth—perhaps not more than a thirtieth—part of the population of the globe. And if they were to abandon the use of gold and silver entirely, not only for money, but for plate, watches, jewelry, and every other purpose whatever; if they were even to banish the metals themselves from the country,—they thereby would reduce their value in the markets of the world by not more than a twenty-fifth, or perhaps a thirtieth, of their present value. How absurd, then, to pretend that the simple disuse of them as money by one twenty-fifth, or one-thirtieth, part of the population of the globe can have any appreciable effect upon their market value the world over!

These facts prove that all restrictions imposed by law in any one country upon all other money than gold and silver coins, under pretence of maintaining the true standard of value in that country, are the merest farces, not to say the merest frauds; that they have no tendency of that kind whatever; that they only serve to derange the standard in that country by establishing a monopoly of money, and giving a monopoly and extortionate price to the coins in that country, instead of suffering them to stand at their true and natural value, both as metals and as standards, and also at the same value that they have in the markets of the world.

Furthermore, if any or all other nations have been wicked and tyrannical enough to give, or attempt to give, a monopoly and extortionate price to gold and silver coins by restrictions upon any or all other money, that is no reason why we should be guilty of the same crime. So far as such restrictions may have affected the price of the coins in the markets of the world, we may not be able to save either ourselves or the rest of mankind from the natural consequences of such a monopoly. But we are under no more obligation to follow the bad example of these nations in this matter than in any other. Because other nations enslave and impoverish their people by depriving them of all money and all credit by establishing a monopoly of money, that is no reason why we should do so. All our efforts in this direction do nothing towards making the coins better standards of value than they otherwise would be.

V. It is an utter absurdity to talk about gold and silver coins having any more true or natural value as money than they have for use or consumption as metals. To say that they have more true or natural market value as money than they have for use as metals is equivalent to saying that they have more true and natural value for being bought and sold than they have as commodities for use or consumption. And to say that they have more true or natural market value for being bought and sold than they have as commodities for use or consumption is just as absurd as it would be to say that houses, and lands, and cattle, and horses, and food, and clothing, have more true and natural market value for being bought and sold than they have as commodities for use

VI. Finally, the true and natural market value of any and every vendible thing whatever is that value, and only that value, which it will maintain in the market in competition with any and all other vendible things that can be brought into the market in competition with it. This is the only rule by which the true and natural market value of any vendible thing whatever can be ascertained; and this rule applies as much to gold and silver coins as to any other commodities whatever.

Tried by this rule, we know that the coins will bear no higher value in the market as money than they will for use or consumption as metals; because mankind have other money which they prefer to the coins, and which—if permitted to do so—they will always buy and sell as money rather than give more for the coins as money than they are worth for use or consumption as metals.

VII. To give color to the idea that solvent notes, promising to pay money on demand, tend to reduce the standard of value below that of the coins, the advocates of that idea are accustomed to say that such notes cost nothing, and have no value in themselves; and, consequently, that to suffer them to be bought and sold as money in the place of coin, and as if they were of equal value with coin, necessarily depreciates the market value of the coin at least for the time being; that, in other words, it reduces the standard of value for the time being.

The answer to this pretence is that nobody claims or supposes that a promissory note, simply as so much paper, has any value. But the contract written upon the paper—if the note be a solvent one—is in the nature of a lien upon so much material property of the maker of the note as is sufficient to pay the note, and as can be taken by legal process and sold for payment of the note.

Every solvent promissory note—whether it circulates as money, or not—is in the nature of a lien upon the property of the maker,—that is, upon the property that is legally holden for the payment of the note, and that can be taken by legal process, and applied to the payment of the note.

The value of the note, therefore, is not in the mere paper as paper, but in the property on which the contract written upon paper gives the holder a lien for the amount of the note.

In this respect, a banker’s note, circulating as money, is just like any other man’s note that is locked up in the desk or safe of the holder. The fact that it is bought and sold from hand to hand as money—that is, in exchange for other property—makes no change whatever in the character or value of the note.

In the case of a mortgage upon land, the value is not in the mere paper, as paper, upon which the mortgage is written, but in the land on which the mortgage gives the mortgagee a lien for the amount of his debt. So in the case of a note, if it be a solvent one, it is in the nature of a lien upon, or conditional title to, the property of the maker of the note,—property that is legally holden for the payment of the note, and that can be taken by legal process, and applied to the payment of the note.

To say that such a note has no value in itself is just as absurd as it would be to say that a mortgage on land has no value in itself. Everybody knows that neither the mortgage nor the note has any value as mere paper; that the value is in the land, or the property, that is holden, or liable to be taken, for the payment of the mortgage or note.

In every case where material property is represented by paper,—as in the case of a deed, mortgage, certificate of stock, certificate of deposit, check, note, draft, or whatever else,—the value is in the property represented, and not in the paper that represents it. The paper has no value, except as it contains the evidence of the right to the property represented by it. And this is as true in the case of what is called paper money as in all other cases where property is represented by paper. The value of the money is not in the paper as paper, but in the property represented by the paper, and to which, or on which, the contract written on the paper gives a title, claim, or lien. The property that is represented by the paper, and which constitutes the real money, is just as real substantial property as is gold, or silver, or any other money or property whatever. And it is really an incorrect and false use of the term to call such money paper money, as if the paper itself were the real money; or as if there were no money, and no value, outside of the paper. A dollar’s worth of land, wheat, iron, wool, or leather, is just as much a dollar in real value as is a dollar of gold or silver; and when represented by paper, it is just as real money, so far as value is concerned, as is gold and silver.

Every solvent promissory note is a mere representative of, or lien upon, or conditional title to, material property in the hands of the maker; property that has an equal value with coin; that is legally holden for the payment of coin; and that can be taken by legal process, and sold for coin, which must be applied to the payment of the note. When, therefore, a man sells a solvent promissory note, he sells a legal title to, or claim to, or lien upon, so much actual property in the hands of the maker of the note as is necessary to pay the note; property which men have just as much right to buy and sell from hand to hand as money, if they so please,—that is, in exchange for other property,—as they have to buy and sell coin, or any other money that can be invented.

And it matters not how many of these notes are in circulation as money, provided they are all solvent; since, in that case, each note represents a separate piece of property from all the others; each separate piece of property being equal in value to coin, and capable of insuring the payment of coin. If, therefore, all the material wealth of a country were thus represented by paper, the paper,—that is, the property represented by the paper—would all have the same value as the same nominal amount of coin; and the circulation of all this paper as money would do nothing towards reducing the coins below their true and natural value as metals, or below their value in the markets of the world. Consequently, it would do nothing towards depreciating the true and natural standard of value. All this other money would have the same value, dollar for dollar, as the coin; and the true and natural value of the coins as standards of value would not be changed.

There certainly can be no question that a solvent promissory note that circulates from hand to hand as money—which everybody is willing to accept in payment for other property—is just as legitimate a piece of paper, and has just as much value as a lien, or as evidence of a lien, upon the property that is holden for its payment, as any other promissory note whatever. If such a note be not legitimate, if it have no value, then no promissory note whatever is legitimate, or has value. And if the issue of such notes for circulation as money—that is, among those who voluntarily give and receive them in exchange for other property—be illegitimate, and ought to be suppressed, then all promissory notes whatsoever are equally illegitimate, and ought to be suppressed. But if any one such note, which any one man, or company of men, can make, be legitimate, then any and every other similar note, which any other man, or company of men, can make, is equally legitimate.

VIII. But to hide the deception that is attempted to be practised under pretence of maintaining the standard of value, it is said that there is but a small amount of coin in comparison with the notes that can be put in circulation as money; and that it is therefore impossible that any great number of notes, promising to pay coin on demand, can be solvent; that the property that is nominally holden to pay the notes cannot be made to bring any more coin than there really is; and that, therefore, the notes, if more numerous than the coins, must be spurious; that they promise to pay something which the makers do not possess, and which they consequently are unable to pay, no matter how much other property they may have.

One answer to this argument is that, on this principle, no promissory note whatever—whether issued for circulation or not—could ever be considered solvent, unless the maker kept constantly on hand an equivalent amount of coin with which to redeem it. Whereas we know that all notes are considered solvent, provided the makers have sufficient property to bring the coin when it is likely to be called for. And this is the principle on which all ordinary commercial credit rests.

Another answer to this argument is that, however valid it may be against notes that are either not solvent, or not known to be solvent,—that is, not issued on the credit of property sufficient to pay the notes,—it has no weight against notes that are solvent, and that are known to be solvent; because, first, if the notes are solvent, and are known to be solvent, the holders usually prefer them to coin, and therefore seldom present them for redemption in coin; and because, secondly, the notes issued for circulation are issued by discounting other solvent notes that are to be held by the bankers, and the circulating notes are, therefore, all wanted for paying the notes discounted, and, with rare exceptions, will all come back to the bankers in payment of the notes discounted; and it is, therefore, only rarely that any other redemption of the circulating notes is called for.

The bankers soon learn by experience how often coin will be called for, and how much, therefore, it is necessary for them to keep on hand for such contingencies. This amount a due regard for their own interests will induce them to keep on hand, because they cannot afford to be sued on their notes, or to have their credit injured by not meeting their notes when coin is demanded.1

The opposers of a solvent paper currency either ignorantly overlook, or craftily and dishonestly attempt to keep out of sight, the vital fact that, in all safe, legitimate, solvent, and prudent banking, all the notes issued for circulation will be wanted to pay the notes discounted, and will come back to the banks in payment of notes discounted; and that it is only rarely that any other redemption—redemption in coin—will be demanded or desired.

The pretence, therefore, that no more notes can be honestly issued for circulation than there is coin kept constantly on hand for their redemption is nothing but a pretence, since, however great the amount of notes issued,—provided they be solvent ones,—it is only a mere fraction of them—probably not so much even as one per cent.—that will ever have any call to be redeemed in coin.

IX. But it is often said that the panics which have usually occurred after any considerable increase of money by the issue of paper are proof that the paper was not equal in value, dollar for dollar, with coin. Those who say this claim that the panics are caused by the attempts of the holders of the notes to convert them into coin. These attempts have taken the form of runs upon the banks for the redemption of their notes in coin. And it is claimed that these runs upon the banks for coin are proof that the notes are not equal in value, dollar for dollar, with coin. And this proof, say they, is made complete by the fact that the banks, when thus run upon for coin, cannot redeem their notes in coin.

But these runs upon banks for coin by no means prove that solvent notes are not equal in value, dollar for dollar, with coin. They prove only that the holders of the notes have doubted the solvency of the banks. These runs have never occurred in countries where the banks were known to be solvent. They have occurred only in countries where the solvency of the banks was doubted, as in England and the United States. Thus, in Scotland there is no history (so far as I know or believe) of a single run upon the banks in a period of eighty years,—that is, from 1765 to 1845. There may have been runs in a few instances upon some particular bank, but none upon the banks generally. And why? Not at all because these banks kept on hand large amounts of coin,—for they really kept very little,—but solely because the public had a perfect assurance of the solvency of the banks; an assurance resulting from the facts that each of the banking companies had a very large number of stockholders, and that the private property (including the real estate) of all these stockholders was holden for the debts of the banks. The public, therefore, knew, or felt perfectly assured, not only that the notes of the banks were all solvent, but also that they would all speedily go back to the banks, and be redeemed by being accepted in payment of notes discounted. Under these circumstances, the public not only made no runs upon the banks for coin, but even preferred the notes to the coin.

In England, on the contrary, the runs upon the banks during the same period of eighty years were very frequent. And why? Because nobody had any abiding confidence in the solvency of the banks. The Government, for the sake of giving a valuable monopoly to the Bank of England, had virtually enacted that there should be no other solvent banks in England; or at least none that could be publicly known to be solvent. This enactment was that, with the exception of the Bank of England, no bank in England should consist of more than six partners. Rich men—those who had credit and wished to use it—could generally do better with it than to put it into a company where there were only six partners, and where the credit of the partnership could not be sufficiently known to be of much value, or to protect them against runs for coin. The result was that, with the exception of the Bank of England, all, or very nearly all, the banking business in England was in the hands of men who were not only unworthy of credit, but really had no credit, except so long as they were ready to redeem their notes either in coin or Bank of England notes.1

In many or most of the United States, up to 1860, the solvency of the banks was rendered doubtful, or worse than doubtful, by legislation that authorized the banks to issue notes to two, three, or four times the amount of their capital; that authorized the stockholders themselves to borrow these notes of the banks, and then exempted the private property of the stockholders from all liability for the debts of the banks. Of course it often happened that no reliance could be placed on the solvency of such banks, and that runs, which they could not meet, would be made upon them for coin.

But clearly the runs upon such banks as these did nothing towards proving that the notes of banks, known to be solvent, were not equal in value, dollar for dollar, with coin.

But the panic of 1873, in the United States, did not proceed at all from any doubt as to the solvency of the banks, but wholly from the insufficiency in the amount of money. The destruction of the State banks by a ten per cent. tax on their issues; the limitation upon the issues of the national banks to the sum of three hundred and fifty-six million dollars; and the limitation upon the greenbacks to three hundred million dollars,—reduced the currency to six hundred and fifty-six million dollars. And these six hundred and fifty-six million dollars, being, for want of redemption, some fifteen per cent. below par of specie, reduced the actual amount of money to about five hundred and fifty-eight millions. The population of the country in 1873 was at least forty millions, and the property probably forty thousand millions. This lack of money, compared with population and property, compelled traffic of all kinds to be done on credit, instead of for cash. Every thing was bought on credit, and sold on credit. And the same commodity, in going from producer to consumer, was generally sold two, three, four, or more times over on credit. The consequence was that this private indebtedness among the people had become so enormous, in proportion to the money with which to cancel it, as to place the credit of the whole community at the mercy of a few holders of money, who had no motive but to extort the utmost possible from the necessities of the community. The result was the general collapse of substantially all credit.

