TEA2s^SACTI0XS. 41 



all countries where a very dense population has not re- 

 duced labor to its minimum, and carried produce to its 

 maxiuium limit of price. But it is by no means certain 

 that such a system is, under other circumstances, equally 

 disadvantageous to the economy of the State. In all gov- 

 ernments where the people, the laborer included, is recog- 

 nized as having rights to exercise, and interests to foster 

 and protect, in the administration of public affairs, the 

 power and riches of the State must be acknowledged to 

 consist in the prosperity and wealth of its individual mem- 

 bers, and therefore its welfare is best promoted by that 

 public and private policy which tends to distribute and 

 equalize, rather than to accumulate pecuniary capital. A 

 million of dollars divided among five hundred citizens, is 

 far more available for all legitimate governmental uses 

 than if it were hoarded by an individual ; and what is 

 of much more importance, these five hundred independent 

 freemen are very much more efficient and reliable support- 

 ers and defenders of the government of their choice, than 

 if they were reduced to the condition of hirelings by the 

 absorption of their united wealth into the coffers of a sin- 

 gle capitalist. The riches of a free State and the riches 

 of its people are convertible terms, and a wide, perma- 

 nent national domain, or a great accumulation of public 

 treasure, or even of invested capital, are at once usually 

 unproductive, and at the same time repugnant to the ge- 

 nius of popular institutions. These can only flourish where 

 all public interests constitute, literally, a common wealth, 

 or stock in which every citizen has both a proprietary 

 right, and a beneficial enjoyment of control and usufruct. 

 Now, the tendency of a system of agriculture which, liko 

 that of England, pushes its improvement beyond the point 

 of greatest profit to the capitalist, is to the diffusion of 

 property rather than to its accumulation, because the same 

 quantity of land requires the labor of more hands, and 

 thus brings a larger number to share its ixturns. Although, 



