232 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



lating classes, and what is called the governed, against those who 

 govern — falsely called the servants of the people — in the practi- 

 cal developments of our misgoverned republic. 



For the last forty years, Mr. Chairman, allow me to say it, I 

 am not speaking as a politician — in truth, there is nothing I more 

 detest, than what is called politics in these last days — what I am 

 about to say, I utter as one of the nominally conceded sovereigns 

 of this mighty commonwealth — as a man endowed by God with 

 the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 

 and therefore I say, that for the last forty years, to my certain 

 knowledge, politically, governraentall}^ the entire resources of this 

 government, physical, intellectual and moral, have been devoted, 

 to the subversion of every one of the above specifications of tho 

 true functions of a democratic government. I can prove what I 

 say, but this is not the time, or the appropriate occasion ; and, 

 therefore, I simply say, that until the masses of the people are 

 educated in the science of true political economy, which is noth- 

 ing more than enlarged domestic economy, or sound husbandry, 

 we would be doing injustice to those noble hearted capitalists 

 that are ever ready to embark in those enterprises that give 

 further promise of the development of the resources of our coun- 

 try and its industry, and more surely and thoroughly establish 

 its liberty and independence of the pauper labor of despots and 

 tyrants. Why, sir, it should be the ambition of every citizen of 

 the United States to withhold every cent of the net earned pro- 

 duct of liberty from the support of kings and potentates ; at least 

 limit them to the necessities beyond the capacities of our soil, 

 climate and industry to produce. And never, sir, until the people 

 are educated to this point, and that infamous lie — that source of 

 all villainies, of all iniquity, slavery, is destroyed, will I recom- 

 mend an extensive culture of silk, nor its use, beyond the abso- 

 lute necessities, and they are very few. To cultivate silk success- 

 fully it must be protected by a law of the General Government; 

 and no such law has, or ever will grace the record of our national 

 statute book longer than to develop the fact that it remunerates 

 free labor, so long as that body of death is borne through the 

 streets of this republic upon the shoulders of Liberty. 



As to the capacity of our soil, climate and the artistic genius 

 of our citizens, it needs no more argument to establish than that 

 of cotton, flax and wool, simply governmental protection, that in 

 ten years would place us as independent of Great Britain, Europe 



