D, AND LAW

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From the collection of the

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San Francisco, California
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LABOE, LAND AND LAW.

LABOR, LAND AND LAW

A SEARCH FOR THE MISSING WEALTH
OF THE WORKING POOR

BY

WILLIAM A. PHILLIPS

* / *

MEMBER COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS, FORTY-THIBD CONGRESS, AND ON BANKING AND
CURRENCY, FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1886

COPYRIGHT, DEC., 1885, BY
W. A. PHILLIPS.

TK 1 .

vr

GRANT <fe FAIRES
PHILADELPHIA

TO

MY DEAR WIFE

ANNA B. S. PHILLIPS

WHO HAS VERY MATERIALLY ASSISTED IN

THE PREPARATION OF THIS WORK, IT

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

BY THE AUTHOR

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

SINCE this work -was first undertaken questions involving the
rights of workingmen and the forms of landholding have steadily
grown in general interest. For the better study of these subjects
the facts herewith submitted have been collated. Care has been
token to present in as readable shape as possible, a large part of
what is known of the various kinds of land tenure among men.
The effects of the different forms of landholding on the indus-
trial interests, have been traced, and, also, the origin and growth
of many of those individual and family rights which have left
their marks on our social system. Slavery, vassalage, serfdom,
and the various modes of employing and remunerating or robbing
labor have been placed before the reader, and the change from
master workman to capitalist employer, the organization of cap-
ital, the formation and growth of guilds, trades unions and labor
societies, considered.

A long experience amidst the wonderful developments of the
Western states, and the privilege of having taken part in the
public discussion and consideration of great economic questions,
while they have furnished an interesting field for observation
and study, have also tended to modify previous opinions and
mould the views which are here presented. The works of many
other writers on the subject have been referred to and discussed.
The purpose being to throw all possible light on the subject, their
books have been analysed in all frankness. It is the hope of the
writer that the references to them may not be considered unfair
or iincourteous.

WASHINGTON, D. C., December, 1885.

vii

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

Raising the wind The relations of law to labor and land Distribu-
tions of created wealth and ownership of accumulated property
Natural and commercial price of labor Contracts as a basis for
society, versus the doctrine of right and wrong Inventors only
enjoy limited rights Chattel titles to land a monopoly Titles
based on discovery, conquest or first .use Causes of inequality
between rich and poor Organized capital and corporations Gam-
bling in stocks and breadstuffs Slavery and land monopoly twin
robbers of labor Prof. Sumner Walker Henry George, ....

CHAPTER I.

THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SYSTEM OP ANCIENT ISRAEL.

Scope of the Hebrew laws The patriarchate the primitive govern-
ment, of the Semitic races Laws framed to regulate land tenure
before land was possessed Available area of Judea Distinction
between property in the country and in walled cities Land nation-
alization rejected Family tenure of land The year of jubilee
Usurpations of the monarchy Tithes and taxes The peculiar and
advantageous features of Jewish polity, 30

CHAPTER II.

SYSTEMS OF LAND AND LABOR IN ANCIENT EMPIRES.

Similarity of populations on the Nile and Euphrates Landlords and
rent in Egypt All below the privileged army and priesthood had
to work Only one occupation allowed Every citizen's home and
business registered, in Ancient Egypt Legislation against borrow-

ix

; CONTEXTS.

ing money In Chaldea and Babylon the king and his satraps the
sole tyrants The king as landlord Persian political economy
Laborers should not be robbed beyond the point when they would
cease to produce Carthage a combination or corporation fur mer-
chandising, piracy and slave dealing Carthage called a republic, but
drifted into three classes : slaves, a mercenary army and an aristoc-
racy Theory and practice of government in Greece Land laws of
Lycurgus Gold and silver banished Constant struggle between
the aristocrats and laboring people of Greece Solon and Athens
Debt on land and slaves abolished Lejjal value of silver coin in-
creased by law Timocracy, or man's rights measured by his property
Greece, eaten up by landed and other aristocrats, surrenders to
tyrants Koine a robbers' den Reduction of the aristocracy and rise
of the republic Division of land among the people Seven acres
enough Land assigned on two year terms Gradual absorption of
land and money by the equestrian order Slaves take tli$ place of free
laborers Death of Tiberius Gracchus Overthrow of the republic
Citizens subsidized Swallowed up by despotism and immorality, 46

CHAPTER III.

CONDITION OF LABOR AND LAND IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

Aryan emigration to Europe Allodial title the distinction for free-
men The village council the ancient foundation of government
Division of conquered lands Women's property rights invaded
The feudal system erected on breach of public trust Primogeniture
Freemen reduced to villeinage Game laws for the pleasure of
aristocrats Social rights invaded Marriages between commoners
and nobles declared unlawful Laws of escheat The civil list The
" Younger Son " Banditti Parliaments represent landowners
Guilds and trades societies Free cities and towns Gunpowder as a
democratic element Titles the insignia of luxurious vagabondage, . 82

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHRISTIAN SYSTEM AS ITS PRINCIPLES AFFECT SOCIETY AND
ORGANIZED GOVERNMENT.

Religious belief a pillar of law The status and power of Christian
nations Religious political economy Does Christianity teach
socialism Unholy alliance of church and state A church founded
on capital necessarily corrupt and idolatrous Dates of the introduc-
tion of Christianity to Europe Monastic orders Slavery and

CONTENTS. XI

woman's rights Polygamy Keformations Sects Denominations
Agnostics and the supernatural Prof. Sumner's doctrine of a
" free state " and the law of " contracts " Startling effect of " ecclesi-
astical prejudice " Dives and Lazarus, 108

CHAPTER V.

THE MAHOMETAN SYSTEM, AND THE GOVERNMENTS AND FORMS OF
SOCIETY FOUNDED ON IT.

Arabia the blest and curst The robber of the desert a founder of em-
pires Democratic tendencies of Mahometanism Its foundation
Plunder and polygamy Furnished an occupation for the large class
who seek to subsist by war or their wits Slavery legalized Women
degraded War on property rights of women Mahometan laws of
taxation Land tenure Divorce Wills forbidden Temperance .
and abstinence by law Licentiousness established on earth and
deified in heaven Pure Mahometanism, or Theism Worship of the
Prophet an innovation Christianity and Mahometanism the only
cosmopolite religions Informations in the Mahometan church
The Wahabees Mahdis Causes of Mahometan decay, 131

CHAPTER VI.

LAND AND LABOR IN RUSSIA AND ASIATIC COUNTRIES.

Chattel title to land unknown Struggles of Turanian and Tartar
Central Asia rendered a desert by misgovernment Rents and graz-
ing taxes Tartar greenbacks India the seat of allodial title and
village government Emperors, kings, warriors and corporations,
merely organized robbers Tax collecting the chief feature of impe-
rialism The British attempt to plant landed aristocracy in India-
Lord Cornwallis From Yorktown to Bengal Sale of land for debt
formerly unknown in India Land speculation introduced " Mu-
tiny " China and " cheap labor " Dense population Chinese laud
tenure Hung Ki Rate of rent No landed aristocracy Banks in
China Paper money Pawnbrokers Secret societies Rates of in-
terest Civil service reform Opium vs. whiskey Russia a network
of colonies Great and Little Russia The Mir The vetche The
village commune Land systems of Eastern and Western Europe
compared Usurpations of the Tzars Overthrow of popular rights
and government Recent attempts to liberate Russia from aristocrats
and tyrants Russian politics Despotism and nihilism, 155

Xll CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE VII.

THE LAND SYSTEM OF MODERN EUROPE.

Lavergne Agrarian legislation of this century Lawns and deer parks
versus cottages French small holdings Number of proprietors in
France and Britain Condition of the French peasantry Exports
of England and France Effect of small farms on wages Oppressive
debts of the aristocracy Improvements under large and small hold-
ings Code Napoleon French law of inheritance Belgium Lave-
leye Made lands Gross production of a hectare Spade husbandry
Short and long leases Average food of workingmen in Europe
Spain Aristocracy and decay of husbandry Average wages Afor-
amento Portuguese tenure Austria Hungary Size of estates
Number of cultivating farmers Tenants and farm laborers Wages
and work of men and women Italy Relative population Number
of landowners Tenants and leases Rent Wages Production
Land tenure in Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden Number and
kind of landowners Size of estates Food of working people
Wages Emigration from Scandinavian nations Prussia Per cent,
of landowners Price of land Abolition of Villeinage Agrarian
legislation Rent Food Wages, 199

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LAND SYSTEM OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

Cultivated and uncultivated areas Acreocracy Extent and value of
aristocratic holdings Number of landowners Urban and country
population Rent during six hundred years Prices of wheat and
beef Aristocratic debts saddled on the people Primogeniture and
the younger sons Loss of cottage and pasture privileges by working-
men Law of parish settlement Food and wages No law to secure
a tenant for his improvements A " retired tenant farmer " Board
and wages three centuries ago Prices Watt Tyler Growth of
cities Manufacture and commerce Mr. Giffen searching for the
laborer's wealth Mallock Modern wages Houses and food Ire-
land Arthur Young Subjection of Ireland Landlords in tripli-
cate Noblemen, perpetual landholders, middlemen and cultivators
Rents in Ireland Redpath ^Tenants and evictions Number of
land proprietors Battersby and compensation Argyle and Henry
George The duke as a philosopher and as a sheep raiser Defense
of British aristocracy Agricultural decadence Growth of manufac-
tures and commerce Food produced and food imported Rival
aristocracy of money, 233

CONTENTS. Xlll

CHAPTER IX.

THE ABORIGINAL AMERICAN SYSTEM OP LAND TENURE.

Agricultural and roving populations Tribal government Aboriginal
money and exchange Tribal boundaries Homes and hunting
grounds Male and female occupations Sparse populations Decay
and degradation of the Aborigines under European pressure Relig-
ious beliefs Rights in land not bought and sold Communal land,
but individual property Caribbee and Arowaks Three classes of
Aborigines Land laws of Cherokees and Choctaws The soil com-
mon, but improvements personal property John Ross Corn Plant
Bushyhead Land in severalty prescribed by the whites Treaties
used to secure foothold and land Repudiated when the Indians
grow weak Washington Gen. Knox Chief Justice Marshall
Cass and Jackson versus the Supreme Court Indian inertia Zuni
and its rich man A Caribbee political economist, 278

CHAPTER X.

ERA OF EUROPEAN DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT IN AMERICA
RIGHT OF DISCOVERY RIGHT OF CONQUEST.

European discoverers visit America for gold, silver and trade A cen-
tury of robbery, rapine and murder Comparison between European
and American society at date of discovery Slavery and Las Casas
Dates of actual settlement in the West Indies Dates of actual settle-
ment in North America W T hat led to it Settlements of the North-
men Discovery a better title than possession Conquest on pretense
of Christianizing Native rights disregarded French and Spanish
colonies fraternize with the natives English colonies refuse to min-
gle The Indian must " go West " Attempts to plant white aristo-
cracy First speculations in sales and gifts of American lands
Popes, kings and parliaments granted land they had never seen
Colonial boundaries Annexation, wars of conquest Treaties De-
gradation and extermination The Henderson purchase Baron
Graffenreid John Locke's constitution American lords and pala-
tines Aristocracy Slavery Free settlements, 299

CHAPTER XI.

HISTORY OF THE LAND POLITY OF THE UNITED STATES.

Land tenure shaped in colonial days Conflicting colonial claims
Continental Congress Plea to pay expenses of Revolutionary War

XIV CONTENTS.

from public lands First land bounty for soldiers Proposed North-
west colony Washington's landed estates The Walpole Land
Company The Ohio Company The Quebec bill Ordinance for
the Northwest territory Madison's comments First modes of land
sale French commons^John Adams Property in soil the founda-
tion of power Land sold from 1796 to 1885 Proceeds in money
Less than a year's customs and revenue The surplus funds The
years of great land speculation Borrowing public money to Isuy
public lands Distribution of the proceeds Graduation bill Grants
of lands to states To schools and colleges To canals To corpora-
tions Preemption law Homestead law Great and small land
speculators Squatters Residue of public lands Frauds under a
bad system Texas and her lands Mexican grants Letter from the
commissioner Aggregate homesteads filed and taken Timber cult-
ure grants Area disposed for bounty land warrants Number of
farms in the United States Number of landholders Of renters
Of farm laborers Gradual transfer of land from settler to land
speculator, 320

CHAPTER XII.

CORPORATIONS.