Had there been freedom in banking, nothing of this kind would have occurred. The bankers would have been so numerous as to be able to furnish all the money that could have been kept in circulation. They would probably have supplied three, four, or five times the amount we actually had. Traffic between man and man would have been almost wholly done for cash, instead of on credit; and nothing in the form of a panic would have been known.

The panic of 1873, therefore, does nothing towards proving that solvent notes, issued for circulation as money,—no matter how great their amount,—are not equal in value, dollar for dollar, with coin.

X. But the argument that is offered perhaps with the most assurance as proof that any increase of money by means of paper reduces for the time being the gold or silver dollar below its true and natural market value is derived from the rise that takes place in the prices of commodities, relatively to gold and silver, whenever the currency is increased by the addition of paper.

This argument, if it be an honest one, implies an ignorance of two things; namely, first, an ignorance of the fact that the paper is employed as capital to diversify industry and increase production; and, secondly, an ignorance of the effect which a diversity of industry and increase of production have upon the prices of commodities, relatively to any fixed standard of value. This effect has been illustrated in a previous number of this Review, and need not be repeated here.1

The diversity of industry and increase of production that follow an increase of currency by paper, and the effect which that diversity and production have upon the prices of commodities, utterly destroy the argument that the rise in prices results from any depreciation in the value of coin below its true and natural value as a metal.

A second answer to the argument drawn from the rise in prices under an abundant paper currency is to be found in the theory of the very men who oppose such a currency. Their theory is that, by the prohibition of the paper, the coins can be made to have a “purchasing power as money” indefinitely greater than their true and natural market value as metals. They hold that the coins already have “a purchasing power” as money far greater than their true and natural value as metals.

Now, inasmuch as every dollar of solvent paper currency represents—by giving a lien upon—so much real property as is equal to the coin in true and natural market value, it necessarily follows, on their own theory, that the paper has no other effect than to bring the coins down, from their unnatural, fictitious, and monopoly price, or “purchasing power,” to their true and natural value as metals; or, what is the same thing, to bring all other property up to its true and natural market value, relatively to the coins as metals.

XI. It will now be taken for granted that the following propositions have been established; namely,—

1. That the only true and natural market value of gold and silver coins is that value, and only that value, which they have for use or consumption as metals; that this is the value at which they now stand in the markets of the world; that it is the only value that has any stability; and that it is the only value at which they can be said to be standards for measuring the value of any other property whatever.

2. That inasmuch as paper money does not compete at all with gold and silver coins for any of those uses that give them their value, the true and natural market value of the coins cannot be reduced below their value as metals, or their value in the markets of the world, by any possible amount of paper money that can be kept in circulation; and that, consequently, the paper money, however great its amount, can do nothing towards reducing the coins as standards of value below their true and natural value as standards,—that is, their value as metals.

3. That the coins, standing at their true and natural value as metals, are as much standards by which to measure the value of all other money as of all other property; and, consequently, that all other money that has the same value in the market, dollar for dollar, with the coins, only increases the amount of money, without lowering the standard of value; and that, if all the other vendible property in the world were cut up into pieces or parcels, each of the same value with a dollar (or any given number of dollars) of coin, and each piece or parcel were represented by a promissory note, and all these notes were to be bought and sold as money in competition with the coins, the coins would not be thereby reduced below their true and natural market value as metals, nor, consequently, below their true and natural market value as standards.

4. That to say that the true and natural market value of the coins as standards of value is diminished by increasing the number of dollars, so long as the additional dollars are of the same value, dollar for dollar, with the standards, is equivalent to saying that the coins have no fixed—nor any thing like a fixed—value of their own; and that they are, consequently, unfit for, and incapable of being, standards of value; that to say that increasing the number of dollars, all of one and the same value, is diminishing the value of the dollar is just as absurd as it would be to say that increasing the number of yardsticks, all of one and the same length, diminishes the length of the yardstick; or as it would be to say that increasing the number of pound-weights, all of one and the same weight, diminishes the weight of the pound-weight.

XII. The four propositions in the last preceding section are so manifestly true that no one, I apprehend, will even attempt to controvert them otherwise than by asserting that the present market value of the coins does not rest wholly upon their value as metals, but, in part, upon these further facts,—namely, that the coins are money, and, secondly, that they are made a privileged money by the prohibitions or limitations imposed by law upon all other money.

If it should be said—as it constantly is said—that the fact of the coins being made money, and the further fact of prohibitions or limitations being imposed upon all other money, have given the coins “a purchasing power” far above their true and natural value as metals, the answer is that such a “purchasing power” is an unjust and extortionate power—a mere power of robbery—arbitrarily granted to the holders of the coins, from no motive whatever but to enable them to get more for their coins than they are really worth; or, what is the same thing, to enable them to coerce all other persons into selling their property to the holders of the coins for less than it is worth. And this is really the only motive that was ever urged against the free purchase and sale of all other money in competition with the coins.

The frauds and extortions that are attempted to be practised by making the coins a privileged money, under cover of the pretence of maintaining the standard of value, may be illustrated in this way; namely,—

In some parts of Europe, there is said to be quite a trade in humming birds. While living, they are wanted, I suppose, as pets, the same as parrots, canaries, and some other birds. When dead, after passing through the hands of the taxidermists, they are wanted as ornaments.

Let us suppose there were such a trade in this country. And let us suppose the whole number of humming birds, already caught, in the country, to be ten thousand. And let us suppose their market value as pets and for ornaments to be ten dollars each. The market value of the whole ten thousand humming birds, then, would be one hundred thousand dollars.

And suppose these ten thousand humming birds to be owned by one hundred men, each man owning one hundred birds,—that is, one thousand dollars’ worth.

But suppose further that, in consideration of humming birds being rare, beautiful, containing much value in small space, and incapable of being rapidly increased, the government should adopt and legalize them as money, as standards of value.

And suppose that, under pretence of maintaining this standard of value unimpaired, the government should prohibit all other money, and should also prohibit all substitutes and all contracts—such as notes, checks, drafts, bills of exchange, and the like—by which the necessity for buying and selling the humming birds themselves—the legalized money—should be avoided.

Suppose, in short, that, under pretence of maintaining this standard of value, the government should establish, in the hands of these hundred owners of the humming birds, an absolute monopoly of money, and of every thing that could serve the purposes of money.

What, now, would be the market price of the humming birds? And what would become of the standard of value? Why, we know that the one hundred owners of these ten thousand humming birds, having thus secured to themselves an absolute monopoly of all the money in the country, would demand for their birds as money, a hundred, a thousand, or a million times more than their true and natural value,—that is, more than they were worth simply as humming birds. By the monopoly of money, they would be put in possession of a substantially absolute power over all the property and labor of our forty-five millions of people. There would be but one holder of money for every four hundred and fifty thousand people. These four hundred and fifty thousand people could sell neither their labor nor their property to anybody except this single owner of humming birds. And they could sell to him only at such prices as he should choose to give. And he, knowing his power over their necessities, would not part with one of his birds, unless he should get in exchange for it a hundred, a thousand, or a million times more than it was really and truly worth. In this way this pretended standard of value would be made to measure—that is, to procure for its possessor—a hundred, a thousand, or a million times more than its own true and natural value.

Of course, everybody in the country, except these hundred men, would be robbed of all their property at once, unless there should chance to be some few so situated that they could contrive to live within themselves without selling either their property or their labor. And these hundred men would soon make themselves masters and owners of substantially all the property in the country. All the other people of the country would be at their mercy, and would be permitted to live, or suffered to die, as the pleasure of the one hundred men should dictate.

Such would be the effect of establishing a monopoly of money under pretence of establishing a standard of value.

But suppose, now, on the other hand, that all men were allowed to exercise their natural right of buying and selling as money any thing and every thing which they should choose to buy and sell as money. What would be the result? Why, we know from experience that, instead of buying and selling the humming birds themselves, they would rarely buy one of them. On the contrary, they would buy and sell notes, checks, drafts, and the like, representing perhaps a large portion of the property of the country. These notes, checks, and drafts would be nominally and legally made payable in humming birds, and would be in the nature of liens upon the property of the makers. And any holder of one of them could, if he chose, not only demand humming birds in payment, but, if that were refused, could sue for, and recover judgment for, so many actual humming birds as the note promised. And the property of the maker of the note would be taken by legal process, and sold for humming birds, and nothing else; and these birds would then be paid over to the holder of the note.

But we know, at the same time, that the humming birds, when thus actually paid over to the holder of the note, would be worth no more in the market than the note was before he sued on it; that they would buy no more of any thing he wanted to buy than would the note; that nearly or quite everybody who had any thing to sell would rather have the note than the birds; and that, unless he wanted to keep the birds as pets or for ornaments, he would have made a bad bargain for himself; that even if he wanted the birds to keep, he could have bought them in the market with the note at the same price and with much less trouble to himself than it cost him to obtain them by his suit; and finally, that he had made a fool and a curmudgeon of himself by bringing a suit, and taking trouble upon himself, and giving trouble to the maker of the note, in order to get something that he did not want, and which it would be a trouble and loss to him to keep, and a trouble to get rid of; for all which he would get no profit or compensation whatever.

As sensible men would not be likely to go through such unprofitable operations as this, the result would be that men generally, instead of buying and selling the humming birds themselves as money, would seldom or never buy them, except when they had a special use for them as humming birds; but, in place of them, would buy and sell such notes, checks, drafts, and the like as had an equal value in the market with the birds, and were more convenient to keep, handle, and transport than the birds. The birds themselves would continue to stand, in the market, at their true and natural value as humming birds, and, as such, would be very good standards of value by which to measure the value of all other money, as well as of all other property; and all traffic between man and man would be the exchange of one kind of property for another, each at its full, true, and natural value, with no extortion or coercion on either side.

This supposed case of the humming birds gives a fair illustration of the sense, motives, and honesty of all that class of men who are continually crying out for prohibitions or limitations upon all money except gold and silver coins, or some other privileged money, under pretence of maintaining the standard of value. They all have but one and the same motive,—namely, the monopoly of money, and the power which that monopoly gives them to rob everybody else.

Lysander Spooner.

UNIVERSAL WEALTH.

UNIVERSAL WEALTH

SHOWN TO BE EASILY ATTAINABLE.

PART FIRST.

By LYSANDER SPOONER.

BOSTON:

A. WILLIAMS & COMPANY,

283 Washington Street.

1879.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879,

By LYSANDER SPOONER,

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

SECTION I.

The wealth of the world is proportionate to the number of different things mankind possess, rather than to the quantity of any one thing. Thus, if every human being had as much wheat as he could eat, and had no other wealth, all would still be poor. But if, in addition to all the wheat they desire, every human being has a thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand other things—each, on an average, of equal value with the wheat—the wealth of each individual, and of the world, is multiplied a thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand fold.

Individuals usually desire, for their own use or consumption, but a very limited amount of any one thing; but we as yet know no limit to the number of different things they desire. And we shall never know any such limit, until the ingenuity of the human race, in the invention of new commodities, shall have been exhausted.

The great problem of universal wealth, therefore, is comprised in these two, viz.: First, how shall we give to every person the greatest possible variety of commodities? and, secondly, how shall we give to each individual as much as he desires of each and all these various commodities?

Men are able to produce almost no wealth at all by their hands alone. Until they make discoveries in science, and inventions in implements and machinery, they remain savages, few in number, and living upon such wild fruits as they can gather, and such wild animals as they can kill. But they have proved themselves capable of such discoveries in science, and such inventions in implements and machinery, as will, each of them, enable a man to produce a hundred, a thousand, some of them a million, or even a hundred or a thousand million times as much wealth as he could before create with his hands alone. What labor could Watt perform with his hands, compared with that performed by his steam engine? What labor could Arkwright perform with his hands alone, compared with that performed by his spinning machine? What labor could Stephenson perform, in the transportation of freight and passengers, compared with that performed by his locomotive? What could Morse do, on foot, in the transmission of intelligence, compared with what can be done with his telegraph? What could the Assyrian do, with his tablets of baked clay, in supplying the world with reading matter, compared with what can be done with a Hoe printing press? What could men do, with their hands alone, in tunnelling mountains, building suspension bridges, and laying deep sea cables, compared with what can be done by the machinery they have invented for those purposes?

These things should teach us that it is brains, and not hands, that must be relied on for the creation of wealth. And it would be well for us to realize, much more fully than we ever have done, that brain labor, no less than hand labor, must be paid for, if we would have the benefit of it.

The discoveries in science, the invention of implements and machinery, and the invention of new commodities for consumption, have already multiplied the wealth of some portions of the world by millions and thousands of millions of what it once was. And yet it is but recently that inventions have begun to add much to the wealth of the world. For thousands, and tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, mankind remained savages, or at best barbarians, for the want of such inventions as are now just beginning to be made.

At the present time, the people of the United States are acknowledged to take the lead of the whole world, especially in mechanical inventions. And yet substantially all our inventions have been made within a hundred years; most of them within fifty years. We are now making from ten to fifteen thousand new inventions per annum. Some of these are of great, in fact of immeasurable, value. Many of them, although of less value, are nevertheless valuable. And yet we are probably not producing a tenth, perhaps not a hundredth, part so many inventions, in proportion to population, as we ought to do, and should do, if inventors were protected, as they ought to be, in a perpetual right to their inventions, and they and the public had the capital—that is, the money—necessary for producing inventions, and putting them into operation.

The people of the United States constitute not more than a twenty-fifth part of the population of the globe. In not more than a fourth, fifth, perhaps even a tenth, part of the world are any considerable number of inventions now being made. Not because the peoples of those other portions are naturally incapable of invention; but because they have no protection for their property in their inventions, and no money, no capital, no opportunity to make inventions, or bring them into operation. Their poverty, ignorance, and servitude suppress all their efforts in this direction.

