Ch. vi. the prmcipal Cause of Poverty, S^'C. 319 



society is to be preserved, he falls into the com- 

 mon error of attributing all want of happiness to 

 government. It is evident that this want of hap- 

 piness might have existed, and from ignorance 

 might have been the principal cause of the riots, 

 and yet be almost wholly unconnected with any 

 of the proceedings of government. The redundant 

 population of an old state furnishes materials of 

 unhappiness, unknown to such a state as that of 

 America; and if an attempt were to be made to 

 remedy this unhappiness by distributing the pro- 

 duce of the taxes to the poorer classes of society, 

 according to the plan proposed by Mr. Paine, the 

 evil would be aggravated a hundred fold, and in a 

 very short time no sum that the society could 

 possibly raise would be adequate to the proposed 

 object. 



Nothing would so effectually counteract the 

 mischiefs occasioned by Mr. Paine's Rights of 

 Man, as a general knowledge of the real rights of 

 man. What these rights are it is not my business 

 at present to explain; but there is one right which 

 man has generally been thought to possess, which 

 I am confident he neither does nor can possess — 

 a right to subsistence when his labour will not 

 fairly purchase it. Our laws indeed say that he has 

 this right, and bind the society to furnish employ- 

 ment and food to those who cannot get them in 

 the regular market ; but in so doing they attempt 

 to reverse the laws of nature; and it is in conse- 

 quence to be expected, not only that they should 

 fail in their object, but that the poor, who were 