Unsatisfactory statistics of corporations Corporations known to Roman -
law Early town corporations East India Company Supposed legal
powers of corporations Plea of vested rights A legislature cannot
grant power that strips its successors of authority Public and pri-
vate companies Corporations a subordinate power of the State
Eminent domain Railroads public highways A curious charter
Craftsmen employers and corporate employers Money as an em-
ployer Crafts, guilds and trades unions William Pitt Imaginary
political necessity for cheap labor Organization of capital in cor-
porations The organization of labor John Stuart Mill on co-op-
eration Consolidation among the autocrats of transportation
Stocks, assets, liabilities and income of railroads Miraculous expan-
sion of capital under the fingering of corporations Revenues of rail-
road companies A greater power than the State Army of em-
ployees under direction of a few National debts Corporate debts
greater than all public debts combined Banking on the confidence
plan Dealers in money becoming jobbers in labor The accu-
mulated property in the country and who owns it Piratical stock
jobbing Rights of individuals and powers of the State threatened
by corporations, 3GO

CONTESTS. XV

CHAPTER XIII.

SHADOWS OF THE COMING AMERICAN ARISTOCRACY.

The fetters of want American and French republics Free and slave
labor in the young American republic Aristocracy as first planted
almost submerged Failure of political amendments to secure equal
power to landless freedmen The exodus Capitalist and wage
worker Duke of Argyle Necessity of maintaining republican sim-
plicity Great increasing wealth Where it goes Rich, middle and
poorer classes Wages and incomes of tradesmen Aggregate accu-
mulated wealth What workingmen have no interest in What they
have a small interest in Gradually ceasing to own lands and lots
Statistics of labor and of employees, professional men and capitalists
Family and individual property Laws of inheritance Life Prop-
erty Reputation Interest and compound interest The cumulative
power of capital Atkinson on national debts Paper credits carry
on business Profits of directing energy Capital which is used, and
capital which is of little use Non-producing classes always an aris-
tocracy We must cultivate respect for honest poverty, 396

CHAPTER XIV.

REMEDIES.

Is the body politic disordered Great wealth cannot insure national
stability Inequality in condition steadily developing Workers not
getting their share What has caused the unequal distribution of
wealth In the early republic no great millionaires and few beggars
Number of monopolies embraced in land monopoly Allodial title
Two pleas for rent Can improvements constitute an alienating
lien Bastiat The natural and indestructible powers of the soil
What rights in land are in accord with public policy Length of
tenure necessary to secure high improvements Land should only be
held by occupying cultivators Reduction of farms with increase of
population Money should be refused speculating investment in land,
or investment to secure rent Henry George's plan Tax and rent
must not be permitted to increase the price of bread and meat Tax
must come out of accumulated capital Large farms and landholders
Land speculation and wholesale farming should be taxed out of
existence The destruction of artificial land values no calamity
What is just and what is practicable Cyrus Field and Henry George
Timber lands Grazing lands Mineral lands Railroad land
grants Various communal experiments Mormonism Icaria

XVI CONTENTS.

Kobert Owen Fourierism Shakers Oneida perfectionists Indi-
vidualism and socialism How are wages to be raised Combination
and organization Law, the servant of labor Assassination and
dynamite the suicide of labor interests What is the legitimate
business of government How to control railroad and other corpora-
tions Justice but not pauperism Public improvements Homes for
workingmen Will-making and inheritance, 424

LABOR, LAND AND LAW.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Raising the wind The relations of law to labor and land Distribution
of created wealth and ownership of accumulated property Natural and
commercial price of labor Contracts as a basis for society, versus the
doctrine of right and wrong Inventors only enjoy limited rights
Chattel titles to land a monopoly Titles based on discovery, conquest
or first use Causes of inequality between rich and poor Organized
capital and corporations Gambling in stocks and breadstuffs Slavery
and land monopoly twin robbers of labor Prof. Sumner Walker
Henry George.

IT is related that a certain Eastern potentate fell into
the impecunious condition, common to many of his prede-
cessors, and all of his successors, and set his wits to work to
devise a remedy. A farmer of imposts who had often aided
him, in this dilemma came to his rescue. He offered him
sixty thousand tomans for all the winds that should ever blow
over Cashmere. The monarch at first affected to be staggered
at the proposition. He was unable to find anything in prece-
dents to warrant it, but, although a believer in the doctrine
that whatever is, is right, he was forced to admit that a mon-
arch may introduce useful innovations. Of course, it was
assumed that he was the supreme owner and disposer of all
things in his dominions, not only for his own brief, erratic
span of life, but for all time, and so he came to the conclusion
that as everything in the world had been sold which could be
sold, there was no good reason why the winds, unstable

1

2 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

though they might be, should be exempted if a purchaser
could be found. After a proper amount of preliminary hag-
gling a sale was made and the transaction legalized by all that
signatures, seals and parchment could do for it.

Before the public had fairly got over laughing at the
absurdity of this novel bargain, the owner of the wind issued
a proclamation forbidding all persons in Cashmere from using
his wind to turn their windmills, winnow their corn, propel
their vessels or employ it in any other manner, until they had
first entered into agreements with him and obtained leases for
the various localities, covenanting to pay certain amounts for
the privilege. Then the laughing turned to lamentation.
The monarch met the torrent of petitions and complaints by
affecting to deplore the circumstance. He could not, of course,
foresee all that had occurred, but his sacred word was involved.
Rulers of that type are usually very particular about their
sacred word. Driven to desperation, the inhabitants contrib-
uted the amount that had been paid for the wind and tendered
it to their sovereign so that this unheard of transaction could
be cancelled.

The matter was not to be so easily arranged. The owner
of the winds of Cashmere would not think of such a thing.
He had acquired a vested right in them. Since it had become
purchasable the wind had greatly risen, in price at least.
Wind stocks were on an upward market. The owner insisted
that his title was good. He did not claim it merely by his
right of discovery of the commercial value of the wind, or
that he had been the first to preempt this privilege, but he
had fairly bought it from the representative of government,
and declared that his title was begirt, and founded on all that
was sacred in law or the theory of eminent domain and
supreme authority. It would be altogether unfair to ask him
to surrender this valuable privilege for anything less than
what it might bring him in case he should be allowed to keep
it. The proposition of the people was merely a bald scheme

RAISING THE WIND. 3

of robbery. It was subversive of all property rights ; was
socialistic, agrarian and revolutionary ; and to force him to
accept of a price so inadequate would strike a fatal blow at
the best interests of society and undermine the whole fabric
on which the rights of property rested.

This reasoning was, of course, entirely conclusive to the
monarch, who was undoubtedly the confederate of the farmer
of imposts, but, as human endurance can only be stretched to
certain limits, it was agreed between them that a fair price for
the wind, at that date, would be ten times what was originally
paid for it. This amount was finally raised by a long-suifering
people, who merely exacted a promise from the commercial
monarch that he would never sell the wind again, but permit
it in God's providence to blow over them free and unrestricted
as of yore.

I have introduced this incident with the hope of throwing
some light on the preliminary question What is property?
The public mind has become a good deal confused about the
meaning of the term, and questions of meum and tuum embar-
rassed by doubtful words and more doubtful doctrines of
political economy. Originally the word "property" referred
to the quality of a thing, but as it is with its modern meaning
we have to do, we find Webster's definition of it to be "The
exclusive right of possessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing,
ownership ; " and adds from Shakespeare, " To take as one's
own to appropriate." Assuming that property is the exclusive
right (or power) to possess, enjoy or dispose of a thing, the
question occurs as to what things are justly subject to indi-
vidual interest and will. Are the winds of the air, the waters
of the deep or the surface of the earth, things from which one
man can justly exclude all others, or which he has any right
to speculate in or buy and sell ? Can anything properly be
treated as property but that which is produced by individual
labor, effort or genius? It is now getting to be pretty gener-
ally conceded, according to the morals, religion and law of the

4 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

highest types of modern civilization, that a man has a right to
the proceeds of his own labor. It must not be forgotten that
this is by no means universal among mankind, and that little
more than twenty years have elapsed since, in our own country,
a portion of the population, nearly ten per cent, of it in fact,
and they of the producing classes, had no right to the proceeds
of their own labor, did not even own their own persons, and
that local law placed the ownership of the proceeds of their
labor in the hands of a privileged and aristocratic class.
When, therefore, we come to consider the question of property,
we are forced to consider another element besides natural
resources and human labor, and that is law. Property does
not so much consist in what a man may have in his hands at
the time, as in that which is respected as property by the com-
munity in which he lives : that which law will protect him
in ; that which the law declares to be his, and to the extent,
and in the manner, and for the purposes for which the law
declares it to be his, and subject to its changes and limitations.
In estimating the foundation of property or wealth, according
to the present accepted maxims of society, we of necessity
include the three great elements of labor, land and law.

There are but two titles to property of any kind : law or
force. The old free-booting maxim of " They may take who
have the power, and they may keep who can," or the bulwarks
established by organized and enlightened law : power, or the
highest human sense of justice. A strong brute tears from the
grasp of a weak one the food it is eating, and the latter
relinquishes it with a whine. The eagle seizes from the fish
hawk the trout the latter has piratically taken from the deep,
and thus the robber from the robber rends the prey. In the
dusky pool the big fish eat the little ones. In barbarous society
the strong oppress the weak, but there never was a condition
of human society so barbarous that a sense of justice did not
remain to protest against wrong. Human nature, as light and
opportunity is given, seeks protection in organized society.

We can rejoice, therefore, that at the present stage in the
progress of our country, the legitimate fruit of a man's labor
is recognized as his exclusive property. It is his, not only as
an abstract proposition of right, but as a proposition entitled to
the protection of law. It does not militate against this doc-
trine that he may, occasionally, be cheated out of a part of it.
He is no longer the victim of despotic violence, and intelligent,
progressive law is rapidly entering every field where chicanery
is endeavoring to do the work once done by violence.

What are the products of human labor ? The value of a
day's labor is what it can under ordinary circumstances produce.
Some men can produce more in a day than others. Skilled
labor is worth more than unskilled labor, because you have to
add to the value of each day of such labor the time and expense
of educating and preparing the workman for his work. All
of these circumstances enter into the commercial value of a
man's labor, but do not destroy the principle that a man has
a right to what his labor fairly produces. In order to work
effectively, especially in dense and civilized society, laborers
need to have certain privileges, and to use certain appliances
which may or may not be the laborer's own. The laborer is
thus forced to earn not only as much as will furnish him with
food and clothing, but enough to pay for the use of the appli-
ances, machinery or improvements he uses. Accumulated
capital thus becomes a sharer in what is produced by labor,
and if the distribution is perfectly fair, society can exist and
nourish. It is just here the wrongs of modern society begin.
If the streets were hemmed in with palaces and filled with
gold, men and women would suffer and starve for the food and
clothing of each year, unless some one worked to produce it.
Labor alone produces. Capital at best is inert and can only
facilitate. Why should it distribute the proceeds? The
capital accumulated yesterday is not so much entitled to the
consideration of society as the living, toiling, suffering pro-
ducing labor of to-day. Capital is entitled to a share of the

6 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

profits, but before they can be properly distributed, a sufficient
amount to provide for the laborer and his family, according to
the conditions of the society in which he lives, must be
deducted. The theory of one school of political economists is
that labor must use capital and appliances before it can pro-
duce. Instead of labor hiring capital or appliances, as a mat-
ter of fact capital and appliances hire labor. They do more :
they fix the price. Capital, moreover, is restive under any
interference with its bargains. It insists that the law of sup-
ply and demand is the only thing that should regulate the
price of labor. This is the fundamental basis of modern
theories of political economy. It is the law of selfishness
organized. There may be a certain degree of conscience or
consideration on the part of an employer mixed with it, but
these are purely accidental or unnecessary elements. If a man
with capital or able to be in active business only wants five
laborers and is offered ten, it is his privilege to haggle with
them, and reduce the price from one dollar to fifty cents ; and,
on the other hand, if two capitalists, or men in business, each
need ten laborers and only ten are offered, they are to bid
against each other and raise the price, say from fifty cents to
one dollar. When not interfered with by an outside power,
or law of organized society, this is the law of supply and
demand pure and simple. It will be observed, however, that
capital, acting intelligently under this law of self interest,
never bids the price of labor much above what it can profitably
employ it at. On the other hand, it is always the selfish interest
of capital to get labor as cheap as it can, and thus enhance its
profits. The operation of this rule must and does work to the
disadvantage of the laborer. It is the operation of this unre-
stricted law of selfishness that constantly tends in highly civil-
ized societies to make the rich grow richer and the poor poorer.
In a rude or barbarous condition of society the personal
rights of property are easily defined, The hunter finds and
kills a wild animal. Assuming that all things in nature are

OKGANIZED SELFISHNESS. 7

the property of man, he claims it by right of first discovery,
and he and his family eat it, and clothe themselves with its
skin. He discovers fruits, roots and nuts, which others have
not found. He catches and spears fish. Even he must have
capital. He makes and accumulates bows, arrows, knives,
spears, fishing tackle, a boat, and finally the hut or skin tent
that shelters him. This home, rude although it may be, he
considers his own. If he is able, he defends it against all
comers. Even barbarous society recognizes his right to it.
He probably does not make it an article of merchandise. He
certainly does not attempt to sell every foot of earth on which
.it may have stood : that he claims merely by an occupancy-
right. His right over it ceases when he migrates. In this
primitive condition of society, we do not find that the posses-
sor of the rude capital we have described obtains the services
of some young man, or wanderer without such capital, to use
his tools, and hunt and fish for both while he slumbers indo-
lently in his abode. According to the law of supply and
demand he could do this ; and if it was done in barbarous
society, we would soon have a lower depth of degradation
than even barbarism presents to us, and a privileged class,
contributing but little to the public interests. Barbarous so-
ciety does not admit of this, and is, therefore, not burdened
by a large non-productive class.