What will be the number and value of the inventions made, and what the variety and amount of wealth produced by means of them, when, if ever, all mankind shall be protected in their property in their inventions, and shall have all the money necessary to bring their inventions into successful operation, no one now can form any idea.

SECTION II.

Money is the great instrumentality—the indispensable capital—by means of which inventions are produced, machinery operated, and their products distributed to consumers.

The inventor must have money, with which to make his experiments, subsist while making them, perfect his inventions, demonstrate their utility, and bring them into practical operation. And to do all these often requires years of time, and large expenditures of money.

The operator of machinery must have money, with which to buy his machinery, his raw materials, and his means of subsistence while he is manufacturing his goods for the market. Then he must be able to sell his goods for money, in order to buy new materials, and subsist himself while manufacturing new goods.

The merchant must have money, with which to buy his goods; and he must be able to sell his goods for money, in order that he may buy new goods.

And, finally, the consumers of all these goods must have money, to buy and pay for all the goods that are to be manufactured.

Thus every man, who either makes inventions, operates machinery, or distributes or consumes the commodities produced, is constantly dependent upon money, for his means of production, distribution, and consumption.

And the amount of money that each one must have depends upon the market value of the commodities he has to buy, whether he buys them for production, distribution, or consumption; since the money, in each individual case, must, in order to make the contract an equitable one, be a bona fide equivalent of the commodity bought and sold.*

What, then, will be the amount of money requisite to bring out fully the inventive faculties of all mankind; set in motion all the machinery invented; distribute all the products; and thus give to mankind, for final consumption, the full benefits of all the inventions that can be made?

To answer this vital question, it is necessary to consider that the market value of all commodities, relatively to any fixed standard of value—or to such a standard as a gold dollar, for the want of a better, is assumed to be—will depend wholly upon the variety and amount of commodities produced, distributed, and consumed. In other words, the market value of each man’s particular product will depend wholly upon the variety and amount of commodities which other men produce, and are willing to give in exchange for it.

To illustrate this principle, let us suppose that Mr. A is a hatter; and that he has acquired such science, skill, machinery, and money capital, that he is able, by himself alone, to manufacture ten thousand hats per annum. He manufactures these hats for sale, and not for his own consumption. Their value to himself, therefore, depends wholly upon the number and amount of other commodities which he desires, and which other persons can, and will, give him in exchange for hats. If there be no one who desires a hat, or who—though desiring one—has anything desirable that he can give in exchange for it, A’s ten thousand hats are of no value to him; simply because he can get nothing desirable in exchange for them. But if there are ten thousand other men who desire hats, and who are producing each a different commodity from all the others—a commodity as much desired by A as one of his hats is desired by each of the others—then A will be able to sell one of his hats to each of these ten thousand men, and get in exchange for it, a commodity as desirable to himself as the hat is to each of these ten thousand men. He will thus get the full and true value of his ten thousand hats, where, but for the power of these other men to produce something desirable to give in exchange, he would have got nothing at all for them; and would have utterly lost the labor of producing them.

Thus it will be seen that the market value of each man’s own product depends entirely upon the number and amount of desirable things which other men produce, and are willing to give him in exchange for his particular product.

Every man, therefore, who has the science, skill, machinery, and money capital that are necessary to enable him to produce, say, ten thousand hats per annum, has the highest interest that ten thousand other men, who desire hats, shall have all the science, skill, machinery, and money capital that shall enable them to produce ten thousand other commodities that shall be as desirable to him as one of his hats is to each of these ten thousand men.

Suppose the publisher of the New York Herald has such science, skill, machinery, and money capital, that he is able to produce a hundred thousand copies of the Herald daily. And suppose there are a hundred thousand other men, and only a hundred thousand, who desire the Herald. The value of the Herald to its producer will depend, in this case, wholly upon the number and amount of other desirable things which these hundred thousand other men can, and will, give in exchange for the Herald. If they are so destitute of science, skill, machinery, and capital that they can produce nothing desirable that they can give in exchange for it, the Herald will have no value to its producer; and his labor in producing it will be thrown away. But if each one of these hundred thousand men has science, skill, machinery and capital equal to the publisher of the Herald, and is producing a commodity different from all the others—a commodity as desirable to the publisher of the Herald as the Herald is to him—he will then be able and willing to give, in exchange for the Herald, a commodity as desirable and intrinsically as valuable, as the Herald itself. And the publisher of the Herald will get the full value of, or a full equivalent for, his hundred thousand copies of the Herald.

Is it not, therefore, perfectly plain, in this case, that the publisher of the Herald has the highest interest that every man, who desires to buy the Herald, shall have all the science, skill, machinery, and capital, that may enable him to produce, and give in exchange for the Herald, something that is equally as desirable and valuable as is the Herald itself? Would it not be fatuity and suicide for the publisher of the Herald to advocate the tyranny and villainy of depriving all these hundred thousand men, who desire to buy the Herald, of all the science, skill, machinery, and capital, which alone can enable them to give, in exchange for it, something that is intrinsically as desirable and valuable as itself? Yet this is precisely what the Herald, and the press generally of the country, have been doing in all past time, and are doing to-day.

Of course, we cannot know, beforehand, what varieties and amounts of commodities mankind will invent and produce in the future, when, if ever, they shall have all the facilities and inducements for invention, production, distribution, and consumption, which ample legal protection to the rights of inventors, and ample money capital, will give them. Nor can we know, beforehand, the amount of money that will be required to bring science, skill, invention, machinery, and production to their highest points, and to distribute to the consumers the commodities produced. But the following article, which has been previously published,* on “The Law of Prices,” will aid us in understanding how utterly and ludicrously inadequate, unworthy of consideration, how nearly useless in fact, are all such amounts of money as we have been accustomed to think of, as sufficient for these purposes.

In truth, nobody claims that our present amounts of money are at all adequate to the needs of industry and traffic, if the latter is to be carried on upon the principle that money should be a bona fide equivalent of the labor and property that are to be bought with it. All that those, who advocate restrictions upon money, can say in defence of them, is, that by coercing men into selling their labor and property for less than they are worth, a small amount of money can be made to have as much “purchasing power” as a larger one. This is only saying that, by establishing a monopoly of money, the few holders of that monopoly will be enabled to coerce all other men into selling their labor and property for less than they are worth. And this is the whole purpose of the monopoly. It is only a cunning species of robbery, which has hitherto been successful, solely because the victims did not understand the jugglery by which it was accomplished.

THE LAW OF PRICES:

A DEMONSTRATION OF THE NECESSITY FOR AN INDEFINITE INCREASE OF MONEY.

I.

The writers on money seem never to have obtained the first glimpse of the fundamental law which governs prices, and which necessitates a constant and indefinite increase in the volume of money. That law may be illustrated in this manner:

Suppose an island cut off from all communication with the rest of the world, and inhabited by one hundred men. Suppose that these hundred men know no industry except the production of wheat; that they produce annually one thousand bushels, each man producing ten bushels, which is enough for his own consumption. Suppose further that these hundred men have money to the amount of five dollars each in gold, silver, and copper coins, and that these coins are valued by them as highly as similar coins are now by us. What will be the price of wheat among these men, compared with the coins? Plainly, it will bear no price at all. Each man producing for himself all he can eat, no one has any occasion to buy. Therefore none can be sold at any price.

But suppose that one after another of these hundred men leave wheat-growing, and engage in the production of other commodities,—each producing a different commodity from all the others,—until there shall be a hundred different commodities produced; only one man being left to produce wheat. And suppose that this one man has increased his product from ten bushels to one thousand. There is now just as much wheat as there was when all were employed in producing it. The only differences are, first, that the whole amount is produced now by one man, where before it was produced by a hundred men; and, secondly, that the ninety-nine men have each engaged in the production of some commodity, different from that produced by any other, but of which, we will suppose, all the others wish to purchase each his proportionate share for consumption.

There is now a hundred times as much wealth produced as when all produced wheat and nothing else. But each kind has only a single producer, while it finds a hundred consumers. And each man’s product, we will suppose, has the same value with every other man’s product.

What, now, will be the price of wheat among these hundred men relatively to the coins? Doubtless a dollar a bushel. When the first man abandoned wheat-growing, and betook himself to some other occupation, he created a demand for ten bushels of wheat, which he still wanted for consumption as before. This demand for ten bushels would doubtless be sufficient to give wheat the price of one cent per bushel, where it had no price before. When a second man of the hundred abandoned wheat-growing, he created a demand for ten bushels more; making twenty bushels in all. This increased demand would doubtless be sufficient to raise the market price of wheat to two cents a bushel. When a third man of the hundred left wheat-growing for some other pursuit, his demand for ten bushels would raise the market price another cent; and so on, until by the time the ninety-nine had left wheat growing, the continually increasing demand would have raised the price to ninety-nine cents a bushel; for convenience of round numbers, say a dollar a bushel.

Here, then, wheat has been raised from no price at all to a dollar a bushel, not because there is any less wheat produced, or any more consumed, than before, but solely because the whole thousand bushels are now produced by one man, instead of being produced, ten bushels each, by the hundred different men who were to consume it; and because, further, each of the ninety-nine men, who have left wheat-growing, is able to purchase wheat, inasmuch as he has been producing some other commodity which brings him as good a price as the wheat brings to the man who still produces wheat.

Under this new state of things, then, the man who continues to produce wheat produces a thousand bushels, worth a dollar a bushel; that is, a thousand dollars’ worth in all. Each of the other ninety-nine produces an equal amount of market value in some other commodity. The whole hundred men, then, produce wealth that has now a market value of one hundred thousand dollars, where originally they had produced nothing that had any market value at all.

This change in the price of wheat has been produced, then, solely by reason of the diversity of industry and production that has taken place among these hundred men. And the market prices of all the other ninety-nine commodities have been affected by the same law, and to the same extent, as has been the price of wheat.

Here, then, is a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of commodities produced, each man producing a thousand dollars’ worth.

As each man retains a hundredth part of his product—that is, ten dollars’ worth—for his own consumption, he has nine hundred and ninety dollars’ worth for sale. The whole hundred men, therefore, have one hundred times nine hundred and ninety dollars’ worth for sale, which is equal to ninety-nine thousand dollars in all; for convenience of round numbers, say one hundred thousand dollars.

The hundred men, having each five dollars in coins, have in the aggregate five hundred dollars. To make the purchases and sales of these hundred thousand dollars’ worth of commodities, will require each of these five hundred dollars to be exchanged for commodities, on an average, two hundred times. That is, in carrying on the commerce of these hundred men for a year, their whole stock of money must be exchanged, on an average, once in a little less than two days. Or if we reckon but three hundred business days in a year, we shall find that the whole stock of money must be exchanged, on an average, once in every day and a half.

Such rapidity of exchange would be practicable enough, if the holders of the coins should all part with them readily at their true and natural value, instead of holding them back in the hope of getting for them more than they were really worth. But where there was so active a demand for the coins as to require that the whole stock be sold, on an average, once in every day and a half, it is natural to suppose that the holders of the coins would hold them back, in order to get more for them than their true and natural value. And in so far as they should do so, they would obstruct trade, and by obstructing trade obstruct and discourage production, and thus obstruct the natural increase of wealth.

II.

But suppose, now, that the number of men on this island be increased from one hundred to one thousand, and that they are all engaged in producing wheat only; each man producing ten bushels, which is all he wants for his own consumption. And suppose that each man has five dollars in gold, silver, and copper coins. What will be the price of wheat among these men, relatively to the coins? Clearly, it will have no market price at all, any more than it had when there were but a hundred men.

But suppose that nine hundred and ninety-nine of these thousand men leave wheat-growing, and engage each in the production of a commodity different from that produced by any one of the others. And suppose that the one who still continues to produce wheat is able, from his increased science, skill, and machinery, to produce ten thousand bushels—ten bushels for each of the thousand men—where before he produced only ten bushels for himself.

There is now just as much wheat produced as there was before. But it is now all produced by one man—nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of it being produced for sale—instead of being produced by a thousand men, each producing ten bushels for his own consumption.

What, now, will be the price of wheat among these thousand men? Why, being governed by the same law that has already been illustrated in the case of the hundred men, it will go on rising one cent at a time, as each man leaves wheat-growing for some other pursuit, until, when nine hundred and ninety-nine shall have left wheat-growing, and shall have become purchasers of wheat, instead of producers, the price will be nine hundred and ninety-nine cents a bushel—for convenience of round numbers, say ten dollars a bushel—where before it bore no price at all.

In this state of things, then, the man who still continues to produce wheat, will produce ten thousand bushels; worth, in the market, ten dollars a bushel, or a hundred thousand dollars in all.

Here, then, we have the price of a hundred thousand dollars for ten thousand bushels of wheat, which, when produced by a thousand different men, each producing ten bushels for his own consumption, had no market value at all. And the other nine hundred and ninety-nine men, we will suppose, produce each a different commodity from all the others; the whole annual produce of each having the same market value as the wheat-growers crop of wheat. The market value, then, of all the products of the whole thousand men will be one thousand times one hundred thousand dollars—that is, one hundred million dollars—where before, when they were all producing wheat and nothing else, their whole products had no market price at all.

When we consider that each producer retains for his own consumption but a thousandth part of his products (a hundred dollars worth), and that, consequently, nine hundred and ninety-nine parts of all these products are not only to be sold, but to be sold twice, as they would now have to be,—that is, once by the producer to the merchant, and once by the merchant to the consumer,—we see that there will be sales to the amount of one hundred and ninety-nine million eight hundred thousand dollars—for convenience of round numbers, say two hundred million dollars—where before, when all were producing wheat, there was no such thing as a sale of a cent’s worth of any thing.

