INTRODUCTION. 397 



cases where hopeless slavery and irreparable decay are the 

 only alternatives. 



Revolution is the natural outgrowth of oppression and 

 is sure to follow when oppression reaches its maximum. 

 The best remedy is to remove the cause that is oppression. 

 We have seen that revolution w r as the legitimate result 

 of oppression, and were we to study the causes which 

 have at all times, and in all ages, precipitated the people 

 from a condition of comparative freedom and happiness, to 

 one of abject poverty, degradation and despair, we would, 

 undoubtedly, in a majority of cases trace them to the same 

 source. Every period of distress and political disaster that 

 has not been the immediate result of foreign invasion, con- 

 tinued famine or malignant pestilence, has, no doubt, been 

 precipitated by a system of burdensome laws and unjust 

 exaction of "the powers that be." That history will 

 repeat itself is an axiom proven by the experience of the 

 ages; and, "like causes will produce like effects," is a 

 philosophical truth. 



The condition of the laboring classes of the American 

 people is not new; neither are the causes which have 

 produced it. It would seem that all the abundant resources 

 of a country endowed by Nature's God with extraordinary 

 facilities of commerce, and replete in all the concomitants 

 of wealth, that the American people should, not only be 

 the most intelligent, the most prosperous, and the hap- 

 piest on the face of the earth, but should present to the 

 eyes of the world a government granting larger liberties in 

 its constitution, more equitable justice in the administra- 

 tion of its laws, and greater protection to the weak in the 

 application of its power, than any other in existence. If we 

 are asked why, we answer: that from its very inception, nay, 

 from the time the pilgrims first conceived the idea of 

 braving the dangers of the mighty deep to take refuge in 

 an isolated land, they breathed the inspiration of liberty. 