Artificial society is something altogether different. Its
conditions force us to ask if the law of organized selfishness
is the only possible producer of civilization and luxury?
There are not lacking those who tell us that wealth, pros-
perity and a high degree of civilization can only be pro-
duced under the rule " every one for himself and the Evil One
take the hindmost." That emulation to produce its highest
fruits must be stimulated by the hope of making profit out
of the ignorant, inexperienced, poverty-stricken and unwary,
and that law must not be permitted to interfere with the
sanctities of a bargain, no matter how unfair.

^

8 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

Highly civilized and densely populated communities can
only exist where there are great accumulations of what men call
property. It is a singular and sad circumstance, moreover,
that where we find the greatest wealth, we also find the most
fearful poverty. In our modern civilized society, property,
when created by human labor, runs into ruts. Those who do
the hardest work, with few exceptions, get the smallest por-
tion of its proceeds, and gradually settle to the bottom.
Those who, by the aid of capital, manage and direct labor,
live better and are more apt to get rich than those who
merely labor. Capital, through usury, increases its gains out
of all proportion to the benefits it confers upon society. When
a young man in a great city or densely populated commu-
nity gets old enough to work, if he has not the capital to
develop his own labor, he must accept what the man who
has, or controls capital, is willing to give him. The political
economist cries : " Would you compel an employer to give
more for labor than he can buy it for ? "

" The real value of a thing
Is just as much as it will bring."

In answering such questions intelligently, we must take a
broader view, and carefully examine the modes of distribu-
tion and production, and the assumption by capital of the
power to fix its profits and the wages of labor. Philosophers,
moralists and lawgivers all tell us that the greatest happiness
and prosperity of all the component parts of society is a con-
dition demanded by a just public policy. It is not in accord-
ance with public policy that property when created should
drift 5nto enormous, princely fortunes on one hand ; creating
pauperism on the other. The laboring producers are entitled
to a full share of the blessings they create, and any cause of
unequal distribution of proceeds is wrong, and such opera-
tions may be properly inquired into. When we find the offi-
cers of a great corporation, such as a railway company, sitting

DIVIDING RAILROAD INCOME. 9

down to fix expenses and salaries, determining that they
can only pay a laboring man one dollar per day, or three
hundred dollars a year; skilled laborers and mechanics six
hundred ; engineers and conductors ten or twelve hundred,
and so forth, we may consider it a reasonable and prudent
management of the great corporate interests intrusted to them.
If, however, they also vote the president ten or twelve thousand
dollars a year, the general superintendent eight or ten thousand,
and each of the board, for certain duties, real and imaginary,
similar amounts, it might strike an impartial observer as
hardly a fair distribution of what the enterprise produces.
When we also find that the capital invested has been dupli-
cated or triplicated by watered stock ; that mortgages have
been placed on such properties without adding anything
to their real or productive value ; that these great interests
have been distorted and perverted, in order to make real or
fictitious fortunes for a few men ; when we further see, as a
result of these proceedings, ruin threatening the enterprise,
and the laborers and employees so ground by reduced pay for
their labor that they cannot properly maintain their families,
those who have thus mismanaged should be required to give
a better reason for their oppressive orders than a desire to
pay heavier dividends on such inflated capital, or greater sal-
aries to the managers.

The law of supply and demand as a measure of values is
only true in certain conditions, and subject to certain limita-
tions. When we find a condition of society in which niue-
tenths of the people subsist by hiring their labor, and when
we find these laborers or producers of the wealth of society,
instead of growing richer as society grows richer, aggregating
capital as the wealth of the community they live in increases,
constantly growing relatively poorer as compared with those
who own and represent the capital engaged, the causes which
lead to this public calamity are also subject matter for legiti-
mate inquiry. It has been said that there is no necessary an-

10 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

tagouism between labor and capital. They supplement each
other. All partnerships, to endure, must be perfectly fair,
and of mutual benefit. Capital, if employed, should increase
the laborer's wealth. If it does not do this, he is better with-
out it. In order to preserve society prosperous and continu-
ous, the laborer must be preserved. All society is interested
to prevent the accumulation of enormous fortunes out of the
wealth produced by the exertions of workers for wages. Fol-
lowing great fortunes we inevitably find the poorly clad,
poorly fed, poorly housed, poorly educated, children of the
laboring classes. In an era of great development they are
poorly developed. In an era of great luxury they have few
luxuries. The very grandeur of the civilization they are
helping to build becomes a mockery to them. It really
makes them poorer to see the evidences of wealth all around
them, yet out of their reach. The wide differences of such a
society may be said to inflict a species of moral degradation
on them. Living in poorly ventilated houses or hovels, how
can it benefit them to look at the palaces of the rich ? When,
in addition to these inequalities, we see an increasing pauper-
ism developed, we are startled, and must become convinced
that there are fundamental wrongs existing, and that these dis-
eases must find a remedy before there can be a healthy condi-
tion of the body politic.

Ricardo, in his writings on wages, says : " The natural
price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the
laborers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their
race without either increase or diminution." He also says :
"The market price of labor is the price which is really paid
for it, from the natural operation of the proportion of the
supply to the demand." And again : " It is when the mar-
ket price of labor exceeds its natural price that the condition
of the laborer is flourishing and happy, that he has it in his
power to command a greater proportion of the necessaries
and enjoyments of life, and, therefore, to rear a healthy and

RICARDO. 1 1

numerous family." And agaiu : " When the market price of
labor is below its natural price, the condition of the laborer is
most wretched."

The foregoing views will be found almost in the same lan-
guage in Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations." He is the
founder of the peculiar theories that have been put in circu-
lation under the name of "Political Economy." Ricardo
gave to these theories their extreme but logical sequence. Ac-
cording to him it is not the interest of laborers that their
numbers increase, and thus weaken the demand for them.
Malthus is chiefly distinguished for suggestions in the same
direction. If this was logically true it would be for the in-
terest of laborers to produce as little property as possible. If
the laborer, by reducing the hours of labor from ten to five,
can enhance the value of what he produces so as to get as
much for it, why work ten ? The folly of this proposition
would be best shown if all laborers in a country adopted the
same rule. There would be just half as much produced, and
consequently just half as jnuch to distribute. While there
may be over-production in a few fancy or unusual articles, it
may be safely assumed that there is never over-production of
the necessaries of life so long as any considerable class is de-
prived of them. The evil, therefore, does not lie in over-
production but in unfair distribution. Under our mercantile
system there is no such thing as the natural price of a day's
labor. Neither can the value of a laborer's -day's work be
measured by what it requires to feed and clothe a laborer and
his family, because it may take a dollar or ten dollars to do
that. A system of political economy that suggests that the
true interests of a laborer are best promoted by having two
children rather than four, is as monstrous as that doctrine of
the survival of the fittest which in China takes supposed
sickly children and drowns them in the canal. A true politi-
cal economy is that which secures the greatest prosperity and
happiness of the industrious classes, giving them a proper

12 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

share of the fruits of their labor, thus enabling them to pur-
chase a larger number of manufactured articles.

Prof. Sumner, the political economist of one of our first
universities, and a fair representative of the class which
endeavors to preserve the doctrines of Ricardo and Malthus,
against the innovations of modern thought and ancient morals,
in his recent work " What social classes owe each other,' 7
assumes that they owe nothing but " civility." His doctrine
is that the basis of modern civilized society is "Contracts"
or bargains, and that capital alone produces civilization. On
page 59 of the work referred to, he says that man, as a brute
in the state of nature, has nothing, and merely exerts himself
to appropriate the productions of nature. Civilization makes
a change. On page 60 he tells us that this change is wrought
" by capital." As change has produced the " capital " it is
difficult to see how capital could have produced the " change."
Brute man had, of course, nothing when he started. What
made him start ? On the same page in which the Professor
says capital wrought the change he naively says : " It is won-
derful that primitive man could have started." If the Pro-
fessor's theory is correct it would have been altogether impos-
sible. The desire to overestimate the power and productiveness
of capital leads this school of philosophers into many strange
doctrines. On page 61 he says : " From the first step man
made above the brute, the thing that made his civilization pos-
sible was capital." On page 63, however, he inadvertently
wanders into another theory and says : " It is in the middle
range, with enough social pressure to make energy needful
and not enough social pressure to produce despair, that the
most progress has been made." Besides capital, it would
seem that the Professor has stumbled on such a thing as
" energy." Is it not possible that in tracing the causes that
may have led a barbarous man to be something better, richer
and more learned than he was, we may discover the main-
springs of human aspiration, energy and desire? Energy,

PROF. SUMNER. 13

even according to the Professor, is not stimulated by " capital,"
but by the want of it. What produces and has always pro-
duced capital is labor. Political economists need not waste
their time trying to demonstrate that a bag of dollars placed
in a barrel can be hatched into two bags. What they should
consider is how best to stimulate labor to the greatest produc-
tiveness consistent with the health and moral culture of the
laborer. Buckle, on the second page of his first volume of
the " History of Civilization/ 7 says : " The unequal distri
bution of wealth is the fertile source of social disturbances."
Can we escape the dominion of moral law? Is it possible
to found a healthy, prosperous and continuous society on con-
tracts? It is the end of modern enlightened law that all
customs, mercantile systems and schemes of finance must be
founded on fair dealing. Formerly gambling debts could be
collected. Hard and dishonest bargains when they passed
into written obligations claimed sanctity and observance. Ac-
cording to our modern system a man goes into court and pleads
want of consideration. It is not enough that a matter be-
tween men is a bargain : it must be a just bargain. From
this it is a short step in jurisprudence to sit in judgment on
all distributions and exchanges. Do you say this is inter-
meddling? If so, it is only intermeddling with wrong. Is
no one interested in a transaction or bargain except the two
who enter into it ? Yes, the state as much as the individual,
is vitally interested in seeing that bargains are founded on
the doctrine of perfect equivalents. Modern law even goes
beyond this. It asserts, and the assertion is maintained, that
the inventor of a valuable machine is not entitled to the ex-
clusive benefits flowing from it. The public have certain rights
therein. If the inventor had an absolute right, he and his
descendants ought to be secured in a patent for all time. So-
ciety does not permit this. It says that the inventor of a
useful machine, or the author of a book, shall have a share in
its profits for a limited number of years, when the product of
2

14 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

his genius and labor shall become public property. It will
not do to say that this is a peculiar case, and that the author
or inventor accepts a limited interest in his property, in con-
sideration for the protection he gets during the limited period.
The protection he gets is the protection of law, which, if
necessary, he has to vindicate in the courts. So, also, has
society and nations the task of protecting all property. Civil-
ized society has to bear the expensive system of legislatures,
executive officers, courts, sheriffs, policemen ; nor jean it be
shown that communities and nations have not as deep an in-
terest in accumulated property as the individual claimant
or owner thereof.