These thousand men, we have supposed, had each five dollars in coins—making five thousand dollars in all—with which to make these purchases and sales of two hundred millions. How many times over will all these coins, on an average, have to be bought and sold, in order to effect these exchanges? Dividing two hundred millions by five thousand, we have the answer; namely, forty thousand times! Dividing this number by three hundred,—which we will suppose to be the number of business days in a year,—we find that, in order to make their exchanges, their whole stock of money must be bought and sold, on an average, one hundred and thirty-three times every day!

Thus we see that one thousand men, with such a diversity and amount of production as we have supposed, would have two thousand times as many purchases and sales to make as the one hundred men. And in making these purchases and sales, we see that their whole stock of money would have to be bought and sold two hundred times oftener than would the whole stock of money of the one hundred men, in making their purchases and sales of one hundred thousand dollars. We see, too, that, if we call eight hours a day,—that being the usual number of business hours,—their whole stock of money would have to be bought and sold, on an average, sixteen times over every hour, or once in every four minutes; whereas the whole stock of money of the one hundred men would have to be bought and sold only once in a day and a half; or—calling eight hours a day—once in twelve hours.

Such, let it be specially noticed, is the difference in the rapidity required in the purchase and sale of money in making the exchanges among a thousand men, on the one hand, and a hundred men, on the other, although the thousand men have the same amount of money, man for man, as the hundred men; the thousand men having five thousand dollars, and the hundred having but five hundred dollars.

This illustration gives some idea of the effect produced upon prices by the expansion of industry and the diversity of production. And yet the writers on money tell us that a large number of men need no more money, man for man, than a small number; that, if a hundred men need but five hundred dollars of money, a thousand men will, by the same rule, need but five thousand dollars.

In the case already supposed,—of the one thousand men,—how far would their five thousand dollars avail as money toward making their exchanges of two hundred million dollars? Plainly, they would avail nothing. The holders of them, seeing the necessities of the people for money, would hold back their coins, and demand so much more than their true and natural value, as to put a stop substantially to all production, except of such few things as could be exchanged by barter, or as each one could produce for his own consumption.

The obvious truth is that, in order to carry on their commerce with money at its true and natural value, and consequently without obstruction or extortion from the money holders, it is necessary that these thousand men, with their increased diversity and amount of production, should have two hundred times as much money, man for man,—and two thousand times as much in the aggregate,—as was necessary for the one hundred men, as before supposed.

In other words, the thousand men have two hundred million dollars of sales to make, where the hundred men had but one hundred thousand. Dividing two hundred million by one hundred thousand, we find that the thousand men, with such diversity and amount of production as we have supposed, have two thousand times as many sales to make as the one hundred had; and consequently that they require two thousand times as much money as did the one hundred.

III.

But to show still further the ratio in which diversity of industry tends to increase the price of commodities, relatively to any fixed standard, let us suppose that the number of men on this island be still further increased from one thousand to ten thousand. And suppose that all these ten thousand are engaged in producing wheat alone; each producing ten bushels for his own consumption, that being all he wants. And suppose they have each five dollars in gold, silver, and copper coins. What will be the price of wheat, relatively to the coins? Clearly, it will have no price at all, not even so much as one cent a bushel.

But suppose that all but one of these ten thousand men should leave wheat-growing, and engage in other industries; each one producing a different commodity from all the others. And suppose that the one who still continues wheat-growing has acquired such science, skill, and machinery, that he is now able to produce a hundred thousand bushels—that is, ten bushels each for ten thousand men—where before he only produced ten bushels for himself.

What will now be the price of wheat among these ten thousand men? Why, by the same law that has been already illustrated, it will be ninety-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents a bushel—for convenience of round numbers, say one hundred dollars a bushel—where before it had no market value at all.

And yet there is just as much wheat produced as there was before, and every man gets just as much wheat to eat as he had before, when all were producing wheat.

In this state of things, the one hundred thousand bushels of wheat, produced by one man, at a hundred dollars a bushel—which will then be its market value—are worth one hundred thousand times one hundred dollars; that is, ten million dollars. And suppose that all the other nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine men are each engaged in an industry as profitable as that of the remaining wheat grower. The aggregate production of the whole ten thousand men will now have a market value equal to ten thousand times ten million dollars; that is, one hundred thousand million dollars.

And if we suppose that all these commodities are to be sold*three times over,—that is, once by the producer to the wholesale dealer, once by the wholesale dealer to the retailer, and once by the retailer to the consumer,—we shall see that there are to be sales equal to three hundred thousand million dollars, where before, when all were producing wheat, and nothing else, there was no sale of a cent’s worth of any thing, and no market value at all for any thing.

Now suppose that the coins, which these men had, have remained fixed at the same value they had when the men were all producing wheat. How many times over, then, must they necessarily be bought and sold, in the course of a year, in order to effect the purchase and sale of these three hundred thousand millions—or one hundred thousand millions three times over—of property that are to be exchanged?

There are ten thousand men, each having five dollars in coins; that is, fifty thousand dollars in all. Dividing three hundred thousand millions by fifty thousand, we find that the whole of these fifty thousand dollars in coins must be bought and sold six million times! Six million times annually, to effect the exchanges of the products of ten thousand men!

Dividing six million by three hundred (which we will suppose to be the number of business days in a year), we find that, on an average, their whole stock of money must be bought and sold twenty thousand times over every day. Or supposing the business day to be eight hours, the coins would all have to be bought and sold twenty-five hundred times over every hour; equal to forty-one and two-thirds times every minute.

And this happens, too, when the ten thousand men have the same amount of coin, man for man, as the one hundred and the one thousand men had, in the cases before supposed.

Thus we see that, with such a diversity and amount of production as we have supposed, the exchanges of the ten thousand men would require that their whole stock of money should be bought and sold one hundred and fifty times oftener than the whole stock of the one thousand men, and thirty thousand times oftener than the whole stock of the one hundred men.

We also see that, in the cases supposed, the ten thousand men, having three hundred thousand millions of exchanges to make, have fifteen hundred times as many as the one thousand men, who had but two hundred millions; and that they have three million times as many exchanges to make as the one hundred men. Consequently the ten thousand men require fifteen hundred times as much money as the one thousand men, and three million times as much money as the one hundred men.

IV.

According to the foregoing calculations, the ratio of increase required in the volume of money is this: Supposing the diversity and amount of production to keep pace with the increase in the number of men, and supposing their commodities to be sold but once,—that is, directly from producer to consumer,—a hundred men would require a thousand times as much money as ten men; a thousand men would require a thousand times as much money as a hundred men; ten thousand men would require a thousand times as much money as a thousand men; and so on.

But inasmuch as, in the case of a thousand men, their commodities would have to be sold twice,—that is, once by the producer to the merchant, and once by the merchant to the consumer,—the thousand men would require two thousand times as much money as the hundred men. And inasmuch as, in the case of the ten thousand men, their commodities would have to be sold three times over,—that is, once by the producer to the wholesale dealer, once by the wholesale dealer to the retailer, and once by the retailer to the consumer,—the amount of money required, instead of being either one thousand or two thousand times as much as in the case of the one thousand men (whose commodities were sold but twice), would be one and a half thousand times (as three sales are one and a half times as much as two)—that is, fifteen hundred times—as much as in the case of the one thousand men.

Stating the results of the proceding calculations in the simplest form, we find that different numbers of men, having a diversity and amount of production corresponding to their numbers, in making their exchanges with each other, require money in the following ratios, relatively to each other; namely,—

But as the same money could be used many times over in the course of a year, they would not need an amount of money equal to the amount of their annual exchanges. If, then, we suppose the aggregate of their annual exchanges to be as above, and their whole stocks of money to be used three hundred times over in a year,—that is, once a day, calling three hundred the number of business days in a year,—we find that the stocks of money required would be as follows:

Or, to state the case in still another form, supposing their aggregate annual exchanges to be as above, and supposing their whole stocks of money to be bought and sold three hundred times over in the year, the money required, per man, would be as follows:—

If any body thinks he can dispute these figures, let him attempt it. If they cannot be disputed, they settle the law of prices.

V.

The foregoing suppositions are, first, that the ten thousand men came finally to have ten thousand different kinds of commodities, where they originally had but one,—namely, wheat; secondly, that they finally came to have ten thousand times as much wealth, in quantity, as they had originally, when all were producing wheat; thirdly, that wheat, which at its first sales brought only one cent a bushel, came afterwards to sell for ten thousand cents a bushel,—although the amount of wheat produced, and the supply of wheat for each individual, were the same in the one case as in the other; fourthly, that the same effect is produced upon the prices of all the rest of the ten thousand different kinds of commodities as upon the price of wheat; and, fifthly, that the annual sales, made by the ten thousand men, amounted finally to three hundred thousand million dollars, where their first sales had amounted to but ten cents,—the amount which the first man who left wheat-growing paid for his yearly supply of ten bushels.

It is not necessary to suppose that such a diversity and amount of production will ever be realized in actual life, although that is not impossible. It is sufficient that these figures give the law that governs prices, and consequently demonstrate that a constant and enormous increase of money must be necessary to keep pace with the increase of population, wealth, and trade, if we wish to give free scope to diversity and amount of production.

Unless money should be increased so as to keep pace with this increased demand, the result would be, first, obstruction to trade; secondly, obstruction to, and discouragement of, industry; and thirdly, a corresponding obstruction to the increase of wealth.

In fact, unless the amount of money were increased, these hundred men, thousand men, and ten thousand men, instead of having a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand different kinds of commodities, would advance very little beyond the state they were in when all were producing wheat and nothing else. Some feeble attempts at other industries might possibly be made, but their money, like the shells and wampum of savages, would aid these attempts but slightly; and the men, unless they invented some other money, would either remain absolute savages, or attain only to a very low state of barbarism.

The practical question, then, is, whether it is better that these ten thousand men should remain mere savages, scratching the earth with rude sticks and stones to produce each ten bushels of wheat, or whether it is better that they should all have the money—which stands in political economy for all the ingenuity, skill, science, machinery, and other capital which money can buy—that may be necessary to enable them to produce, in the greatest possible abundance, and of the greatest possible excellence, all the ten thousand commodities that will contribute to their happiness.

A full discussion of this subject would require much more space than can here be given to it. It may perhaps be continued at a future time, if that should be necessary. But enough has doubtless now been said to show the general law that governs prices, and consequently to show the necessity for an immense increase of money; an increase dependent upon the diversity and amount of production, and the natural laws of trade applicable thereto; such an increase as no legislation can ascertain beforehand, or consequently prescribe.

SECTION III.

It will now perhaps be said by some, in opposition to this theory of the rise in prices, that it is not sustained by the experience of mankind; that, on the contrary, the introduction of machinery makes some things wonderfully cheap, which before, relatively to other commodities, were very dear. And as an illustration of this, perhaps we shall be pointed to the present cheapness of printed matter, as compared with the price of written matter before the discovery of the present modes of printing, and the present modes of making paper; a man now being able, probably, to buy as much printed matter for one cent, as one could have bought of written matter, five hundred years ago, for five, or perhaps ten, dollars.

But the man who makes this objection, does not take into account all the facts upon which the rise in prices depends. He does not take into account the fact that the market price of any commodity, whether produced in less or greater quantity, or by less or more labor, depends only very slightly, if at all, upon the greater or less amount of labor it costs the producer, but mainly, if not wholly—as has already been explained—upon the power and disposition of other men to buy it, and give him something equally desirable in exchange for it. The producer of any particular commodity, however desirable a one it may be, can get no just compensation for it, except from those who are themselves producing something equally desirable, which they are willing to give in exchange.

If, for example—to repeat an illustration already given—a hundred thousand copies of the New York Herald were printed in a country containing only a hundred thousand men, who desired it, and these men were producing nothing that they could spare, or give in exchange, the Herald would plainly bring no price at all, however much these hundred thousand men might desire it. But if these hundred thousand men should become producers of such commodities as they could spare, and give in exchange for the Herald, the market price of the Herald would rise just in proportion to the value of these other commodities. And if these hundred thousand men should finally, through the aid of invention, science, skill, machinery, and capital, become producers of a hundred thousand different commodities—each man producing a different commodity from all the others—and each man should be willing to give, in exchange for the Herald, such a portion of his own particular product as would be as desirable for the producer of the Herald, as a copy of the Herald was to him, the Herald, which before brought no price at all, will now obtain for its producer a hundred thousand different commodities, each of which will be as valuable to him, as a copy of the Herald will be to each of these hundred thousand purchasers. And the price of the Herald, relatively to any fixed standard of value, will have risen—in accordance with the “Law of Prices” already given—from nothing, to a price corresponding to the value of these hundred thousand different commodities that will be given in exchange for it.

The reason why printed matter has become so cheap, in comparison with many or most other commodities, is not at all that the knowledge conveyed by it has become less desirable or valuable than it was before the art of printing was discovered—for both the desire for knowledge, and the value of the knowledge conveyed, have been constantly increasing ever since that time—but it is because invention and production in paper-making and printing have altogether outrun invention and production in most other directions; and mankind are consequently unable, except in comparatively few cases, to give real equivalents for printed matter. Printed matter, therefore, has now to be sold for only what the producers of other commodities are able to pay. But if invention and production, in other directions than paper-making and printing, should go on increasing to such a degree that all other men will be able to offer, in exchange for printed matter, commodities as desirable as the printed matter itself, the prices of printed matter will then rise to their true level.

And what is true of printed matter, is equally true of certain other commodities, in whose production science and invention have outrun the science and invention that are employed in ordinary pursuits. These commodities now command no equitable price in the market, solely because mankind in general, for the want of invention, science, skill, machinery, and capital, are unable to produce commodities of equal value, to be given in exchange.

From all this, it will be seen that the market value of each man’s product depends, not at all, or at best very slightly, upon the greater or less labor it costs him to produce it—for when all labor is performed by machinery, and men are required only to tend the machinery, it can hardly be said that anything costs human labor; but it depends mainly, if not wholly, upon the number of other men who can buy it, and give him something desirable in exchange for it.

