The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Part One: the Doctrine of Equal Rights
• True Functions of Government
• The Reserved Rights of the People
• Objects of the Evening Post
• Reply to the Charge of Lunacy
• The Legislation of Congress
• Religious Intolerance
• Direct Taxation
• The Course of the Evening Post
• Chief Justice Marshall
• Prefatory Remarks
• The Sister Doctrines
• The True Theory of Taxation
• Strict Construction
• Legislative Indemnity For Losses From Mobs
• The Despotism of the Majority
• Morals of Legislation
• The Morals of Politics
• Part Two: Separation of Bank and State
• Bank of United States
• Small Note Circulation
• The Monopoly Banking System
• Uncurrent Bank Notes
• Fancy Cities
• Causes of Financial Distress
• Why Is Flour So Dear?
• Thoughts On the Causes of the Present Discontents
• Strictures On the Late Message
• The Value of Money
• The Way to Cheapen Flour
• The Money Market and Nicholas Biddle
• The Pressure—the Cause of It—and the Remedy
• Connexion of State With Banking
• The Crisis
• The Bankrupt Banks
• What We Must Do, and What We Must Not
• “the Foresight of Individual Enterprise”
• The Safety Fund Bubble
• Separation of Bank and State
• The Remedy For Broken Banks
• “blest Paper Credit”
• Questions and Answers
• The True and Natural System
• The Bugbear of the Bank Democrats
• Bank and State
• Theory and Practice
• Separation of Bank and State
• “specie Basis”
• The Natural System
• The Credit System and the Aristocracy
• The Divorce of Politicks and Banking
• Part Three: Abolition Insolence
• Riot At the Chatham-street Chapel
• Governor Mcduffie’s Message
• The Abolitionists
• Reward For Arthur Tappan
• The Anti-slavery Society
• Abolitionists
• Slavery No Evil
• Progress of Fanaticism
• An Argument Against Abolition Refuted
• Commencement of the Administration of Martin Van Buren
• The Question of Slavery Narrowed to a Point
• “abolition Insolence”
• Part Four: the Division of Political Classes
• Despotism of Andrew Jackson
• The Division of Parties
• Rich and Poor
• The Street of the Palaces
• American Nobility
• The Inequality of Human Condition
• A Bad Beginning
• The Whig Embassy to Washington, and Its Result
• Right Views Among the Right Sort of People
• Newspaper Nominations
• Foreign “paupers”
• Part Five: the Principles of Free Trade
• Monopolies: I
• “a Little Free-trade Crazy”
• Asylum For Insane Paupers
• Monopolies: Ii
• Revolutionary Pensioners
• Joint-stock Partnership Law
• The Ferry Monopoly
• Free Trade Post Office
• Stock Gambling
• Weighmaster General
• State Prison Monopoly
• Corporation Property
• Regulation of Coal
• Free Ferries and an Agrarian Law
• Thanksgiving Day
• Municipal Docks
• Associated Effort
• The Coal Question
• The Corporation Question
• Free Trade Weights and Measures
• Associated Effort
• Sale of Publick Lands
• Manacles Instead of Gyves
• The Meaning of Free Trade
• Gambling Laws
• Free Trade Post Office
• Free Trade, Taxes, and Subsidies
• Meek and Gentle With These Butchers
• The Cause of High Prices, and the Rights of Combination
• Omnipotence of the Legislature
• Part Six: Literary Property
• Rights of Authors
• The Rights of Authors
• Right of Property In the Fruits of Intellectual Labour

AMERICAN NOBILITY

Plaindealer,

December 31, 1836.

Extract deleted.

A writer, of uncommon eloquence and ingenuity, has appealed, in the columns of the Evening Post, under the signature of Anti-Privilege, and has undertaken to prove the unconstitutionality of the restraining law, on the ground that it is a violation of that clause of the federal constitution which declares that no state shall grant any title of nobility. It is obvious, from the whole tenor of the article, that this is not undertaken as a mere exercise of ingenuity; but that, “just in his views or not, the writer is in earnest.” We have read his remarks with attention, and profess ourselves to be of the opinion he so cogently maintains, that the restraining law is, in effect, if not in letter, a grant of titles of nobility to those whom its provisions protect in their special privileges and immunities. We cannot better appropriate a portion of our space, than by inserting an extract from this able essay.

. . .

The author of the above new view of a very important subject has promised to continue his speculations, and we hope, for the sake of the public good which such investigations are calculated to effect, that he will redeem his pledge. We have been in the habit for a long time, of speaking very freely on the subject of the exclusive privileges of our chartered aristocracy, and have frequently, for the purpose of bringing the system into disrepute, termed those who are enjoying its advantages, the scrip nobility, and the noble order of the money-changers. The peculiar privileges which they exercise (and exercise very tyrannously at times,) we really considered, in point of fact, fully equal to those of any order of European nobility, and, in their tendency to undermine our democratic institutions, highly insidious and dangerous. But we have not before been led to reflect that the act which constitutes the exclusiveness of these rights and immunities is a grant of titles of nobility, in positive contravention of an express provision of the Constitution of the United States. We tender to Anti-Privilege our cordial thanks for the flood of new and useful light he has shed upon this subject.

We have heretofore looked on the restraining law as an unequal, unnecessary, and unjust restraint on the natural freedom of capital and industry. We shall hereafter look upon it with augmented abhorrence as a positive violation of the Constitution of the United States, in a respect which was meant to guard the American people from the approaches of aristocracy. We have heretofore looked upon banking incorporations, which that law encircles and protects, as possessed of privileges incompatible with the principle of equal rights, a principle which constitutes the very foundation of human freedom. We shall hereafter look upon them with increased aversion, as the possessors of actual titles of nobility, distinguished by more objectionable features than the patents of the European aristocracy; and we shall labour with renewed zeal to enfranchise the community from their degrading subjection to the noble order of the money-changers.