When capital has grown to be in excess of the moderate
competence which industry and thrift can fairly produce, it is
a just subject for the heaviest burdens of the state ; and this
not only because it is most able to bear them, but because
there is good reason to believe that great fortunes have been
accumulated by a system of distribution of the proceeds of
labor unfair to the laborers. There is nothing communistic or
agrarian in such propositions. While the case of the help-
lessly poor is one of the legitimate burdens of society, and
one which should be borne kindly and humanely, largely
from accumulated capital, and while no property should be
recognized as such save what has been honestly earned, no
good can ever be accomplished by a leveling process between
the poor and the justly rich. Such a step would destroy that
enterprise which is the very life of society. If, according to
Professor Sumner " Energy " lies at the foundation of pros-
perity, we must take care that its back be not broken. This
is the rock on which many social reformers split. To pre-
serve that independent, hopeful spirit which makes a man
work, economise and struggle for the comfort of himself and
family is one of the vital principles of true political economy.
After all, it only means that a man shall be protected in his
honest earnings. It does not mean that the lazy shall fare

EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE. 15

as well as the industrious. A sound form of society will
repudiate non-producing classes, whether they be lazy paupers
or sturdy capitalists who draw the lion's share of the annual
outputs of human labor by ingenious financial devices. You
can find in society, we will say, twenty men ; one of them is
a capitalist, and nineteen who are workers for wages under
him. He is successful. He expends for himself and family,
we will say, eleven thousand a year. Pie lives in an elegant
house. He and his family "dress in purple and fine linen
and fare sumptuously every day." He drives in a carriage
and his children are educated in the best colleges. Under
the law of supply and demand, he pays his wage workers,
we will say, an average of six hundred dollars a year each.
He, of course, manages the concern. He expends for him-
self almost as much as he gives his nineteen workers for
wages. If he is very rapacious, and wishes still further to
accumulate, he screws them down until they can hardly keep
soul and body together. It is true, they can seek out a new
employer who is probably like the old one, or, by close
economy, may haply save enough to become employers them-
selves. Should this law of bargains govern society, it would
destroy the weak, and repudiate every doctrine of religion
and morals. The essential conditions of a thriving and per-
manent community are that labor shall command and secure
the highest rate, and capital be procured at the lowest rate
of interest. The most eminent of the Rothschilds declared
that a business that continuously paid three per cent, for its
capital would inevitably fail. There is, therefore, a just
and honest limit to the earnings of accumulated wealth, and
it has been maintained that only such capital as exists in the
shape of productive machinery or improvements is entitled
to any share in what is produced.

Of all the systems of human oppression, none have been
more fertile of mischief and wrong than landed aristocracy :
individual claims to portions of the earth's surface, to the

16 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

exclusion of the rights of others. To " have and to hold "
means that other men and women shall not have and hold.
Land holding is the monopoly of what Aristotle styled " the
bounty of nature." When a man buys a section of six hun-
dred and forty acres, a mile square, of the earth's surface,
and has it conveyed to him, his heirs and assigns forever, it
is not a piece of property he can put in his pocket or tie
behind his saddle. In law we call it "real property" in
contradistinction to "personal property." Is it property at
all ? It is really an agreement between this owner, or pre-
tended owner, and some other power or person to defend him
in his attempt to exclude all the rest of the human race from
using it, except in his interest. It is really a mortgage, not
on this particular piece of the earth, but upon all the men
and women who may happen to be born upon the earth, with
the necessity of raising and eating bread. This so-called
property is simply law for the benefit of the few against the
many. There is not any other thing recognized by society
as property so absolutely dependent on public recognition
and defense as titles to land. Some king or government
claimed to have the right to grant land or certain uses of it.
Whether that grant was a lease, a holding under the feudal
system, a sale for a certain period, or on certain conditions,
or pretended to be an absolute sale of it as a mere chattel, the
essence of it was military or political power.

This brings us to the next view of the subject. What is
known as a government or a nation is not merely a thing of
geographical limits ; it is a combination of men, a body politic.
It is, however, almost inseparable from geographical limits.
You can scarcely imagine a nation without a country. Our
maps and our histories divide the earth's surface into certain
distinctly marked tracts and divisions. For convenience, on
our modern maps they are colored differently. Each portion
is recognized as belonging to the nation named ; we will say
France or Germany, or Mexico, or the United States. Why?

NATIONAL TITLE. 17

Every one recognizes the portion in question to belong to the
nation it represents. How do they get or maintain this title ?
Occupancy, violence and power are the sole bulwarks of these
possessions. Nine-tenths of the wars among mankind have
been about the boundaries of these subdivisions. Do the
British own their islands because they speak English ? Did
those who speak French naturally inherit the region of earth
between the Rhine and the Bay of Biscay ? Is the Spanish
language the patent to the peninsula ? No ! These divisions
are not created by differences of language, but differences of
language are created by these divisions. Separate men into
distinct nations, with a different polity and segregated inter-
ests, and they soon cease to understand each other's forms of
speech. Language, that wonderful garment of thought, is
subject to hidden laws of fashion, and is the most mutable of
all things.

This political or governmental assertion of title to land is a
proper matter to inquire into. It rests on the sword. It
must not be forgotten, however, that this is merely an asser-
tion of one nation as against another. Each nation claims
the right to maintain the integrity of its territory. Into the
minds of its people this lesson is instilled as the highest sense
of duty, and affectionately called patriotism. Countries have
been over-run and conquered many times in history. In bar-
barous periods a wandering horde crossed a frontier, and, if
successful, butchered the inhabitants ruthlessly, and left their
bodies to fertilize the soil that now belonged to the conquerors.
Fortresses were built, armies mustered and disciplined, navies
created ; all these to defend the country and consecrate a por-
tion of the earth to the Hun or the Sclav, the Goth or the
Latin race. Without for a moment assuming that all coun-
tries thus shaped, or governments thus created, were justly or
properly founded, or that their present existence is- for the
benefit of the race, it is, nevertheless, necessary, as they do
exist, to consider them. The world as constituted is not Uto-

18 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

pia. We do not know whether the world would be better
and men happier if all dwellers on the earth were one
people, but they are not. The supposed hostile interests and
prejudices between nations have been the occasion of great
wrong and misery upon the earth. An armed mob, called an
army, wins a victory in the enemy's country, and through
this accident claims the right to rob the helpless tillers of the
soil. Theoretically, governments are the essence of law,
but this government is mere brute force. I take it for granted
that it is the business of civilization to devise remedies for this
evil. All men are interested in the establishment of justice
and equity, protection and order, against mere violence. In-
ternational law is ill-defined and crude; but when the honest
judgment of combinations of nations acquire power and can
dictate to physical strength, something will be gained. We
have, to some extent, established the rights of the man as
against the state, and we can hope for a more intelligent
mode of determining the rights of nations toward each other.
The divine right of kings over the lives and property of
their subjects is pretty well exploded among civilized nations.
Let us hope that the divine right of violence and fraud can
also be brought to an end. Let us remember that much of
what we call rights to-day, grew out of force and usurpation.
When men and societies who have and claim such privileges
rest them solely on violence, we can understand them. They
are likely to maintain them just so long as no one else has
the power or the spirit to resist them. This age, however,
presents new problems. We have inherited the fruits of vio-
lence and fraud, and are endeavoring to reconcile them to the
doctrines of enlightened law.

Let us accept the situation that a government asserts its
rights to a land or country. Against this stands the broad
axiomatic truth-that the earth is the equal heritage of all men.
In the United States we have practically asserted the broad-
est right. Not only our native population, but emigrants

ROBBING POSTERITY. 19

from all countries have been invited to equal participation in
the soil. Whether this has been done wisely in all things
will be considered hereafter. Narrowed down to the state or
nation, this organized government neither has nor should have
any power to dispose of the soil save upon terms, now and for-
ever, for the benefit of all men alike. The government of the
United States has been founded on the doctrine of the per-
fect equality of the rights of all men. " Governments derive
their just power from the consent of the governed." Laws
for the benefit of the few against the many are in violation of
its fundamental principles. If we start with the doctrine
that everything must be subservient to the best interests of
all, the maxim we have quoted must be maintained and all
else treated as usurpation and resisted. The government of
the United States is merely an aggregated body of men,
bound together on the understanding that all shall be per-
fectly equal before the law, with equal justice, equal privi-
leges, equal power. We get the best inspiration of law from
divine laws, and they are distilled to us through the highest
and purest human conscience. Recognizing the necessity of
power to give effect to human law, we accept that power as
the attribute of the majority, and therefore recognize that
nothing is law, or can have the sanctity thereof, save the will
of the people legitimately expressed.

The function of the majority is to determine what is best
for all. Where it has not done this it has violated the com-
pact on which all came together, and the mistakes must be
corrected. The right or power of the state over land should
be to see that it is used for the equal benefit of all. To give i
a monopoly of land to a few is to give the bread and meat of I
the people to a few. The state never had any right to do I
that. In making the attempt it exceeded its powers. The
unjust systems that have grown up under it call for reform.
By the state we mean a government, and by a government
we must understand a government of to-day. The govern-

20 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

ment of to-day has no right to govern the people fifty or a
A hundred years hence. Admitting their right of determining
/ for the generation or the year they represent, the kind of usu-
/ fruct title, lease or sale of the earth's surface that may exist,
they certainly have no right to dispose of it against all future .
generations. On what conceivable plea of power can they ^f^- *
create mischievous and unequal systems thaTThall harass
generations after the bodies of these short-sighted rulers are
dust ? Because they represent the people to-day, how shall
they pretend to despotize over the people of all time, and in
their own interest lay a mortgage on the bones and sinews of
millions yet unborn ?

When the " right of discovery " and the " right of con-
quest," as doctrines, begin to be subject to a very heavy
strain, the advocate for this property created by fraud or
force pleads the statute of limitations. When reminded that
lapse of time cannot sanctify a wrong, he further pleads the
law of " use and wont." Again he urges that the public in-
terest demands that there shall be a limit to all human con-
troversies. If the doctrine " whatever is, is right," cannot
be fully recognized, he insists that at all events sudden
changes in the existing status of society are dangerous ; that
interference with long-settled property interests is unsafe and
agrarian ; and that all property holders, from the owner of
an acre to a principality, should make common cause against
those who would inquire into their title to what they are now
holding.

Let it not be urged that the condition of laboring people
gives no occasion for intelligent inquiry and reform. We
present to the world a nation increasing in riches faster than
any other nation, and, at the same time, the laborers whose toil
produces this wealth, if not growing poorer, are relatively
sinking as a class. We have multiplied innumerable labor-
saving machines, and yet the workingmen and women of the
country labor as hard as their ancestors did. Our unexam-

SELLING AND PRODUCING VALUE. 21

pled prosperity is 'followed by a steadily increasing poorer
class, while vagrancy and crime also increase. Our country
presents a comparatively boundless empire, of almost virgin
soil, and yet we see the singular anomaly of a rapidly increas-
ing class of tenants and renters. Instead of a thriving yeo-
manry, there is a tendency to farming by the wholesale, on
speculation or by joint stock companies. Before we have
fairly passed the squatting era, and while there are still unoc-
cupied homesteads to be taken, the evils of the system of land
tenure we have permitted confront us. We are certainly lay-
ing the foundation of a landed aristocracy. We have allowed
our timbered regions to be devastated and destroyed, until the
condition thus produced affects the productiveness of some
of our agricultural regions, and the comfort of many of our
people. We present a startling picture of speculation in lauds
and lots by those who add nothing to their improvement,
and fortunes are made without labor by the increase of popu-
lation and the efforts of those who do not benefit by it. Spec-
ulation, and the fact that land has been made a chattel, en-
hances the valuation of lands and lots so as to put them
'beyond the reach of those who are poor or even those in
moderate circumstances. An acre of land produces no more
wheat or corn when it is valued at one hundred dollars than
it did when it was valued at ten, and yet this has a tendency
to increase the tax called rent to the producer. A house and
lot valued at five hundred dollars offers as great comfort or
conveniences as when the same house is valued at five thou-
sand, and yet it costs the man who occupies it much more.
This price, caused by speculation, is not conducive to the
public interest. It is true it enables a few to acquire great
fortunes without giving the public an equivalent. The con-
dition of affairs arising from these speculative values, so far
as they are created by an increase of population, raise prices
without corresponding public benefit, the public do not share
what they thus create, and, on the contrary, it actually in-

22 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

creases their burdens. Not the least evil of this system is
that it disturbs that fair distribution of the wealth produced
by industry, and founds aristocratic classes, raised above the
necessity of labor.