At present no such diversity or amount of production exists, as we shall sometime see; and, consequently, prices have never risen to any such height as they sometime will. But as surely as the diversity and amount of production go on increasing, just so surely will the rise of prices, relatively to any fixed standard of value, also go on increasing in the ratio, and according to the rule, that have now been explained. And the amount of money required for the exchanges of property will of course go on increasing in like ratio. And any attempt to keep down prices, by limiting the amount of money, will only result in suppressing invention, science, skill, machinery, and production, and in the inequitable distribution of the little wealth that is permitted to be produced.

But this theory will be more fully confirmed in subsequent papers.

SECTION IV.

It will now be seen how clearly—as a general rule—it is the interest of all that each and every individual shall have all the capital—that is, all the money—that may be necessary to enable them to produce the greatest variety and amount of wealth; to make the most discoveries in science, the most inventions in implements and machinery; to produce the greatest number of new commodities for direct consumption; and also to enable all those who are neither discoverers nor inventors, to engage in the greatest variety of industries—that is, in the production of all new commodities, as fast as they shall be invented.

We need have no fear that machinery will ever prove an enemy of human labor, if we only have money enough to enable a sufficient number of persons to go into the production of new commodities as fast as they shall be invented. Men driven out of one employment, by machinery, will then be enabled to go into another more lucrative; because every new industry raises the value of all others, and, as a general rule, takes its place on a level with all others. The lack of money to enable men to go into new industries, is the only reason why—at least in recent times—machinery has been regarded as the enemy of the laborer.

The greater the variety of commodities produced, the less the competition in the production of each, and the higher the prices of all; for the price of each rises just in proportion to the number of others for which it can be exchanged, and the amounts of each of these others for which it can be exchanged.

As a general rule, everybody who engages in the production of a new commodity relieves somebody of a competitor, and, to the extent of his own production, becomes a purchaser of the products of others.

Especially ought we to realize how important it is that every facility and inducement that is reasonably possible—both in money and in legal protection—be afforded to all discoveries in science, and all mechanical inventions. These discoveries and inventions are the great, the permanent wealth of the world. The material wealth which we accumulate by means of them, is mostly temporary, and much of it ephemeral. It is quickly consumed, or goes quickly to decay. It could do almost nothing for mankind, were it not for the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions by which it can be constantly reproduced to meet our daily wants. These discoveries and inventions are, also, not solely the wealth of the particular times or localities in which they are made; but are to become the property of the whole world, and of all future time. It is true that many, or most, of them are being quickly superseded by others that do the same work better; but the inventions and discoveries of each year, or generation, prepare the way for those of the next; and thus, by this succession of inventions and discoveries, the whole world is to be enriched through all the ages. And we should not grudge the wealth which a perpetual property in them would give to their authors; for, at best, it will probably, on an average, be not more than one per centum of the wealth created by means of them. And if this one per centum should prove large, for the time being, in proportion to the earnings of other men, it will only stimulate the production of other discoveries and inventions, of which the world will get the benefit, at a like cost of one per centum of the wealth produced by means of them.

Short-sighted men, oppressed by poverty and toil, object to an inventor’s having such a property in the products of his labor as other men have in the products of theirs; because, say they, it would be wrong that he should receive so much for his labor, when we receive so little for ours. But such men should understand that a man’s right to the products of his labor does not depend at all upon the value of those products. Whether more or less valuable, they are equally his, solely because he produced them. Labor is worth nothing of itself. Its value depends wholly upon what it produces. If it produces much, it is worth much; if it produces little, it is worth little; if it produces nothing, it is worth nothing. Nearly all the world over, the great body of the people are borne down by the heaviest toil; yet, for the want of science, implements, machinery, and capital, they produce very little; and that little brings them either a very small price, or absolutely nothing, in exchange, because so few have any thing that they can give in exchange. And this fate, that has so crushed, impoverished, and enslaved mankind for thousands of years in the past, will assuredly continue to crush, impoverish, and enslave them for thousands of years in the future, unless, by means of science, implements, machinery, and capital, they make their industry more productive than it heretofore has been. These men should also understand that the inventor has always been ready and eager to relieve them of their poverty and toil, by giving them machinery that should do their work for them; and do for them a thousand times more work than they can do for themselves; and that the only reasons why he has not done so, hundreds and thousands of years ago, have been, first, that he has been without the necessary means for producing his inventions, and has been denied all just compensation—until quite recently all compensation—for them; and, secondly, that the mass of men have also been without the necessary means—that is, the necessary money—for utilizing his inventions after he has produced them. Whenever the right of the inventor to the products of his labor shall be acknowledged, and the people shall be permitted to have all the money that shall be necessary to enable them to utilize his inventions, all their present complaints of poverty and toil will rapidly disappear. It is, therefore, not only gross injustice, but the worst of policies, to deny to scientists and inventors their right of property in their discoveries and inventions.

It is manifest that the mass of mankind can lift themselves out of their present poverty and servitude only through the aid of science, invention, machinery and money. It is manifest, too, that we can set no limits either to the variety or amount of wealth that mankind are capable of producing, if only full scope be given to science, invention, machinery, and money. It is also obvious that the greater the diversity and amount of production, the more equally and equitably will wealth be distributed; since every separate industry gives a support to a separate body of producers; and when all industries are free, the tendency of all—especially of all such as must occupy the great body of the people—is to come to one common standard of compensation.

Printed by Warren Richardson, 146 Franklin Street, Boston.

A REPLY TO “DUNRAVEN.”

No. 1.

REVOLUTION:

THE ONLY REMEDY FOR THE OPPRESSED CLASSES OF IRELAND, ENGLAND, AND OTHER PARTS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

A REPLY TO “DUNRAVEN.”

(SECOND EDITION.)

To the Man in Ireland, Whose Name is Believed to be Quinn, but Who Signs Himself “Dunraven.”

Sir,—

Your letter of Jan. 1, 1880, addressed to the Editor of the New York Herald, and published in the Herald of Jan. 7, deserves an answer, for the reason that it undoubtedly expresses not only your own sentiments, but also those of the class to which you belong. It virtually announces, and was evidently intended to announce, to the Irish people, both in Ireland and America, and to all other persons interested, that the landlords of Ireland,—backed, as you claim that they are, by the whole power of “the British Empire”—are determined to drive what you consider the surplus population of Ireland out of the country by starvation. You virtually say that all this feeding the starving Irish in their own country, is merely money and mercy thrown away; that as nothing but starvation will ever induce them to go, the sooner they are left to see that they have no other alternative, the better it will be for them, and for everybody else.

If you had, in so many words, threatened to drive them out by the bayonet, you could hardly have been more explicit. This makes it necessary that not only the Irish people, but that everybody else who feels any interest in such a matter, should inquire by what right you propose to do all this; and also whether you really have the physical power necessary to do it.

The following address to them, and this letter to yourself, are intended to show not only that you have neither the right, nor the power, to drive them out, but that they, and others similarly situuated, have both the right and the power to drive you, and all your abettors, out of both Ireland and England; and also, if need be, from off the face of the earth.

If you, and others like you, in England and Ireland, are prepared to meet this issue, we think that other men—men who believe that human beings have rights in this world, and that such a government as that of “the British Empire” has no rights at all—will, at no distant day, be ready, in sufficient numbers, to try conclusions with you.

The whole force of your letter, as a defence of Irish landlords, rests upon the assumption that they are the real and true owners of the lands they now hold. But this assumption is a false one. These lands, largely or mostly, were originally taken by the sword, and have ever since been held by the sword. Neither the original robbers, nor any subsequent holders, have ever had any other than a robber’s title to them. And robbery gives no better title to lands than it does to any other property.

No lapse of time can cure this defect in the original title. Every successive holder not only indorses all the robberies of all his predecessors, but he commits a new one himself by withholding the lands, either from the original and true owners, or from those who, but for those robberies, would have been their legitimate heirs and assigns.

And what is true of the lands in Ireland is equally true of the lands in England. The lands in England, largely or mostly, were originally taken by the sword, and have ever since been held by the sword; and the present holders have no better titles to them than simple, naked robbery has given them.

If the present holders, or any of their predecessors, in either Ireland or England, have ever purchased any of these lands, they have either purchased only a robber’s title to them, or they have purchased them only with the profits or proceeds of previous robberies. They have, therefore, never had, and have not now, any real titles to them.

For these reasons, the present holders of lands generally, in either England or Ireland—whether they hold them by inheritance or purchase—have no whit better title to them, than the highwayman has to the purse he has taken from the traveller, or than the pirate has to the ships and cargoes he has captured on the ocean.

It cannot be supposed that you are so stupid as to be ignorant of all this; and you seem to be conscious of it—and also of the fact that these lands are to be holden, if at all, only by the sword, in the future, as they have been in the past—when you say that—

Your opinion on this point is doubtless correct. But what does “the whole social structure of the United Kingdom” amount to? To this only: That the original robbers and holders of these lands (in both England and Ireland), with such accomplices as they have, from time to time, induced to join them, have now, for many hundreds of years, constituted a conspiracy—that is, have organized themselves into what they call a government—for the purpose of sustaining each other in the possession of all the lands they have seized; and also for the purpose of plundering and enslaving all the descendants of those from whom the lands were originally taken; and for the still further purpose of plundering and enslaving, as far as possible, all other peoples in other parts of the world. This conspiracy has existed in an organized form,—that is, in the form of both State and Church,—for many hundreds of years. And it is this conspiracy, and nothing else, which you attempt to dignify by the name of “the whole social structure of the United Kingdom.”

Do you really think that an “overturning” of such a “whole social structure” as this would be any great calamity, either to the “United Kingdom,” or to the world at large? Would it not rather be the opening of a day of freedom for more than two hundred millions of enslaved people, “British subjects,” so-called; to say nothing of its influence on other “social structures,” of like character, in other parts of the world?

But you evidently consider such an “overturning” impracticable, for you say,—

By this you mean that this confederacy of robbers and tyrants—small in numbers, but constituting the only real ruling force of what you call “the British Empire”—is too well organized, too compact, too rich, and too powerful, and has too much at stake, to be successfully resisted, or, as you say, “overturned.”

But in this you may be mistaken. Less than a century ago, “the whole social structure” of France was “overturned,” notwithstanding all, or nearly all, the other “social structures” of Europe combined to sustain it. Do you imagine that the other “social structures” of Europe will ever combine to sustain “the whole social structure of the United Kingdom,” as they once combined to sustain that of France? You know that nothing of that kind will ever take place. You know that, henceforth, each of “the social structures” of Europe must take care of itself as best it may; and that already most of them are tottering to their fall. You know that all European combinations, in the future, are to be combinations to “overturn” existing “social structures,” and not to sustain them.

How, then, do you think that that confederacy of robbers and villains, whom you call, and who imagine themselves to be, “the British Empire,” will fare, when the trial comes? And how far off do you imagine that trial to be?

Do not deceive yourselves in this matter. You are really few in number, and easily distinguished from the great body of those whom you and your predecessors have plundered and enslaved. The very wealth in which you so pride yourselves, and on which you rely as a means of safety, is really an element of weakness. It is not yours. It is all stolen property. It consists only of the spoils that have been accumulated through centuries of robbery and extortion. If those, and the descendants of those, from whom all this wealth has been taken, shall combine to take it from you, it will be only an act of just and lawful reprisal and retribution. And it now offers itself to them as the richest prize, of this kind, that was ever offered to men on earth. Do you not think they will take it?

The fact that the direct descendants of the original holders of these lands cannot now be individually traced, and reinstated in the property of their ancestors, cannot screen the present holders from their just liability; since the original robbery of the lands, and the entailing them in the families of the original robbers, have not only deprived the direct descendants of the original holders of their rights, but have also deprived all other persons of their natural rights to buy these lands. These other persons, therefore, as well as the direct descendants of the original holders, have a wrong to be redressed. And these two classes, as they cannot now be distinguished from each other, should make common cause.

In addition to all this, these conspirators have, as a government, oppressed, robbed, enslaved, and made war upon, everybody, indiscriminately—in England, Ireland, and throughout what you call “the British Empire”—whom they could oppress, plunder, or subdue. In this way, then, as well as through the original robberies of the lands, they have incurred a liability to everybody, who has, in any way, suffered at their hands. Whenever, then, the day of settlement comes, there will be some two hundred and fifty millions of people, who will be entitled to satisfaction for the wrongs you have inflicted upon them.

And do not imagine that the present landholders alone are to be finally held liable. All who have been voluntary accomplices with them—and all who have voluntarily aided in upholding the British government, have been accomplices with them—have justly incurred the same penalty as the landholders themselves. Among these accomplices have been your great manufacturers, merchants, bankers, ship-owners, money-lenders (lenders of money to the government)—everybody, in fact, high or low, who has voluntarily been part and parcel of the British government—have been accomplices in the thousand crimes by which the people at large, throughout the Empire, have been plundered and enslaved. And having been such accomplices, their property may as rightfully be seized for purposes of reparation, as may the lands of the landholders themselves; for every member of a conspiracy shares in the guilt of all the others; and is equally liable with them to be coerced into making restitution and compensation.

Sir, From the ancient time, criminals of a certain class have been designated as hostes humani generis: enemies of the human race. They received this designation because their crimes were committed, not from any special malice towards particular victims, but solely from motives of plunder; and they were wholly indifferent as to the name or nation of the persons to be plundered. They as willingly robbed, and, if need were, murdered, the people of any one country, as of any other. It being their practice to plunder, to the extent of their ability, all mankind indiscriminately, they naturally and justly came to be regarded as enemies of the whole human race. And from this fact it necessarily followed that they might justly and rightfully be killed, whenever and wherever they could be found, and by whomsoever could kill them.

