292 MR HAMILTON ON THE PROSPECTS OF THE UNION. 



the opportunity of enlarged acquirement, is in fact excluded 

 from all the valuable offices of state. As matters are now 

 ordered in the United States, these are distributed exclusively 

 among one small class of the community, while those who 

 constitute the real strength of the country, have barely a voice 

 in the distribution of those loaves and fishes, which they are 

 not permitted to enjoy. There does exist, then, they argue, 

 an aristocracy of the most odious kind, an aristocracy of 

 knowledge, education, and refinement, which is inconsist 

 ent with the true democratic principle of absolute equality. 

 They pledge themselves, therefore, to exert every effort, 

 mental and physical, for the abolition of this flagrant injustice. 

 They proclaim it to the world as a nuisance which must be 

 abated, before the freedom of an American be something more 

 than a mere empty boast. They solemnly declare that they 

 will not rest satisfied, till every citizen in the United States 

 shall receive the same degree of education, and start fair in 

 the competition for the honours and the offices of the state. 

 As it is of course impossible and these men know it to be so 

 to educate the labouring classes to the standard of the 

 richer, it is their professed object to reduce the latter to the 

 same mental condition with the former ; to prohibit all su 

 pererogatory knowledge ; to have a maximum of acquirement, 

 beyond which it shall be punishable to go. 



&quot; But those who limit their views to the mental degrada 

 tion of their country, are in fact the MODERATES of the party. 

 There are others who still go farther, and boldly advocate the 

 introduction of an AGRARIAN LAW, and a periodical division 

 of property. These unquestionably constitute the extreme 

 gauche of the Worky Parliament, but still they only follow 

 out the principles of their violent neighbours, and eloquently 

 dilate on the justice and propriety of every individual being 

 equally supplied with food and clothing ; on the monstrous 

 iniquity of one man riding in his carriage, while another walks 

 on foot, and, after his drive, discussing a bottle of Cham 

 pagne, while many of his neighbours are shamefully com 

 pelled to be content with the pure element. Only equalize 

 property, they say, and neither would drink Champagne or 