Men do not properly estimate the evil of an increasing non-
producing class. In England, a certain school of political
economists said the non-producing classes were a blessing, be-
cause they furnished a market for the surplus production
arising from the labor of the poor. The larger the non-pro-
ducing class in any country, in proportion to the laborers, the
harder must the laborers work, and the more poorly must
they be paid. If wealth maintained the power of keeping up
its profits until fifty per cent, of the population lived upon it,
the other fifty per cent, would have to work to keep them.
If, then, the end of civilization is to increase wealth to such
an extent that we are to have a large aristocratic class, we
must, of necessity, have a large class of poor laborers. If
the- laborers should get a much larger proportion of what
their labor produces than they now do, they would have better
houses, be better clothed and fed, be better educated, have
more books and more time to read them ; but then we would
not have so many palaces, or so many magnificent, luxurious
households. Is the elegant architecture of our civilization
the best evidence of its greatness and power ? If this is all
that it can produce, is it worth the price ? Above all, how
long can it last? We may shut our eyes and exclaim,
" After me, the deluge." It remains to be seen whether a
written constitution will prove a sufficient shield for the
rights of the people. An aristocracy is even more abhor-
rent than a king, and aristocracies are usually created by
great wealth, and fostered by unequal privileges. The foun-
dations of American aristocracy are already laid, and this
has partly arisen from carelessness about the true foundation
of a free republic. It seems, unhappily, to be the ambition
of too many men to place their families at once above want

MANUFACTURING STOCKS. 23

and work. The public interests are lost sight of in the
scramble. While age may justly have accumulated moderate
wealth, and live in comfort or even luxury, there is no reason
why youth should be exempted from toil by the curse of
a competence. Hereditary wealthy families are not in har-
mony with American ideas. A just public policy should
tend to scatter and redistribute wealth. The only thing that
renders this inequality of condition endurable, is the hope en-
tertained by most poor men that they and theirs will happily
rise above the calamities that affect so many others in the
community. When all unoccupied land is taken, and a dense
population confronts us, the lines of society will grow more
inflexible, and the disparity of condition will be greater and
more clearly defined. Such changed conditions are rapidly ap-
proaching, and will produce one of three things : The destruc-
tion of the representative power and freedom of the people ;
peaceful remedies wisely taken in time which will secure per-
fect equality of rights, or the overthrow of the aristocracy by
violence and anarchy.

Our progressive and scheming civilization has developed
new forms of speculation and new organizations to give power
to capital. Corporations have already become more formida-
ble than the government. Law has clothed them with arti-
ficial power without placing proper restriction on its selfish
and unjust exercise. There is not adequate security against
the frauds they perpetrate. Aggregated capital is managed
by boards of directors or trustees whose first business is to
advance their own individual interests, and then, so far as
consistent with it, the interests of the stockholders. Every
dollar of actual cash contributed by stockholders to build rail-
roads, telegraphs or other public enterprises, under great cor-
porations, is apt to be represented on its books, certificates
of stock and in the public markets by what* are called its
stocks, to twice, thrice or even ten times its true value. Cap-
ital thus manages and demands that it shall be multiplied,

24 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

and that this fictitious wealth shall make equal charge out of
the profits of an enterprise created by labor and a small
amount of capital. Contracts are given for construction, by
directors to their partners and confederates for more than the
construction costs, and thus the public and the innocent stock-
holders are cheated. Mortgages are sometimes placed on
these properties and much of the money thus raised expended
extravagantly in bonuses, salaries and pretended dividends as
profits. While there may be a few well-conducted corpora-
tions and companies, the corporate system as it exists, in the
main, is a hive of gigantic swindling, into which absolute fair
dealing and equity among men does not enter. It is indeed
amazing that the intelligence of this nineteenth century should
have permitted such a system of unequal distribution and
fraud to have been created; and, seeing the system operate,
that law, which ought to be the safeguard of perfect equity,
should for any length of time permit it to continue.

Then we have gambling in corn. Meat and bread put up
to be the football of stock-jobbers. Of all gambling this is
the most iniquitous. It is bad enough that shrewd operators
are thus allowed to fleece inexperienced dupes, but that these
two between them should be permitted to put up and down
the price of the bread and meat of sixty millions of people
is perfectly monstrous. It is useless to say that they merely
speculate in the natural rise of these articles. This unnatural
speculation cannot get into successful operation until the bulk
of what is produced in the current year goes into the hands
of middle men. Then combinations are formed to force up
and down prices. This system is fed by trickery and mis-
representation as gross as the trickery by which a jockey ever
palmed off a blind horse on an innocent customer. Foreign
markets and the condition of the coming crops have a little
to do with pieces, but for all the artificial changes in the price
of the food of the people, the gamblers in what are called
" options," " puts " and " calls " are responsible. Of course,

GAMBLING IN BREAD. 25

there is a legitimate business in buying, storing and disposing
of surplus bread and meat, but there is scarcely a business
requiring in greater degree the safeguards of law, and from
which all gambling and artificial speculation should be so
thoroughly banished. If what is sometimes termed "free
competition " means that the more cunning and adroit shall
profit by unfair bargains with the illiterate or unsophisticated,
enlightened law must make an end of all such phases of
" free competition."

There have been two favorite modes of robbing laborers.
First, by the slavery which seized his person, and by threats
and violence which compelled him to work for the tyrant
who claimed to be his master. Second, by seizing the surface
of the earth from which human sustenance must be drawn, and,
on the plea of exclusive ownership, compelling the cultivator
to give half of what he produced from the earth to another.
Political economists have preached about the "Doctrine of
rent," and, accepting the claim of ownership as an inevitable
fact, have proceeded to demonstrate that rent was the differ-
ence between good land and poor land, when every one knows
that rent could not exist but for monopoly. The doctrine that
the surface of the earth can be made a chattel independent of
its use is a modern conception, and of evil tendency, and our
American land tenures are the result of a chapter of accidents.
We inherited all the bad parts of the English system, and
launched on a career of speculation in which we were reckless
of human rights.

The writer is not insensible to the embarrassments that a^
highly refined and artificial condition of society throw around
these questions. He is aware that many of the most splendid
of ancient empires have been founded on robbery, piracy,
slavery and murder. The palaces of kings cannot always
hide the hovels of the laboring poor. Great modern cities
seem to afford a better field to able, unscrupulous and adroit
\managers, than to quiet, honest mediocrity, or even to quiet,

\ 3

26 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

honest ability. There bargains rule. At the very threshold
of reform, we are met with the assertion of " vested rights "
which are probably only vested wrongs. I am loath to believe
that if you strip enterprise and energy of every element of
dishonesty, men will lapse into barbarism. It may be styled
agrarianism, when a reformer of abuses endeavors to set bolts
and bars against the unjust exactions by which the accumu-
lated capital of yesterday seeks to place its foot on the necks
of the laborers of to-day.

There will be just inequalities in the condition of men so long
as there are differences among them as to industry and thrift.
The accumulation of enormous fortunes is always a calamity,
and often a crime. It is doubtful if the unfair transactions
that lie at the base of colossal wealth are as great misfortunes
as the wielding of such a giant power by an unscrupulous
person. Some men might be compared to magnets, having
the power to draw to them gold from every avenue of society.
We are too much in the habit of admiring this accomplish-
ment. It is high time that we had a code of morals that
would cease to hold it up to emulation. In founding the
government of the United States, great strides were made in
the progress of civil liberty. The principles then enunciated
must not be permitted to become mere " glittering generalities."
It took nearly a century to abolish slavery in a free country,
and aristocracy and inequalities founded on injustice have not
yet found their remedies.

I shall discuss the remedies in the proper place. There is
much to admire in the ideas of Mr. Henry George, but making
the government the landlord is a proposition it will be well to
carefully consider. Those who own the land rule the country.
Government is not an abstract theory but an organization of
men who may closely follow or conspire against its principles.
Frequent elections and oft-renewed responsibility are checks,
yet there may be danger in giving even to those who happen
to administer our free government the power to decide the

HENRY GEORGE. 27

length and character of land tenures, or, what is of more sig-
nificance, to provide an enormous revenue, which would flow
in as rent to fill the treasury, no matter what the wisli of the
people may be in each year as to taxation or expenditure. Of
course, it will be said that this rent is only another form
of tax, but it is not an annually assessed tax ; on the contrary,
it would be a steadily growing revenue, which the national
landlord might soon assume to be his own property. It is
possible that in this way the government would become
stronger than the people. The rulers, moreover, who would
demand the rent would, at the same time, have the power to
distribute, divide and fix tenure to the national inheritance.

Instead of the assumption that the laud belongs to the nation
or government, let it be asserted that the land belongs to the
people. Fundamental and specific law should secure and conse-
crate it for the use or benefit of all the people, to be redistributed
as the changes in society occur, and instead of the details of
tenure being managed by the general government, they should
be under local supervision as near as possible to the people.
The old town organizations offer the primitive model.

Mr. Francis Walker, in his "Land and its Kent," follows
the theory that rent is created by the difference between rich
and poor land. The necessity of ownership by somebody is
assumed. His general conclusions, in the work referred to,
are that it is the interest of all classes to have an agricultural
system that will yield the largest production of wealth. This
does not reach or touch the question as to whom it properly
belongs.

The system of agriculture that would produce the largest
amount at the smallest possible cost would be a wholesale farm-
ing that would abolish small farmers. Instead of the independ-
ent yeoman, cultivating his land and living in his house as
the head of his establishment, we would have the agricultural
community in three classes: the landlord, the farmer, or over-
seer, and laborers. In the same way and 011 the same prin-

28 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

ciple, an enormous dry goods house swallows up in its growth
and progress a thousand of the small establishments of inde-
pendent traders. By this wholesale process the men become
dependent salesmen and clerks, workers for wages. In this
way goods may be sold cheaper and the power of capital is
augmented, but the independence and comfort of the individual
is reduced. We propose, therefore, to inquire whether the
happiness and comfort of the great mass of the people is not
the first consideration, and all others subordinate to it. Mr.
E. H. G. Clark, in a recent essay, " Man's Birthright," thinks
that he has found the philosopher's stone, that is to correct
the errors of Mr. George, in a two per cent, annual tax, which
he believes will confiscate the entire property in fifty years
and be a "patent made easy" year of jubilee. He does not
inform us who is to pay the tax, or show us that it will not be
the man who rents and cultivates the laud, or the man who
buys the corn, rather than the man who is the landlord and
claims to have title to the soil. If Mr. Clark would take the
ground that the rent should be paid in lieu of taxes, to support
public burdens, he would approximate to Mr. George's plat-
form. A two per cent, tax on fixed values is what we have
in many states now.

In approaching a subject of such magnitude with the
becoming diffidence imposed by its perplexities, I shall, as
succinctly as possible, glean from history the salient points
that throw light on the establishment of existing land systems.
Men have often a slavish disposition to respect precedents
without stopping to scrutinize the circumstances on which they
were founded, or to remember that for much of what is good
in modern society we are indebted to innovation. Systems
and principles must be considered in so far as they affect
governments and men. In an age when it is announced that
bargains or contracts should alone govern society, and that
men owe each other nothing but politeness, let us not alto-
gether forget, that the brotherhood of the race and equity and

DIVISIONS OF THE SUBJECT. 29

religion are a fundamental basis for society. Cool, calculating,
selfishness may be deemed the best balance wheel of society,
but experience shows us that it brings communities into a
condition when organized benevolence or revolution are indis-
pensable.

CHAPTER I.

THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SYSTEM OF ANCIENT ISEAEL.

"THE LAND SHALL NOT BE SOLD FOREVER, FOR THE LAND IS MINE; FOR YE ARE STHAXQERS
AND 80JOURNEHS WITH ME." LEV. XXV. 23.

Scope of the Hebrew laws The patriarchate the primitive government of
the Semitic races Laws framed to regulate land tenure before land was
possessed Available area of Judea Distinction between property in
the country and in walled cities Land nationalization rejected Fam-
ily tenure of land The year of jubilee Usurpations of the monarchy
Tithes and taxes The peculiar and advantageous features of Jewish
polity.