This designation—enemies of the human race—has more generally been applied to pirates; to men who committed their crimes upon the sea. But there have been other hostes humani generis; men devoted to plunder, who committed their crimes upon the land; and who were equally indifferent, with pirates on the sea, as to the persons on whom their crimes were committed. The ruling classes in England, from the time the Anglo-Saxons first came there, have been hostes humani generis: enemies of the human race. They have had only one motive, viz.: plunder. And so long as this motive was gratified, they have cared not whom they plundered, enslaved, or murdered.

The Anglo-Saxons were robbers and pirates in their own country, two thousand years ago; robbers on land, and pirates at sea. Such was their sole business. The men performed no useful labor. Their useful labor was all performed by their women and their slaves. They themselves, as history tells us, scorned to labor for anything they could take by force. They came into England on their usual errand. They seized the country by military power, and reduced the native Britons to slavery. And they have maintained this character ever since. The Normans were equally robbers. The real government of England, the actual ruling power, for more than a thousand years, has been a mere band of robbers; a mere confederacy of villains. And it is nothing else to-day. They have not only plundered and enslaved the great body of the people of England and Ireland, but, as far as possible, the peoples of all other parts of the globe. They have their chains to-day upon more than two hundred millions of people; and their whole purpose is to extort from them everything that oppression, in every form, is capable of extorting.

Do you imagine that when this band of villains—these enemies of the human race—come to receive their dues, at the hands of two hundred and fifty millions of their victims, justice or mercy will have anything to offer in their behalf?

Sir, To the plundered and starving population of Ireland, you say, in effect, and nearly in these words:

And you conclude your letter with these words, which are among the vilest that were ever written by human hands:

All this is equivalent to your saying:—

Sir, It is to be hoped that “the ways of the Lord” may soon be made more intelligible to you; that you may be made to know “why such people” as the Irish “are permitted to exist”; what “use in the economy of nature” they “fulfil”; and even why they are permitted to make you so uncomfortable. Perhaps you may come to know that this world and all its inhabitants were not created with a sole view to your pleasure; that for some good reason, in which neither your ease, your pride, your avarice, nor your ambition was consulted, the Almighty saw fit to create other men, and give them rights equal to your own; that their happiness is quite as important as yours; and that these men, whom you now trample upon with such scorn, may yet be strong enough to teach you, in a rough way, such lessons of humility and justice, as have sometimes been taught to tyrants before, and such as will be very bitter to a man like you. You may, however, have this one consolation—that should you ever have all this knowledge forced upon you, it will assuredly make you a much wiser and better man than you are now. And this knowledge, that will be so beneficial to yourself, will be equally useful to your associates, the queens, princes, dukes, earls, and the like, who now feel and reason as you do.

It is also to be hoped that the time is not distant, when somebody will be glad to emigrate from both England and Ireland. But who are to be the emigrants? This is the vital question. You will remember that, in similar circumstances, in a neighboring nation, the class who, one day, ruled all France, thought they owned all France, and felt that they, and they alone, were France, the next day found it convenient to emigrate; leaving everything behind them, to become the property of those, whom, up to that time, they had trampled under foot. May we not see the same thing in England and Ireland?

Sir, the plundered people of England and Ireland need neither emigration, legislation, mitigation, nor modification. They need, and if they do their duty to themselves and to you, they will have,

REVOLUTION, RETRIBUTION, RESTITUTION, AND, AS FAR AS POSSIBLE, COMPENSATION.

To All the Oppressed Classes in England, Ireland, and Throughout the British Empire.

The foregoing letter, to the so-called Earl of Dunraven, attempts to show you your true relations to the ruling classes of the British Empire; and also the true and only remedy for the wrongs which their and stors practiced upon your ancestors, and which they themselves are now practicing upon you. Do not imagine that the Parliaments and Courts of oppressors will ever right the wrongs of the oppressed. They exist for no such purpose. Such a thing has never happened, and never will. Take the redress of your own wrongs into your own hands, as you are abundantly able to do, if you are only united, determined, and have clear ideas of your rights, and of what is needful to secure them. Your numbers are so great, in comparison with those of your oppressors, as to put their lives and their property wholly in your power, if you so will it. They have no thought of doing you justice. They have no purpose but to keep so many of you in poverty and servitude as they can make serviceable to themselves, and drive the rest of you out of the country by starvation. And they will do this, as they have heretofore done it, unless you yourselves put an end to their power. Wipe out, then, these feudal robbers—the whole race of kings, and queens, and nobles, and all their accomplices in every grade of life, and take possession of all the spoils which they and their predecessors have wrung from you and your ancestors. Put an end to their Parliaments and Courts. Blot out forever their statute books. They contain little or nothing else than the records of their villainies. Free England and Ireland, and thus all the rest of the empire, of the tyrants and robbers that are plundering, enslaving, and crushing, and starving you.

LETTER.

A LETTER

TO

SCIENTISTS

and

INVENTORS,

ON

THE SCIENCE OF JUSTICE, AND THEIR RIGHT OF PERPETUAL PROPERTY IN THEIR DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS.

By Lysander Spooner.

BOSTON:

CUPPLES, UPHAM & CO.

283 Washington Street.

1884.

[The author reserves his Copyright in this Pamphlet.]

First edition printed in July, 1884.

Boston, Mass., July, 1884.

SECTION I.

To Scientists and Inventors:

You are the great producers and diffusers of knowledge and wealth. Your scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions are the great, almost the only, instrumentalities by which the world at large is enlightened or enriched. You, Scientists, explore Nature for her facts and laws, which, violated through ignorance or design, bring upon mankind want, disease, misery, and death; but which, known and accepted as guides, bring to them not only great material wealth, but also life, health, and strength of both body and mind. And you, Inventors, devise and explain to us the application of mechanical forces, by which men’s powers of providing for, and satisfying, their wants and desires, are multiplied a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand fold.

Your discoveries and inventions, the value of which no man can measure, are not, like our material wealth, consumed, or worn out, by use, nor do they decay by time. They are not, like our material wealth, local and limited in their nature; but each and all of them can be diffused all over the globe, and be utilized by all peoples, not only without conflict, but with mutual and universal benefit.

For the want of your discoveries and inventions, mankind, through many thousands of years, have remained savage, barbarous, or, if in any degree civilized, still poverty-stricken, short-lived, feeble, ignorant, superstitious, enslaved in both body and mind. And such is the condition of more than a thousand millions of the world’s people to-day. And such it will remain for thousands of years to come, unless they can have the benefit of such discoveries and inventions as you are making, and offering to them; and such as they would accept and utilize, if their governments did not deprive them of all power to do so.

In spite of all the obstacles which these governments have constantly placed in their way, these discoveries and inventions have, of late years, and in some portions of the world, made progress. And nobody knows so well as yourselves, how much greater this progress would be, if all men of scientific and inventive minds, all over the world, had all the inducements and means that they might have, and ought to have, for prosecuting their investigations and experiments.

Your own rights and interests, and the rights and interests of mankind at large, are identical in this matter. It is your own right, and for your own interest, that you should have all the inducements and means that you honestly can have, for prosecuting your investigations and experiments, and producing all the discoveries and inventions that you are capable of. It is also the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that you should have all those inducements and means, because it is only through the greatest number of discoveries and inventions, that mankind are to be most highly enlightened and enriched.

What, then, are these inducements and means, which you need, and have a right to, and which it is the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that you should have? They are these:

1. The same right of perpetual property in the products of your brains, that all other men are justly entitled to have in the products of their hands.

2. The same protection, by both civil and criminal law, for the products of your brain labor, that other men are justly entitled to have for the products of their hand labor.

3. The same right of perpetual property in your discoveries and inventions, in all the other countries of the world, as in your own.

4. It is the right, and for the interests, of all past discoverers and inventors, and of their heirs, to recover their natural right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions, which has hitherto been denied or withheld by the ignorant and tyrannical governments that have heretofore existed, and now exist, in the world.

5. It is also the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that the right of perpetual property, in their discoveries and inventions, should be restored to all past discoverers and inventors, and to their heirs, so far as they can now be ascertained.

6. It is your right to have all the money you need, and honestly can have—that is, all the money that freedom in banking would give you—not only for making your discoveries and inventions, but also for carrying them all over the world, and putting them into actual operation.

7. It is your right, and for your interests, as well as their own, that all mankind, all over the world, should have all the money they need, and honestly can have—that is, all the money that freedom in banking would give them—to enable them to utilize your discoveries and inventions as fast as they are made, and to distribute to consumers all the wealth that your discoveries and inventions will enable them to create.

How are all these propositions to be realized? In other words, how are they all to be established as law, in all the different countries of the world?

The general answer to this question is, that these propositions are all to be established as law, all over the world, by showing their truth and justice to all peoples; and also by showing, not only their adaptation, but their necessity, for promoting the highest enlightenment, and the greatest enrichment, of all the peoples of the earth.

But a more particular answer is needed. And it will now be given, by showing not only the truth and justice of the several propositions themselves, and their adaptation and necessity to produce all that is now claimed for them, but also by showing that scientists and inventors have it in their own power, while promoting their own highest interests, to accomplish the whole work.

SECTION II.

Before proceeding to the consideration of the preceding propositions, it is your right, and for your interests, to have this one question decided, viz.: Whether your scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, by which, incomparably beyond all other men, you are enlightening and enriching mankind, are, in their nature, an equally legitimate property, and entitled to the same legal protection, as are the products of men’s manual labor? Or whether that mere pittance of protection, which is allowed to them in a few countries, and not at all in others, is all the reward to which your labors are entitled?

When this question shall be rightly answered, all the other questions must necessarily be rightly answered, too. And this question is really and finally answered by the single fact that knowledge is property.

That knowledge is wealth—and wealth, too, of the greatest value—no man of sense will deny. Why, then, is it not property? And subject to all the laws of property?

Knowledge is property. It is a property that is really acquired only by labor of mind, or body, or both; oftentimes only by great labor of both body and mind. It is also a property that is extensively bought and sold, like other property, in the market.

It is true that a vast amount of knowledge—knowledge, too, of great intrinsic value—is so common, from having been acquired by each one’s own experience and observation, that it bears no price in the market; but that does not affect the principle, that all knowledge, that will bring a price in free and open market, is as legitimate a subject of bargain and sale as is any material commodity whatever.

Even so common and simple a knowledge as that of the alphabet has its market value, and is rightfully bought and sold. The young girl, who knows the alphabet, is rightfully paid for imparting that knowledge to those younger, or less enlightened than herself.

On the other hand, the highest kinds of knowledge—or, at least, what passes for such in this ignorant world—is constantly and openly bought and sold, oftentimes at enormous prices.

Thus legislators, judges, lawyers, editors, teachers of all kinds, physicians, priests, and soldiers, are continually selling their knowledge—and, perhaps, quite as frequently their ignorance and falsehoods—for money.

Legislators are continually selling such knowledge—or, rather, such ignorance and falsehoods—as these, viz.: That they themselves are rightfully invested with absolute and irresponsible dominion over the property, liberty, and lives of their fellow men; that their discretion, in the exercise of this power, can rightfully be restrained by no natural principles of justice; that their commands are authoritative and final, and the only imperative rule of action for all whom they call their subjects; that resistance to their laws, as they call them, is the greatest of crimes, and may rightfully, and must necessarily, be punished with confiscation, imprisonment, and death. In all ages, the mass of mankind have been compelled to pay, with their property, liberty, and, in vast numbers of cases, with their lives, for such knowledge—or, rather, for such monstrosities, absurdities, and falsehoods—as these.

Under the name of knowledge, judges, lawyers, and editors are constantly affirming, repeating, and reiterating these monstrosities, absurdities, and falsehoods of the legislators; and are taking their pay for so doing, as if they were really selling the most valuable commodities.

Surely it does not lie in the mouths of these legislators, judges, lawyers and editors, who live and flourish by selling such falsehoods as these, to say that the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, which are every day demonstrating their power to enlighten, enrich, and liberate all mankind, are not legitimate property, that may rightfully be bought and sold.

The knowledge of the soldier—such as it is—is in great demand. To him who knows how to kill the greatest number of men, in the shortest time, and for the most frivolous or unjust causes, his knowledge is his fortune. Legislators are so constantly dependent upon it for their very existence as legislators, that they pay enormous sums for it—but always out of other people’s money.

Physicians, in all ages, have been freely selling their knowledge—or, more commonly, their ignorance and falsehoods; and the purchasers have been paying for them with their property, their health, and their lives.

Does it lie in the mouths of these physicians to deny that scientific truths and mechanical inventions are legitimate subjects of property?

Priests have for ages been selling, under the name of knowledge, absurd dogmas and creeds, which they described as sure to carry the believer in them to a future world of eternal and indescribable happiness, and as equally sure to carry all unbelievers in them to a future world of eternal and indescribable woe. And they, in conspiracy with legislators who needed their aid, have compelled the mass of mankind to pay for this so-called knowledge, under the alternatives of imprisonment, torture, and death. But they have never demonstrated the truth of their dogmas. No one of their number has ever gone to the future world, and brought back the information that their so-called knowledge was anything other than ignorance and falsehood.

Does it lie in the mouths of these priests to say that scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, whose truth and utility are being constantly demonstrated before all the world, are not legitimate subjects of property? or, consequently, of free bargain and sale?

Will the people themselves, whose ancestors, for thousands of years, have been swindled out of their common sense, their property, health, liberty, and lives, by these venders of ignorance and falsehood, under the name of knowledge—and who are now being swindled in the same way themselves—will they deny that such veritable realities as scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions—discoveries and inventions that have demonstrated their power to fill the earth with knowledge, and health, and wealth, and liberty—are legitimate subjects of property, that may freely and rightfully be bought and sold? Will they choose to pay—as they and their ancestors hitherto have done—with their property, health, liberty, and lives, for such ignorance, falsehood, oppression, robbery, and ruin, as have hitherto been dealt out to them, rather than for such health, wealth, truth, justice, and liberty as scientists and inventors offer them?

And, finally, will not scientists and inventors themselves, while establishing their own rights to their own property, give themselves to the work of establishing justice, as a science, in place of the absurdities, the falsehoods, the chicanery, the usurpations, and the arbitrary, irresponsible power of the ambitious, rapacious, and unprincipled men, by whom the world is now ruled, and who make mankind their dupes and their prey?

If they will but do this, the work will soon be accomplished.

SECTION III.

Assuming it now to be settled that your discoveries and inventions are, in their nature, a legitimate property, the first of the propositions before mentioned to be established is this, viz.: That, in truth and justice, scientists and inventors have the same right of perpetual property in the products of their brain labor, that other men have in the products of their hand labor.

This proposition is established by the simple facts that knowledge is property, and is, in its nature, durable, vendible, and transferable; for all property, in things durable, vendible, and transferable, is, in its very nature, perpetual, and a legitimate subject of devise and inheritance. And no formal will or testament is necessary to convey a man’s property, at his decease, to his so-called natural heirs—such as his wife and children—or, in the absence of such, to his nearest blood relations. The facts that, during his life, his moral duty and natural affection prompt him to acquire wealth, and expend it for the support and happiness of these so-called natural heirs, rather than for others whom he does not know, or, knowing, does not love, furnishes a sufficient proof, or at least a sufficient presumption, that, at his death, he desires them to possess the property he leaves behind him; and nothing but the clearest proof to the contrary is allowed to defeat that presumption. And for a government to confiscate, after his death, this property, which he had produced or accumulated for their support or benefit, would be as gross and cruel an act of tyranny and robbery, as it would be to confiscate it during his lifetime. And the common sentiments of mankind have concurred in this opinion. And this principle is plainly as applicable to intellectual, as to material, property. And the fact that this principle has heretofore been wholly, or partially, disregarded in its application to intellectual property, is only a proof of the ignorance, or villainy, of the governments that have ruled the world.

But let us look further into this right of perpetual property.

When a man digs into the earth, and finds, and takes possession of, a diamond, he thereby acquires a supreme right of property in it, against all the world; and this right of property becomes perpetual in his heirs and assigns.

So, also, when a man dives into the sea, and brings up a pearl, he thereby acquires a supreme right of property in it, against all the world; and this right of property becomes perpetual in his heirs and assigns.

This right of perpetual property is the reward that nature offers to those who take upon themselves the labor of discovering her secret wealth, and making it available for man’s use.

By the same rule, when the scientist, in his laboratory, discovers that, in nature, there exists a substance, or a law, that was before unknown, but that may be useful to mankind, he thereby acquires a supreme right of property in that knowledge, against all the world; and he may either use it himself, or sell it, or lend it to others for use, the same as he might rightfully do with any material property. This is the reward that nature offers him for his labor.

And this right of property is as much a perpetual one, as is the right of property in the case of the diamond, or the pearl.

And to deprive him of this right of property after a given number of years, is as much an act of pure usurpation and robbery, as it would be to take from the diamond digger and the pearl diver, the products of their labor, after a given number of years.

So, too, the inventor, who acquires a knowledge of mechanical forces, and then applies and combines them in a manner before unknown, and so as to produce a machine that will perform the labor of a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand men, thereby acquires a supreme right of property in his invention, and may rightfully hold it against all the world. He may either use it himself, or sell it, or lend it to others for use, at his pleasure. This right of property is, in its nature, a perpetual one in himself, his heirs, and assigns; and to deprive him of it, after a given number of years, is as much an act of usurpation and robbery, as it would be to rob the diamond digger, or the pearl diver, of his property, after a given number of years.

It is for the highest interests of all mankind, that this right of perpetual property, in the scientist and inventor, should be acknowledged and maintained.

It is for the highest interests of all mankind, that each and every man should have a right of perpetual property in the products of his own labor; because it is this right alone that can stimulate every man to the highest exercise of his wealth-producing faculties of both body and mind. And the more a man produces for himself, the more he produces for all other men; for in that division of labor which science and invention give rise to, each man usually consumes but a very small portion of the particular wealth he produces. The surplus he gives to other men in exchange for the various kinds of wealth they produce respectively. The more, therefore, each one produces, the more all finally receive for their own consumption.

How many diamonds would ever have been digged from the earth, or how many pearls would ever have been taken from the sea, if they had all been confiscated in a few years after they had been obtained? How much gold, or silver, or copper, or iron, or any other metal, would ever have been taken out of the earth, for the benefit of mankind, if they had all been confiscated in a few years after they had been mined? How many farms would have ever been reclaimed from the forest, and brought under cultivation, and made to produce food for man, if they had all been confiscated in a few years after they had been made productive? How many comfortable dwellings would ever have been built, if they had all been confiscated soon after they had been made fit for habitation? How many factories would ever have been built, and filled with machinery, for the production of a thousand, or ten thousand, different kinds of wealth, if they had all been confiscated soon after they were fitted for the uses for which they were designed.

The same arguments, both of justice and expediency, which are applicable in favor of the right of perpetual property in material things, are applicable in favor of the same right of perpetual property in all the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions that the human mind is capable of producing. And it is because no such—nor indeed any other special—right of property has, until recently, been acknowledged, that the world has heretofore been, and, for the most part, still is, so nearly destitute of all the sciences and inventions by which it would otherwise have been enlightened and enriched.

Even in those small portions of the earth in which some encouragement has, of late years, been given to science and invention, we doubtless have very little, almost no, conception of what would be the increased number of discoveries and inventions, if the right of perpetual property in them were acknowledged and protected, in the same manner as is the right of property in material things.

SECTION IV.

The second proposition to be established is this, viz.: That scientists and inventors are justly entitled to have the same protection, by both civil and criminal law, for the products of their brain labor, that other men are justly entitled to have for the products of their hand labor.

The truth and justice of this proposition are too nearly self-evident to need much argument in their support.

If a man’s scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions are as truly his property as are his houses or lands, then it is plain that any trespass upon them is as clearly a crime as is a trespass upon his houses or lands. And there is the same practical necessity for punishing criminally trespasses against a man’s intellectual property, as there is for punishing criminally trespasses against his material property.

What security could any man have for the quiet possession of his house or his farm, if every other man, who coveted them, but had no color of right to them, could be permitted to take possession of, and use them, and make it necessary for the owner to carry on an expensive and protracted civil suit against each one of these trespassers? It is plain that it would cost him more to defend his house and farm than they were worth; and that his right of property in them would be practically destroyed. This argument is just as strong in favor of punishing criminally trespasses upon intellectual property, as it is for punishing criminally trespasses upon material property.

SECTION V.

The third proposition to be established is this: That scientists and inventors should have the same right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions, in all the other countries of the world, as in their own.

This proposition, like the preceding one, is too nearly self-evident to need much argument in its support.

The natural, and only real, right of property is the same throughout the world; and it is only the ignorance and tyranny of the different governments of the world, that make the practical right of property different in different countries.

When justice, as a science, shall be established, as the one only law, in all the countries in the world, the right of property in scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, as well as in material things, will be one and the same all over the world.

SECTION VI.

The fourth proposition to be established is this, viz: That it is the right, and for the interests, of all past discoverers and inventors (where their patents have expired), and of their heirs, to recover their natural right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions, which has hitherto been denied or withheld by the ignorant and tyrannical governments that have hitherto existed, and now exist, in the world.

This proposition, too, like the preceding ones, is too nearly self-evident to require much argument.

Plainly, scientists and inventors have never voluntarily parted with their natural right of property in their discoveries and inventions. They have never forfeited their right to them by crime. Those who have had the benefit of them, and are now using them, have never bought them, or paid for them, or made any kind of contract with the owners for the use of them. The only reason why the authors of them (or their heirs or assigns) are not now in the full enjoyment of their right of property in them, is that governments, in their ignorance or villainy, have refused either to acknowledge or protect the right at all, or to protect it beyond a limited time; and have thus practically licensed all trespassers to make free plunder of what was the rightful private property of the discoverers and inventors.

To this free plunder of their property, the discoverers and inventors have been obliged to submit, for the time being. But their true and natural right of property has not been lost, or affected, thereby. They have the same true and natural right of property in their discoveries and inventions that they ever had. And they have now the same right to demand the recognition and protection of their rights, that other men have to demand the recognition and protection of their rights to their material property.

Where the discoverers and inventors have died, their descendants have the same natural right of inheritance in their discoveries and inventions, as other men’s descendants have in the material property of their ancestors.

That the immense value of their discoveries and inventions should now unite all scientists and inventors, (whose patents have expired,) and their heirs, in the effort to recover their rights to them, is too plain to need argument.

SECTION VII.

The fifth proposition to be established is this, viz.: That it is the right, and for the interests, of mankind at large, that the right of perpetual property, in their discoveries and inventions, should be restored to all past discoverers and inventors, and to their heirs, so far as they can now be ascertained.

The truth of this proposition rests, in the first place, upon this basis, viz.: That it is only when all men are protected in their natural right of property in the products of their labor, that all men are stimulated to the production of the greatest amount of wealth they are capable of producing, and each and every man is consequently enabled to give the greatest amount of wealth in exchange for the wealth produced by others. It is, therefore, the right, and for the interests, of every man, who produces any kind of wealth for sale, that all other men, who are to buy his wealth, should be enabled to produce as much as possible themselves, and thus be enabled to give as much as possible in exchange for his.

Every man, who believes in men’s natural right of property in the products of their labor, will acknowledge the truth of this principle, as applicable to the future. But perhaps some will be so unwise, as well as dishonest, as to dispute the principle in its application to the past; and will say that the world having once got possession of a vast amount of intellectual property for nothing, it would now be foolish to give it back to its true owners.

There is some difficulty in reasoning with men who do not believe that honesty is the best policy in all cases whatsoever; men who believe in theft and robbery, whenever they are strong enough to practice them with impunity. But inasmuch as there are a great many such men in the world, and inasmuch as they are now, and always have been, the ruling powers of the world—that is, the chief governors of the world—and inasmuch as they are the class who will most powerfully oppose the rights of all scientists and inventors, both past and future, it becomes necessary to show to others, if not to themselves, that this policy is as shortsighted as it is dishonest.

It has always been the policy of these bands of robbers, who have called themselves governments—in fact, it has in reality been the sole objects of their organizations, as governments—to rob all the producers of wealth, whether intellectual or manual laborers, of all the products of their labor, as fast as they were produced; leaving nothing in the hands of the producers that would enable them to produce more, or that would even enable them to produce their daily food, except as the servants, and by the permission, of these tyrants. And this is the reason—and not the want of scientific and inventive faculties—why, after so many thousands of years, there is so little of either science or invention in the world to-day; and why there is so little of any thing, for the mass of mankind, except poverty, ignorance, and slavery.

It is only within a very recent time—say a single century, or a little more—that any governments have secured to either scientists or inventors any really valuable rewards for their labors. And even within that time, they have only offered such mere temporary, and even trivial, rewards, as were thought sufficient to inspire their hopes, and induce them to produce something valuable, of which they could be robbed. And as soon almost as they have produced anything valuable, they have been robbed of it. Such is to-day the state of the laws under those few governments that alone profess to secure to scientists and inventors any rewards at all for their discoveries and inventions. And this state of things is likely to continue, and is almost certain to continue, until scientists and inventors themselves undertake the work of vindicating and establishing their own natural rights of property in their discoveries and inventions.

But the scientists and inventors themselves will see at once that they cannot consistently advocate their own rights to the products of their own labor, in the future, unless they acknowledge and maintain the same rights for all past scientists and inventors, and their heirs, so far as they can now be ascertained. Every admission on their part, that all past scientists and inventors, or their heirs, may rightfully be robbed of their property, would be a practical confession that all future scientists and inventors may also be rightfully robbed of theirs. No future scientist or inventor, therefore, can consistently claim any rights of property for himself, except such as he is willing to accord to all past scientists and inventors.

But, secondly, it would be very bad policy for either present or future scientists or inventors to make any compromise with their enemies, or to attempt to secure any rights, or purchase any favors, for themselves, by repudiating the rights of any past scientists or inventors, or their heirs. In order to establish their own rights, they will need all the influence, and all the financial capital, they can enlist in the enterprise. And the pecuniary value of past discoveries and inventions is so immense, that its power can hardly be overrated.

Estimate—if that be possible—what would be the actual market value of all the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions now extant (whose paternity can now be established), if the right of property in them was made perpetual, all over the world!

Can any present or future scientist or inventor be so idiotic as to imagine that he is to gain anything for his particular discovery or invention, by denying, or conceding away, the rights of the real owners of all this vast property in past discoveries and inventions? Or that he can vindicate or establish his own rights more easily, without enlisting the aid of all this capital, than he can by making common cause with it?

A scientist or inventor who should seek to curry favor for his own discovery or invention, by consenting to the confiscation of all other men’s discoveries and inventions, would justly be regarded as the criminal confederate of the robbers and tyrants who now confiscate the discoveries and inventions of all other men, whose labors and products are as worthy of protection as his own.

But perhaps these remarks are unnecessary. It is certainly to be hoped, and, I think, reasonably to be expected, that there can be few so foolish, or so unjust, as to consent to the robbery of all past scientists and inventors, as a condition of having their own rights acknowledged.

The study of science tends to make men not only truthful and just, but also far-seeing; and to lift them above all temptation to practice the meannesses and crimes of those who now rule the world by laws designed to rob one class of men for the benefit of another. And scientists and inventors have now such power, and such inducements, as men never had before, to crush out all the petty, temporary, local, selfish, and criminal schemes that now occupy existing governments; and to establish the reign of justice in their stead.