IF we are to discard the study of abstract propositions and
recondite theories, as foundation for social economics and law,
and gather data from the records of human experience and
history, no finer study presents itself than the wonderful polity
of the ancient Jewish nation. Accepting their own record,
and studying the early portions from the five books of Moses,
we have facts differing from those of all other human history.
Other nations, like them, have begun by being nomads and wan-
derers. Other nations, like them, have had a government of pop-
ular acceptance followed by a monarchy, with all its despotisms,
splendor and mishaps. Perhaps no other nation ever before had
a government without a country, and a complete code of law
before they had courts or recognized earthly executive au-
thority. Human history affords us no similar accepted code.
It was a strange compound of simplicity and minute inter-
meddling. Their religious duties and ceremonials were set
forth with a wonderful perspicuity. The food they should eat
was prescribed. Habits oY cleanliness were systematized into
law. Their laws of marriage were rigid. The laws of hos-
30

ISRAEL IN EGYPT. 31

pitality, even, were defined, and law dictated the duties of
charity. Of course, there is much in the books of the law
adapted to only such a people and such a time, but the great
essentials are the highest conception of purity and equity.
In regard to those regulations which refer to food, the culti-
vation of the soil, cleanliness and other things which are now
considered as of little importance, or not properly within the
scope of governmental powers, the result proves that in ne-
glecting them we have not gained, and that the books of
Leviticus and Deuteronomy might still be read to great ad-
vantage.

The ten commandments we have carefully preserved, but
while the books of the Mosaic law remain in the Old Testament,
they are practically considered as abrogated. Neither does
there appear to be a full realization of all that the ten com-
mandments involve. The fourth commandment, for instance,
enjoins the observance of the Sabbath. While the portion of
the commandment enjoining rest is often caviled at, many
seem to overlook altogether the binding force of the other
portion of the command : " Six days shalt thou labor."
Among the ancient Jew r s the law of labor was as imperative
as the day of rest. The Jewish economy furnished neither
opportunity for nor toleration of a non-producing class. All
men were compelled to work.

The patriarchal system did not originate with the Jews ;
they inherited it. This primitive form of aristocracy was,
and still is, common to Arabia, and, indeed, to all that region,
the Sheik (elder) being the head. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
were each the chief and ruler of a great household. The
elder or head assumed a regal authority, exercising even the
power of life and death. Seventy souls of the family of Jacob
entered Egypt. They maintained a distinct identity, but
were invited guests and friends, one of their number being a
chief ruler under Pharaoh. They were assigned a locality in
the laud of Goshen. For four hundred and thirty years this

32 HEBREW TENURE.

germ of the Jewish nation grew r , and when they went forth
from Egypt they had an army of six hundred thousand men.
It is estimated that this gave a population of two millions
and a half. Of the form of local government they main-
tained in Egypt, we have very meagre accounts, yet each tribe
kept its genealogies and distinct political existence, the num-
ber of fighting men of each tribe being stated. The law had
not been given, or the five books of Moses written, but they were
a people bound together by blood, religious customs, and
cemented into a nationality by their hopes and traditions.
Had the Jews followed the usual course of emigrants to for-
eign countries, and merged in the population of Egypt, be-
coming part of it by absorption, they would not have been
the victims of hatred and jealousy. They were a distinct
people, not mingling with their neighbors. They rejected the
religious belief of the Egyptian. They acquired no foothold
as owners of the land ; in fact, all of the valuable land in
Egypt was then held by the priests, the sovereign and the
army. The common people of Egypt were renters under one
of these three. Egypt had at that time one of the best devel-
oped forms of ancient civilization. It has been said that it
was in Egypt that these shepherd patriarchs acquired a knowl-
edge of written language, of the arts and sciences, of public
works and manufactures.. They acquired a knowledge of
slavery through the hardest of all lessons, a bitter experience.
We are simply told that another king arose who knew not
Joseph. Old services and the hospitality evoked by them
were forgotten. In point of fact, a new dynasty had arisen,
and Hebrew and Egyptian alike were under the power of the
conquerors. The religion of Egypt had not changed. Its
land system, always bad, had not improved. So far as the
Egyptian people were concerned it was merely a change from
one tyrant to another. With the Israelites it was worse.
Always isolated, and subject to the jealousies of the people,
they were ijow -stripped of the friendship or favoritism of the

NO LAND SPECULATION. 33

rulers. They had, indeed, a chequered experience of the
power and barbaric splendor of Egypt. They had seen a
king of Egypt use the surplus revenue, or wealth of his king-
dom, to buy all the corn in the years of plenty, and had also
seen him with that corn buy the title to a large portion of the
laud of Egypt. As they refused to become a homogeneous
portion of the Egyptian people, it was morally certain that
they must strive for ascendency or sink to the bottom, and, as
they continued to multiply, equally certain that a disruption
had to come sooner or later. Fugitives from slavery, with-
out a polity or a country, the Jewish nation crystallized in
the wilderness. Forty years wandering inured them to pri-
vation and gave them nerve. The generation that had trem-
bled at the commands of its Egyptian taskmasters passed
away. They had not forgotten that Abraham, while a wan-
derer upon the face of the earth, had purchased in Canaan, of
Ephron, the Hittite, for four hundred shekels of silver, the field
and cave of Macpelah, and that the Lord had promised to
give them a country flowing with milk and honey.

It is certainly an interesting study to contemplate the code
of law and ethics in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and
Deuteronomy. Here we have the most thorough system of
legislation for land before they possessed land, and the order
of crops and the seventh or fallow year, in which the land was
to rest and recuperate, prescribed before they had sown a seed.
Then followed after the seven times seven, the year of jubilee,
when all the land that had been alienated, mortgaged or sold,
should go back to the original family to whom it belonged.
The land should not be sold forever, only and excepting a
house with its lot within a walled city. That was a chattel.*
Within one year from the date of its sale it could be redeemed.
The houses in villages and cities not walled were " counted as
the fields of the country," and went back to the original family
in the day of jubilee. Even the temporary sales were rigidly
* Lev. xxv. 30.

34 HEBKEW TENURE.

regulated. There was little room for speculative prices.
According to the fruits they would produce for the years of
cultivation between the period of sale and the year of jubilee,
the price was to be computed. At any time the person so
selling was permitted, if able, to redeem, or redeem through a
friend, by paying for the years that were to intervene before
the year of jubilee. At that time, without pay, the transaction
was at end. The law which authorized six years for crops
and one year for fallow and rest, prevented the land from
being scourged and rendered barren by temporary occupants.
In the year of jubilee, captives taken in war and all servants
and debtors were set free. Even the servants, who at the
expiration of their six years of service voluntarily relinquished
liberty, and had their ears bored through with an awl, went
out in the year of jubilee.* The laud law of the Jews, we are
told, was somewhat famous among ancient nations, and several
of them attempted to copy it.f The permission to sell for
limited periods was not considered an alienation of land such
as we permit. Dbdorus Siculus informs us that it was not
lawful for the Jews to sell their own inheritance. This law
of the Hebrews prevented the rich from absorbing the lands,
and for this reason the Jews were never cursed with a landed
aristocracy. The rulers neither owned nor controlled the land,
and were, therefore, unable to draw great revenues from it to
support armies, by which the rights of the people could be
overthrown. When military service was required, the family
supplied the soldiers with needed food from home. They had
the spoil of the enemy, but a hireling soldiery was unknown,
at least in her earlier history. Slavery existed, as it existed
in every nation at that time, but in Israel the slaves were
protected by law; were treated as part of the household, and
the year of jubilee fixed the limit of bondage. The Israelites
had learned more than the arts and sciences during their
experience in Egypt.

* Jennings' Antiquities of the Jews, page 468. f Ibid.

FAMILY LANDHOLDING. 35

A careful study of the ancient Jewish polity will show that
the lands were kept as the equal possession of all the people
of each generation. It was impossible it could aggregate in
large tracts in a few hands. The term of alienation may be
said to have been limited to a period that on an average would
cover the generation that so disposed of it, and was merely a
limited privilege to secure payment of debts. An increase of,
population would diminish the amount of the estate that
would revert to each of the descendants, and vice versa.
Their whole system was carefully founded on the idea that as
population increased the redistributions and reduction of
amounts held for use should keep pace with it.

It has been estimated, at a moderate computation, that the
land to be divided among the Israelites in the time of Joshua,
on both sides of the Jordan, that is, of available land, was at
least twenty-five millions of acres. One estimate of the num-
ber of acres to each head of a family is about forty-two.*
The lowest estimate of the number of acres to each family was
twenty-two. In addition to this there was the pasture lands
in the mountains and the oasis of the desert. It has also been
computed that, as population increased, if it should be necessary
to reduce this to six acres to each family, it could support an
agricultural population of four millions of families, or twenty
millions of people, besides those in the cities who might be
engaged in other pursuits, f

It will thus be seen that the outlines of the Jewish land
policy were : First, a division for each tribe. Second, a
division for each family in each tribe. Third, while temporary
alienations were permitted on a clearly defined basis, once in
each fifty years it went back, with all its belongings, to the
descendants of the family originally owning it, and, of course,
had to be subdivided according to the number of interested

* Wine's Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews, page 388.
t Ibid., page 391.

36 HEBKEW TENURE.

families. Fourth, the land was not permitted to be exhausted,
but must have a fallow or rest once in seven years, no matter
who occupied it. Fifth-, that while all improvements and
farms in the field, and in villages, were thus held for the use
of each succeeding generation and could not be alienated from
them, the piece of ground on which a house stood in a walled
city Avas held to be a chattel, which, if sold, could not, after
the lapse of one year, be redeemed. This was, no doubt, on
the theory that the lots in a walled city could produce nothing ;
that they were only the foundation for the buildings that
covered them, and probably because the population of these
cities constantly fluctuated. These were the peculiar features
of the Jewish land laws. In the laws of inheritance, all the
succeeding generations were considered. "To many thou
fihalt give the more inheritance, and to few thou shalt give
the less inheritance. To every one shalt his inheritance be
given according to those that were numbered of him." * Sons
and daughters had their share, but if a woman married out
of her tribe she lost her share of the tribal inheritance of
land.t

In many respects, this Jewish polity differed from that of
ancient nations. With most of these the land was claimed by
the sovereign. The cultivators were tenants and paid rent or
tribute to the government, and with them this was one of the
main sources from which revenue was derived. The Jewish
monarchs were not recognized as having any title or claim to
the land. One of the serious offences committed by the kings
being the attempt to appropriate the laud of other men, as
witness the case of Ahab, who took the vineyard of Naboth
the Jezreelite. In fact, the Jewish plan of government was
essentially democratic or popular. { The will of the peo-
ple was the highest law, consistent with the fact that it

* Num. xxvi. 54. t Num. xxxvi. 7, 9.

} Von Ranke's Universal History, page 49.

THE MONARCHY. 37

recognized the will of the Deity as the source of all law.
Even the question of worship was submitted to them. " If God
be God, serve him, and if Baal, serve him." It was indeed a
theocracy, but a theocracy that recognized no man as the vice-
gerent of God. Popular assemblies settled the most important
questions, and the doctrine of equal, popular rights lay at the
foundation of their religion and morals.

The early days of the Jewish nation, before the monarchy,
were the days of its simplicity and power. It then existed
according to the spirit and tenor of its laws. A throne was
oifered to Gideon, but he patriotically rejected it, and said :
"Jehovah shall rule over you." Their religion was the wor-
ship of the unseen God, and a repudiation of all idols. Of
the whole nation it was said : " And ye shall be unto me a
kingdom of priests."* The law as given originally by
Moses will be found much simpler and purer than a good
deal that was engrafted on it. The penalty of stealing a man
and making a slave of him was death. A species of slavery
to extinguish debt was allowed, but these slaves were not per-
mitted to be oppressed, and, as has been said, slavery had its
limit. False weights and measures were an abomination. A
laborer was not to be defrauded, but what was due him was
to be paid ere the sun went down. Usury was forbidden,
and, although they subsequently exacted usury from the hea-
then, it had originally little color of law.f A stranger so-
journing with them was to be treated as one born among
them. They were not permitted to oppress strangers. In
their buying and selling they were enjoined " not to defraud
one another." They were not to glean their fields and vine-
yards bare ; a part was to be left for the poor, and on all
rested the obligations of hospitality in its broadest extent.

On this government of the people a species of monarchy
was engrafted. It was an accident, and worse than an acci-

* Ex. xix. 6. t Ex. xxii. 25, 26.

4

38 HEBREW TENURE.

dent. Samuel warned the people of their folly when they
demanded a king, and they had abundant reason to repent of
it. The reign of the first monarch, Saul, was disastrous, its
decadence dating almost from its beginning. The Jewish gov-
ernment was a theocracy ; grave questions were referred to the
Lord, and answers obtained by the priests from the Urim and
Thummim. Saul undertook to consult the Lord himself, and
from that moment Samuel took issue with him. Had Samuel
failed to do this, there would have been no check upon an
ambitious ruler. Although the sceptre had departed from
'Saul's house, he remained on the throne until his death, when
the Jewish kingdom was rent in twain. David at first only
established his authority over Judah and Benjamin, and Ish-
bosheth, Saul's son, had an uncertain kingly authority over
the other ten tribes. Ishbosheth proved to be neither a
statesman nor a politician, and soon quarrelled with his men
of might. David was a good politician and adroit ruler.
He cemented the tribe of Benjamin to Judah, and to the for-
tunes of his house by removing the capitol to Jerusalem in
the country of Benjamin. The capitol played no small part
in the polity of the Jewish government. Every man was
required to go up thither at least once a year. There many of
the tithes were received. The whole system eventually built up
much wealth and power about Jerusalem. This power, and the
religion centreing there, were the anchors of the Jewish state.

As has been said the government of Israel, whether of
judges or monarchs, did not claim the land. It belonged to
the people, and to the people alike of each succeeding genera-
tion. The government and the church were supported by
tithes. One-tenth of all the increase was assessed under the
Levitical law, whether of fruits, grain or herds. Tithes have
been denounced as the most iniquitous of all taxes. It is not
the purpose of this chapter to argue that question, but to state
the facts.

This one-tenth of the annual production supported the

TITHES AND POLL TAX. 39

church with its priests and ceremonies, and a system of
education the most general, and, for that reason, the best of
the ancient world. Other nations, like the Greeks, had
schools of a very high order where a few great men were
taught. Tithes also maintained the complete judicial system,
and preserved the public records which were carefully and
jealously kept. Indeed, the whole government machinery
was maintained by tithes. It is proper to add that there was
a poll tax. It was levied the first time when the Jews were
numbered in the wilderness, and was "appointed for the ser-
vice of the tabernacle of the congregation." * It was at first/*
and in all the earlier and better portions of Jewish history,
an exigency tax.f Originally, it amounted to half a shekel,
but in the later period of the Jewish history, when it be-
came annual, and in the Roman days it was about one-fourth
of a shekel, equal to about twenty-five or thirty cents. Jo-
sephus informs us that Vespasian directed the same tax to be
paid, but into the Roman instead of the Jewish treasury.
How often the kings levied taxes, and what they consisted of,
is not very well known, but the record shows that the people
groaned under their exactions.

Let us compare the tithes with our own taxes. With
us, land is taxed to the owner. It is safe to say that land
does not produce much more, over and above the seed and the
necessary expense, than from ten to twenty per cent, of its
fixed value. If ten per cent, of this latter was taken for tax
it would be from one to two dollars per acre. If we average
our taxes for all purposes, they are not much less, and it
must be borne in mind that we place a tax on the land at a
fixed valuation, whether there is a crop or not.

We must remember that the tithes were not necessarily the
property of the Jewish sovereign, but were really or nomi-
nal ly controlled by the church. The Jewish monarchy was

* Ex. xxx. 12.

f Lowman's Civil Government of the Hebrews, page 96.

40 HEBREW TENURE.

weak. Property in the soil is the natural foundation for power,
because everybody is dependent on it. The Jewish king had
nothing to do with that. So far as he was able, he became
a part of the theocracy. He had in that way some control
over the tithes. David, as has been said, was an astute poli-
tician. His reign was chiefly distinguished by efforts to
build up the monarchy. By caution and forbearance he was
finally enabled to stretch his authority over all the twelve
tribes. These tribes were, however, independent states. The
kingly authority was exercised very gently upon them. On
^11 important questions they held their own councils. David
did not attempt to concentrate the great wealth and power at
Jerusalem, which his son, after him, succeeded in doing. By
conquests over his neighbors he extended the boundaries of
most of the tribes. He was thus able to add to their landed
inheritance, and to enrich them with the spoils of their
enemies.

His son Solomon became the head of the theocracy as well
as king. He commenced the great temple by voluntary con-
tributions. In his reign the Jewish empire extended from
the Mediterranean to the great river (Euphrates). With the
exception of a few cities and limited territories of the Phoeni-
cians, it touched Egypt at the south, and reached almost to
the gates of Damascus. His father David had succeeded in
taking Damascus, one of the most important of his con-
quests, for it lay at the threshold of overland commerce be-
tween the great empires of the East and West.* During the
early part of Solomon's reign this was lost. He, however,
erected fortified places on the great commercial roads in order
to control them, and made alliances with Pharaoh, of Egypt,
and the Phoenician kings of Tyre. In cementing his power,
his father, King David, had organized an independent military
force, instead of depending on the armies furnished by the

* Von Ranke's Universal History, page 48.

THE LEVTIES LANDLESS. 41

tribes. At the muster of all the tribes, in David's reign, the
valiant men who drew the sword were one million three
hundred thousand. The Gibborum was a separate force, and
was the army of the king. With this he placed garrisons in
the cities. Thus a military aristocracy began to grow up in
his reign, which was continued and increased during that of
Solomon, becoming very objectionable to the tribes. This,
and the burdens laid upon the people to maintain such a sys-
tem were fertile causes of the future evils that befell the
kingdom. The reign of Solomon was not so much a period
of conquest as had been that of his father. He cemented his
power, but in building the temple and the palaces of ivory
his reign became one of splendor and luxury, and these began
to sap the life of the people. The seeds of dissolution were
sown, and when the son of Solomon ascended the throne of
his father, the ten states of the Jewish empire made de-
mands before they would acknowledge him. "All Israel
came to Shechem to make him king." It was really an elec-
tion. As a preliminary, they demanded : " Make thou the
grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he
put on us, lighter, and we will serve thee." Not being a
statesman, this he refused to do. Even in the days of Sol-
omon, a prophet had marked out a man of another tribe
and house as his successor. Jeroboam, of the tribe of
Ephraim, had assisted King Solomon in securing compulsory
service for his great buildings. While so engaged, he be-
trayed ambitious schemes, and fled into Egypt to escape
the wrath of Solomon. In Egypt he married a princess,
the sister of the then Pharaoh, and she aided him in his de-
signs. When the ten tribes revolted, exclaiming, "What
portion have we in David, neither have we inheritance in
the son of Jesse/' then the Jewish empire was forever
rent in twain, and the conspirator, Jeroboam, now appeared
as the king of the ten tribes. Rehoboam at first intended,
at the head of an army, to subdue them, but was admon-

42 HEBREW TENURE.

ished by a prophet to desist, which was evidently judicious
advice.

The two ambitious ruling tribes were Ephraim and Judah.
Usually, all the kings were chosen from one or the other of
these tribes. Joshua was of the tribe of Manasseh.* Gideon
was of the tribe of Manasseh, as was Deborah. Ephraim and
Manasseh were the two tribes who trace their origin to Joseph
and his Egyptian wife.f The Jewish law was stringent in
forbidding marriages with other nations for the avowed reason
that it might lead to idolatry. It is difficult to say just how
strictly this rule was observed. Moses had an Ethiopian
wife, f Benjamin, the full brother of Joseph by Rachel, and
the tribe which sprang from him, furnished the first King of
Israel, Saul. Strangely enough, and although David over-
threw the house of Saul, by his arts as a statesman he con-
verted the tribe of Benjamin, until Judah and Benjamin were
fast allies. It is not surprising that jealousies grew up between
the ambitious rulers of the great tribes of Judah and Ephraim.
Before the monarchy each of these states was comparatively
independent, consulting upon, and to a great extent determin-
ing their own affairs. The Levites, to whom was assigned the
administration of the law and religious ordinances, were not
permitted to own land. Certain cities were set apart for their
residences and the immediate suburbs for their cattle. They
were thus stripped of the means of consolidating their power,
and, practically, had little more than a sufficient income. The
wisdom of David for a time checked the jealousies among the
tribes, but his descendants, in their pride and aristocracy, for-
got his maxims. The great tribe of Ephraim was the fitting
rival of Judah when an opposition wanted a head. Jeroboam,
jealous of the power of Jerusalem, borrowed the idolatry of the
Philistines. When Ephraim revolted, the Jewish monarchy

* Von Kanke's Universal History, page 34. f Ibid., page 37.

J Num. xii. 1.

PRINCIPLES OF JEWISH LAW. 43

had not sufficient power to check it. Had there been a great
army, well secured revenues, and a powerful king, the ten
tribes and the rights of their people might have been trampled
under foot. The army of the king could not cope with the
army of the tribes. The constitution of the Jewish nation, its
ideas, principles and law, had nothing in common with mon-
archy or absolutism. Until its polity was utterly overthrown
an enduring monarchy could not be placed upon it. It is,
also, well to remember that a great population had grown up
in Israel. It has been estimated that at that time, it was as
dense as it is in England or Bengal at the present day. Then,
and shortly after the disruption, the mountains of Judea were
terraced, even to a greater extent than they now are in China.
Jewish history should, properly, be divided into three
periods. From Abraham to Moses there elapsed upwards of
four hundred years of the patriarchal state, in which the germs
of the nation grew. From Moses to the monarchy nearly four
hundred years passed away. That was the golden era of the
Jewish nation. Its judges and rulers were of popular accept-
ance. During that four hundred years their peculiar political
system was built. Its law was written. Her land system
founded on an idea based not only on the rights of all but the
rights of each generation. The errors in the system were the
barnacles placed there by those who could never have founded
such a polity. Then came the five hundred years of wretched
monarchy. Schism, disunion, disruption, bad rulers, and
attempts to degrade the people and change the principles of the
government. Its degenerate fragments were swallowed up by
conquest when its wealth and its corruption rendered it a rich
prize and an easy prey. The attempt to rebuild and remodel
was but a partial success. It struggled along weak internally
and the victim of conquest after conquest ; on the advent of the
Christian era, it was finally rent in fragments ; and the people
who had been taught by law the evils of usury went forth
wanderers and usurers on the face of the earth.

44 HEBREW TENURE.

Examining it carefully, it was a wonderful polity, that
system of the ancient Jewish nation. It took cognizance of
the fact, that a healthy body could only be enjoyed by eating
healthy food. Surrounded by nations debased by horrid and
obscene crimes, diseased bodies and all manner of uncleanliness,
they were taught that cleanliness was next to godliness. Their
law pointed out the dangers of usury. Their land belonged
to the people, to all the people, and equally to the people of all
time. Much in their legal system appears to us now to be
barbarous. Tried by the standard of a highly refined age, it
doubtless was harsh and perhaps cruel. The laws of a nation
can never be safely placed far ahead of the people they are to
govern. Idealists lay down theoretical principles. Statesmen
adapt the machinery of government to the people and elevate
the standard of law, only as fast as they can be lifted. Vision-
aries chide delay, and visionaries in their place are useful. In
studying the Jewish laws, we are, therefore, to study not the
few acute or startling points, but the circumstances and con-
dition of the people. We have to study, moreover, the nations
by whom they were surrounded, and their besetting sins.
We must look, also, to the tendencies of their government.
Its underlying principles of purity, morality, equality and
justice. Modern men, with all their genius and literature,
inheriting the wisdom and wealth of antiquity, may smile at
some of the Jewish laws and pronounce them not adapted to
the present times ; when they have done so, they should read
and ponder over the wonderful history and law of the ancient
Jewish people. If they can rise above their own prejudices,
they will possess a better conception of human nature, govern-
ment and law. The modern man may boast of the grandeur
of his own civilization, he will also feel that in our progress
we have forgotten many things, a knowledge of which is
necessary for a well-organized and permanent state.

The Jewish nation has passed away, but its history and
law have, to a partial extent, become a part of our civilization.

WHAT IS LEFT OF JUDAISM. 45

Though scattered, the Hebrews have still an identity. They
have left their mark on nearly every later nation, for Chris-
tianity sprang from Judaism, and still reveres the old Bible,
and accepts much of its law. Ten tribes of ancient Israel
have been lost. Like their fathers, they once more became
wanderers, not to a promised laud, but away from the faith
and polity of Israel. Imaginative historians endeavor to
trace them in Arabia, India, Siam, China, or even among
the aborigines of America. These vain speculations merely
show that the great fragments of Israel, wherever they are,
have practically passed into oblivion. The ideas on which
the Hebrew nation was built are older than the theories and
doctrines on which the foundations of Greece and Rome lay,
but they have survived both.

Israel has not a country ; her people have ceased to make
their annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem, and the smoke of her
altars does not now ascend to heaven, but there is a wonderful
vitality in what is left of her principles. The Year of Jubi-
lee is but a tradition ; no longer does the trumpet's sound
declare a home for homeless wanderers, or rescue the unfor-
tunate from the grasping hand of avarice. Cleanliness, from
being a statute, has passed into the dominion of taste. The
law regulating food is confronted by the independent as-
sertion of a man's right to poison his body, and sow in his
system the seeds of disease if he chooses. If usury is a crime,
the boundaries of that enormity have been lost in a fog
thrown around them by political economists, and the laws
against it do not seem to be remembered even in Lombard
street or Amsterdam. In spite of all this decadence there is
enough of the old ideas left to crystallize a Hebrew element
at once distinct, and yet certainly potent, in every great
modern nation.