But we are taking too narrow a view of this subject.

It is not true that mankind at large—or more than one third, or perhaps even a fourth, of all mankind—are in practical possession of the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions that have been made, and are now in use, in the most enlightened parts of the world—say, Western Europe and the United States. What practical knowledge of these discoveries and inventions have the seven or eight hundred millions of Asia, the two hundred millions of Africa, or the fifty or one hundred millions scattered elsewhere on the globe? Or what practical knowledge will they ever have of them, unless the discoveries and inventions themselves are carried to them, and put in use among them, by persons from outside of these destitute countries? And who has any sufficient motive to carry them into, and put them in operation in, these destitute countries, unless it be the owners of the discoveries and inventions themselves?

The peoples of these destitute countries have, therefore, substantially the same motives for paying for the use of all these past discoveries and inventions, as they have for paying for those that are to be made in the future. That motive is to get the practical use of the discoveries and inventions, and to get it at the earliest possible time. Of what importance is the small amount they will have to pay for the use of them, compared with the benefits to be derived from them?*

But, furthermore. The sooner these past discoveries and inventions are carried into the destitute portions of the world, and the better the use of them is paid for there, the sooner the peoples of those countries will be enabled and stimulated to produce discoveries and inventions themselves; and their discoveries and inventions will come back to us, and add to our wealth, in the same way, and, with an immaterial difference, to the same degree, as if made by ourselves.

Now, these vast countries, containing a thousand millions of people, contribute, almost literally, nothing to our wealth, or we to theirs. They are constantly so near to starvation themselves, that they have scarcely anything they can give in exchange for anything we have to offer to them. They do indeed spare us a little tea, rice, indigo, opium, jute, etc., etc. But if they were to give us one really useful invention, it would be worth more to us than all these articles together. And if they were enlightened and enriched—as they would be by our carrying our discoveries and inventions to them, and putting them in practical operation—they would then become scientists and inventors themselves; and the commerce between us, in discoveries and inventions, would be worth millions of times more, both to them and to us, than the present petty commerce in material things.

Still further. The sooner this vast foreign field is opened to our scientists and inventors, the sooner they will be enabled and stimulated to the production of the greatest possible amount of discoveries and inventions for use at home.

And since this foreign field is not at all likely to be soon opened for our scientists and inventors, unless they open it themselves, it would be as impolitic, as it would be dishonest, to deprive all past scientists and inventors, and their heirs, of all motive and all power to carry their discoveries and inventions into the destitute countries, that are perishing for the want of them.

SECTION VIII.

A few words, now, as to the prospective increase of scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, if their authors’ right of perpetual property in them should be established.

As fast as mankind at large shall become enlightened and enriched by science and invention, and by a knowledge of justice as a science, the oppressions and wars—by which, in all past time, a few men have plundered, starved, enslaved, and butchered so large a portion of their fellow men, and made all progress in knowledge and wealth impossible—will necessarily cease; because the many being enlightened and enriched, the few will then be no longer able to deceive, conspire against, and overpower them, as they hitherto have done. Mankind will, therefore, not only live out their days, and enjoy the fruits of their labor, but they will also have much greater health and strength of both body and mind, and be capable of much greater physical and mental labor than they are now. Each successive generation will also have the benefit of all the scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, that shall have preceded them, and they will, of course, produce a correspondingly greater number of such discoveries and inventions themselves.

Experience shows that each new discovery and invention generally gives rise to several, oftentimes to many, others. Thus discoveries and inventions will forever go on increasing in geometrical ratio.

But even this is not all. The earth, when cultivated with the aid of such science, implements, and machinery as men are capable of producing, can probably be made to sustain a hundred times its present population. And the increase of population will naturally go on, as men increase their means of subsistence, and cease to starve and destroy each other. And this increase of population will, of itself, naturally bring a corresponding increase of scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions. Who, then, can set any limit to the future progress of mankind in knowledge and wealth?

Under the stimulus of this principle of property, mankind will soon become a very different, an almost wholly different, race of beings from what they now are. They will learn—what so few of them seem now to understand—not only that they have brains, but also what their brains were designed for, and are capable of. When these lessons shall have been learned, the knowledge that will be accumulated in consequence will become the great wealth of the world.

SECTION IX.

It is plainly to be seen, by those who choose to see, that science and invention are bringing, and are destined to bring, all the peoples of the earth together, and show them their power to promote each others’ welfare, and their duty to live together in peace.

The only obstacle this great movement has now to meet, is that presented by ignorant, hostile, and tyrannical governments. It is plain that if all mankind are to live together in peace, and contribute their utmost to each other’s welfare, they must get rid of their existing governments, and all live under one and the same, and only one and the same, law. That one law is the law of justice. This is the one only law the world needs, or can endure. Whatever other laws (so called) are either more, less, or other than justice itself, are necessarily unjust, and are therefore to be resisted and abolished.

Whenever, in any case whatever, this one law of justice is repudiated, violence and fraud are necessarily licensed in its stead.

But this one law of justice is a natural principle, and not any thing that any human power can make, unmake, or modify. Being a natural principle, it is a subject of science, and is to be learned like all other sciences. It is also the same in all places, and in all times; and will remain the same in all places, and among all peoples, so long as the world shall stand.

The want of this one law is the only obstacle, not only in the way of your carrying your present discoveries and inventions all over the world, but also to such a multiplication of discoveries and inventions as doubtless mankind at large—nor even the most far-seeing of them—have ever conceived of.

You, above all other men, (I repeat) have the power and the inducements to carry this law all over the world, and establish its authority in opposition to all the adverse laws and governments that now exist.

In subsequent letters, and other separate publications, if scientists and inventors shall favor the enterprise, I purpose to show that it is perfectly feasible and easy to establish, all over the world, their right of perpetual property in their discoveries and inventions. In fact, unless scientists and inventors can maintain their own rights of property, and establish justice in the place of such transparent conspiracies and villanies as all the principal governments of the world now are, it is plain that, instead of claiming to be the great lights and benefactors of mankind, they ought to write themselves down as imbeciles, cowards, and slaves.

[* ] To give an insane man a knife, or any other weapon, or thing, by which he is likely to injure himself, is a crime.

[* ] The statute book of Massachusetts makes ten years the age at which a female child is supposed to have discretion enough to part with her virtue. But the same statute book holds that no person, man or woman, of any age, or any degree of wisdom or experience, has discretion enough to be trusted to buy and drink a glass of spirits, on his or her own judgment! What an illustration of the legislative wisdom of Massachusetts!

[* ] Cato committed suicide to avoid falling into the hands of Cæsar. Who ever suspected that he was insane? Brutus did the same. Colt committed suicide only an hour or so before he was to be hanged. He did it to avoid bringing upon his name and his family the disgrace of having it said that he was hanged. This, whether a really wise act or not, was clearly an act within reasonable discretion. Does any one suppose that the person who furnished him with the necessary instrument was a criminal?

[* ] An illustration of this fact is found in England, whose government, for a thousand years and more, has been little or nothing else than a band of robbers, who have conspired to monopolize the land, and, as far as possible, all other wealth. These conspirators, calling themselves kings, nobles, and freeholders, have, by force and fraud, taken to themselves all civil and military power; they keep themselves in power solely by force and fraud, and the corrupt use of their wealth; and they employ their power solely in robbing and enslaving the great body of their own people, and in plundering and enslaving other peoples. And the world has been, and now is, full of examples substantially similar. And the governments of our own country do not differ so widely from others, in this respect, as some of us imagine.

[* ] It is to this incentive alone that we are indebted for all the wealth that has ever been created by human labor, and accumulated for the benefit of mankind.

[* ] Except those great crimes, which the few, calling themselves governments, practise upon the many, by means of organized, systematic extortion and tyranny. And it is only the poverty, ignorance, and consequent weakness of the many, that enable the combined and organized few to acquire and maintain such arbitrary power over them.

[* ] That is, from September 1, 1873, to March 1, 1875.

[1 ] See his speech in New York, October 14, 1875, reported in the New York “Daily Graphic” of October 15.

[1 ] The first of these restrictions only impaired the usefulness of the banks, without adding any thing to their solvency.

[2 ] And better than any ever known in the United States, unless, possibly, those in Rhode Island and one or two other States.

[1 ] We can have a much better system even than the Scotch; better than the system of promissory notes; one that will furnish more money (if more can be used), and be more easy and convenient for the bankers and better for the public. But freedom to make experiments with any and all systems that men may choose to experiment with is what is necessary to give assurance, at all times, that we have the best possible system.

[1 ] The estimate in the text is no extravagance. Suppose we could ascertain the precise number of dollars and cents, or of pounds, shillings, and pence, expended by such men as Watt, and Arkwright, and Stephenson, and Morse, and Whitney, and Fulton, and Woodworth, and Hoe, and McCormick, and so many others, in making and perfecting their inventions,—what proportion would those figures bear to those that should even attempt to measure the immeasurable value of the inventions themselves? And what must we think of the folly, absurdity, and tyranny of that dearth of money which our monopolists of money would have maintained if they could; which would have made these inventions impossible; and which now withholds them from four-fifths, perhaps from nine-tenths, of mankind?

[2 ] We have all heard of the bumpkin who tried an experiment to ascertain upon how little food his horse could be made to subsist. His experiment succeeded to his entire satisfaction, until, from some cause he could not understand, his horse happened to die. Stupid as he was, he may possibly have suspected it was from a want of food; for we do not hear that he ever tried the experiment again. But our financial bumpkins (or something worse) persist in trying the same experiment over and over again. The industry upon which they try it invariably dies; but they learn no wisdom, or caution (or honesty) from the results.

[1 ] All but ten millions—a ten thousandth part of the whole—would have to be sold, since each man would retain for his own consumption only a ten thousandth part of what he produced; namely, one thousand dollars’ worth.

[1 ] Old coins—those that are no more than twenty, thirty, or fifty years old—are so rare that they sell for high prices as curiosities.

[2 ] That is, from Europe for two thousand years, and from America from its first discovery by Europeans.

[1 ] I believe the English have recently attempted to introduce a small copper coin, called an anna: but what is its precise value, or what the number in circulation, I do not know.

[1 ] The sale of them as money is not a use of them any more than the sale of a horse is a use of the horse. For convenience in speech, we call the buying and selling of money a use of it, but it is no more a use of it than the buying and selling of any other merchandise is a use of such merchandise. When a man says he wants money to use, he means only that he wants to part with it,—that he wants either to pay a debt with it, or to give it in exchange for something that he can use or consume.

[1 ] We can have at least a hundred and fifty times as many paper dollars as we can gold and silver dollars. And yet every one of these paper dollars, if it represents a dollar’s worth of actual property that can either be itself delivered in redemption of the paper, or can otherwise be made available for the redemption of the paper, will have the same value in the market as the coins.

[2 ] To say that a gold dollar, or a silver dollar, has any more true or natural market value than any other dollar’s worth of vendible property is just as absurd as it would be to say that a yardstick has more length than a yard of cloth or a yard of any thing else; or as it would be to say that a pound weight has more weight than a pound of sugar or a pound of stone.

[1 ] The bankers have no motive to issue more of their notes than are needed for circulation at coin prices; because their only motive for issuing their notes at all is to get interest on them while they are in circulation. If they issue no more than are needed for circulation at coin prices, the notes, as a general rule, will remain in circulation until they come back to the bankers in payment of notes discounted; and the bankers will have no occasion to redeem them otherwise than by receiving them in payment of notes discounted. But if the bankers issue more notes than are needed for circulation at coin prices, the surplus notes will come back for redemption in coin before they have earned any interest. Thus the bankers will not only fail of getting any profit from their issues, but will subject themselves to the necessity and inconvenience of redeeming their notes with coin. They, therefore, have no chance of profit, but necessarily subject themselves to inconvenience, and perhaps loss, if they issue more notes than are wanted for circulation at coin prices.

[1 ] The principle named in the text of course applies only to solvent banks. It has nothing to do with insolvent ones, whose business is to swindle the public. As a general rule, only those banks can be relied on as solvent where the private property of the stockholders is holden for the notes of the company. Not that there may not be other solvent ones,—for undoubtedly there may be,—but experience thus far has been largely against all others.

[1 ] One cause that made the English banking companies—companies consisting of not more than six partners—unworthy of credit was that, although the private property of the partners was holden for the partnership debts, yet the condition of land titles in England was such as to make land practically unavailable as a basis of credit. The credit of the bankers, therefore, rested only on their personal property. That is, the credit of each banking company rested, at best, only on the personal property of not more than six persons.

[1 ] See “The Law of Prices” in the “Radical Review” for August, 1877.

[* ] It would be absurd to expect any rapid increase or equitable distribution of wealth, unless we abjure forever the theory, on which our own government and so many others now act, viz., that it is wholly unnecessary that money should be an equivalent of the property that is to be bought with it; that the money of a country should be restricted by law to a very small amount; that the right to issue this amount should be granted as a monopoly to a very few persons; that these few should thus be licensed to control all industry and traffic; to fix the prices of all property and labor; and thus to extort, in exchange for their money, many times more of all other men’s property and labor than the money is really and truly worth. Such a monopoly has obviously no tendency or purpose but to obstruct production and exchange, and enable the few to secure to themselves the wealth produced by the many.

[* ] It was first published in the Radical Review for August, 1877; and afterward in a pamphlet.

[* ] All but ten millions—a ten thousandth part of the whole—would have to be sold, since each man would retain for his own consumption only a ten thousandth part of what he produced; namely, one thousand dollars’ worth.

[* ] The probability is, I think, that if the right of property in all scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, past and future, were made perpetual, all over the world, the discoverers and inventors themselves, and their heirs and assigns, would get not more than one per cent. of all the wealth created by means of them.