CHAPTER II.

SYSTEMS OF LAND AND LABOR IN ANCIENT EMPIRES.

Similarity of populations on the Nile and Euphrates Landlords and rent
in Egypt All below the privileged army and priesthood had to work
Only one occupation allowed Every citizen's home and business regis-
tered, in Ancient Egypt Legislation against borrowing money In
Chaldea and Babylon the king and his satraps the sole tyrants The
king as landlord Persian political economy Laborers should not be
robbed beyond the point when they would cease to produce Carthage a
combination or corporation for merchandising, piracy and slave dealing
Carthage called a republic, but drifted into three classes, slaves, a mer-
cenary army and an aristocracy Theory and practice of government in
Greece Land laws of Lycurgus Gold and silver banished Constant
struggle between the aristocrats and laboring people of Greece Solon
and Athens Debt on land and slaves abolished Legal value of silver
coin increased by law Timocracy, or man's rights measured by his prop-
erty Greece, eaten up by landed and other aristocrats surrenders to
tyrants Rome a robbers' den Reduction of the aristocracy and rise of
the republic Division of land among the people Seven acres enough
Land assigned on two year terms Gradual absorption of land and
money by the equestrian order Slaves take the place of free laborers
Death of Tiberius Gracchus Overthrow of the republic Citizens subsi-
dized Swallowed up by despotism and immorality.

THE recorded pages of ancient history are a very barren
field in which to glean a knowledge of the condition of the
people. Of wars, conquerors, kings and emperors, there is a
surfeit. We read of great temples and palaces ; of mighty
pyramids, towers, walls, artificial lakes and canals, but are
rarely informed whether they were built by an enslaved peo-
ple, or by captives of war dragged from other countries to
perform the menial tasks of the conquerors. We are apt to
measure the greatness of ancient nations by the monuments
erected upon human suffering and degradation. Herodotus
4(3

THE PRIESTHOOD HOLD LAND. 47

estimates that it required over one hundred thousand laborers
for thirty years to build the great pyramid.

The most ancient seats of learning, wealth and power, of
which we have record, are -the Chaldean, Babylonian and the
Egvptian. The empires on the Euphrates in many respects
resembled the empires on the Nile. Both were extremely
fertile regions. In both the agricultural systems depended
on irrigation. Both were almost surrounded by deserts.
The valley of the lower Nile is shut in by hills which ap-
proach within fifteen miles of the river.* Babylon was the
daughter of Chaldea.f The civilization of Egypt and Chal-
dea were identical.^ Their modes of agriculture, religion,
manners and customs, and, to some extent, their architecture
were similar. In each slavery existed, and while laborers
were also hired, the condition of the laboring classes was at
once abject and unhappy. Rawlinson, one of the best author-
ities, informs us that the lands in Egypt were held by three
parties. The king, or monarch, had one-third, the priests
one-third, and the army, which was largely the executive arm
of the government, one-third. About one-fifth of the pro-
duce was exacted as rent or tribute. The enormous labor of
creating and maintaining the canals and lakes for irrigation,
was done, under the supervision of the army, largely by
slaves. To equalize and extend the period of the irrigation
from the Nile, and prevent disastrous floods, a lake (Mreris)
three hundred feet deep was dug ; into this a great portion of
the floods could be drained to prevent an overflow. When
the river fell below the point at which it could easily furnish
water for the canals, the water was drawn from the lake for
irrigation. A shower of rain scarcely ever falls in Egypt.

If representative governments did not exist in Asia, it

* Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i., page 51.

f Ibid., page 47. I Ibid., page 57.

$ Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 127.

48 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

would be difficult to trace anything like them in Egypt.
Nearly all these Oriental governments were theocracies. The
priesthood represented the law, supposed to be divine law.
In most of them the priests claimed to have some method of
communicating with the gods. It was so in Egypt, and in
Babylon, and in Greece the utterances of the Delphic oracle
had great acceptance. There is a wonderful similarity in these
governments in that respect. In Egypt the priesthood was a
distinct and privileged class, and ranked next to the king ;
they were not allowed to practice polygamy, although the rest
of the people were. The priest's share of the available land
was free from taxation or tribute.* In addition to their sacred
functions, they promulgated the only law known. The king
had to enter the temple each morning to worship, when it was
customary for the priests to advise him what course to pursue.
Even the food of the king, which was plain, was prescribed
by law.

Next to the priesthood stood the army. In the days of their
power the army, under continual pay, consisted of four hun-
dred thousand men. This army constituted the third estate
or privileged class, and to enter it was considered an honor.
Each soldier was allowed for the purpose of subsisting himself
and family, irrigated land equal to " half a French acre," free
from all rent, tax or tribute: also, five pounds of bread, two
pounds of meat and a quart of wine daily.f The standing
army was, of course, a sufficient menace against all revolt or
rebellion.

The monarch who had an army subject to his authority,
had also the revenue of rent, tax or tribute from at least the
third of all the irrigated lands. Nor was this his only source
of avenue. He levied imposts on commerce, and several
branches of trade. A percentage of certain fisheries brought

*Kawlinson's Ancient History, vol. i., page 143.
f Rollings Ancient History, vol. i., page 151.

PRODUCTIONS OF EGYPT. 49

revenue. Public works were chiefly created and maintained
by slave labor, the slaves being largely aliens, captives of war,
or persons purchased from the Phoenicians, Greeks, or the
semi-barbarous people in central Africa.

As the monarch, the priests and the army owned the land,
they thus held the real substance of power : the remainder
of the people were divided into three classes in the following
order of rank: shepherds, husbandmen and artificers, or
artizans.* Each man had his place of business assigned by
law, and no one was permitted to have two separate occupa-
tions or professions ; nor could he make a change in his busi-
ness very easily. This was done really or ostensibly to allow
a fair field to each occupation. No man was allowed to be a
useless idler in the state. Every man had to enter his name
and business in a register. If he gave a false statement he
was put to death.

Under the law, people were allowed a reasonable liberty in
their individual business, provided they did not attempt to
interfere with the authority of the government. It was the
boast of the early Egyptian rulers that murder was almost
invariably punished, and the murder of a slave was as much
a violation of the law as the murder of a freeman. Xo slave
or foreigner was admitted to the immediate service of the
princ,f an( l thus one of the chief avenues to advancement was
shut against them.

Egypt was styled the granary of the world. Its chief grain
products were wheat, barley and rye. It also produced flax
and cotton.J Cotton was first introduced into upper Egypt
in very early times. It was used to a considerable extent in
manufacturing clothing for the people. The fine cotton goods
of Egypt were greatly prized in Greece. Except the date
palms and the sycamore, Egypt had no lofty trees. Herodotus

* Rollin's Ancient History, vol. i., page 153. f Ibid., page 139.

Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. ii., page 349.

50 ANCIENT EMPIRES.

informs us, that " when the river is full and the plains are
become a sea, there springs up in the water great quantities
of lilies, called lotus by the Egyptians." These the inhabit-
ants gather and from what is contained in them make a kind
of bread. The root is also made into food. Herodotus says,
that the use of the wine press was unknown in Egypt, although
wine was allowed to be used by the priests and the people
were permitted to drink it at festivals. We have seen that
the military order also consumed it. Wine was largely
imported from Greece, and was also obtained through the
Phoenicians. The "father of history" informs us, that the
common people of Egypt, at other times than festivals,
"drank a kind of beer made from barley." It is proper to
state, however, that vineyards were not altogether unknown
in Egypt. Among other productions spoken of by Herodotus
was the byblus, which is produced in shallow water. From
it the papyrus or paper, cordage and other articles of merchan-
dise was made. It was, in addition, prepared into food and
its stalk chewed for its juice.

Breeding of cattle, swine, horses, asses, mules, camels and
goats, constituted the second great producing interest next to
agriculture. As the Egyptians worshiped the sacred bull,
and as rams as well as serpents were in their pantheon, we
might have been led to expect that the Egyptians, like the
people of India, would not have made food of cattle or sheep,
and that this would have aifected their production. It does
not appear to have been the case, however. Horses were
reared for war and were chiefly used by the military order
and the aristocracy; they were likewise largely used for
exportation.* Cattle were produced for labor as well as food.
Large flocks of sheep were reared for the wool and were used
for food. The period of cultivation was a very brief one in
Egypt, the crops following immediately after the flood.

* Keren's Ancient Nations of Africa, vol. ii., page 356.

LAWS AGAINST USURY. 51

Plowing could hardly be said to be needed, although plowing
and stirring the soil to considerable extent was done. The
great object was to have the crops in at once on the fresh
deposit, when the water abated, so that they could mature
before the earth thoroughly dried out. Irrigating, where it
was practicable, was carried on by canals and ditches, and
water for the purpose was also pumped from the river.
Indeed, the more we are enabled to learn of the Egyptians,
the more we are forced to admit that they were not deficient
in the arts of production. They even hatched eggs in ovens.
Egypt had as colonies a great many cities and communities in
Europe, Asia and Africa. It was almost as famous as Tyre,
for dyes and cloths, and had quite a trade in gold, ivory and
slaves, with the interior of Africa.

Egypt, at one time, had stringent laws against usury, or,
more correctly, against borrowing money. The legislation
of Egypt against borrowing money, while it was done ostensi-
bly in the interests of the people, was also a policy against the
cumulative power of capital in money. The rulers already
held the other sources of wealth and did not intend to have
any rivals. This legislation against the productive power of
money was not peculiar to Egypt, for many of the more
enlightened of the ancient nations did the same thing. The
tendency of the poor and needy to pay usurious rates of interest
is at least as old as Egypt, and when the money of a country
lias added to its other forces the power of addition and multi-
plication, in adroit hands, it will soon draw to itself all the
wealth that there is in any country. The Egyptian law was
designed to prevent such a result. In Egypt, moreover, bor-
rowing had some additional drawbacks. He who ran into
debt in the middle portion of Egyptian history, was very apt
to run into slavery. At the usual rate of interest it would not
have taken very many generations to reduce the whole of the
industrious population to a condition of servitude.

Keren informs us that the later Egyptian governments

52 ANCIENT EMPIRES,

regulated loans, fixed the rate of interest, and partially per-
mitted a creditor to indemnify himself for a debt when he
could do it from other property besides the person of his
debtor. The general policy of Egypt was to prevent the ag-
gregation of capital by usury. During a portion of her his-
tory, the citizens of Egypt proper were not allowed to be en-
slaved for debt.

The manufactures of Egypt were as important and prob-
ably as highly developed as those of any nation. Heren
says that two or three thousand years ago their weaving was
brought to as great or even greater perfection than ours at
present. The same authority tells us that their dyes were
splendid. They had a great business in fabrics of wool, flax,
cotton, gold thread and other material. The Egyptian earth-
enware was of very fine quality. They were also skillful
workers in metals, gold, silver, bronze and brass. After the
waste and destruction of three thousand years her architecture
presents the most imposing monuments of human power and
skill.

While the area of Egypt was limited, its food-producing
power was great, thus creating large populations : for this
reason we find the government had a fixed and continuous
policy of encouraging emigration.* They sent colonies to all
parts of the world, carrying their laws, customs and boasted
politeness with them. Homer tells us that the Ethiopians
were divided from the rising to the setting of the sun. This
appeared to have been more for the purpose of disposing of
their surplus population than with a policy of possessing
colonies and retaining them. For many centuries there was
the closest relations between the cities of Egypt, Phoenicia,
Asia Minor and Greece. To Egypt the scholars of Greece
and other countries resorted to finish their education and
acquire information as to her arts and literature.

* Kollin's Ancient History, Vol. i., page 151.

DECADENCE OF EGYPT. 53

Many changes occurred in the history of Egypt. The Ethi-
opians conquered Egypt and held it for several generations.
After that there were many changes in the rulers and yet no
fundamental changes in the constitution of its government.
Caste ruled in Egypt. The military, the priesthood and the
monarch held the wealth as well as the power of Egypt in
their grasp. So long as these three agreed the people had no
power to resist them.

Heren informs us that Psammetichus overthrew and finally
forced the military caste of the Egyptians to emigrate to
Ethiopia. He and his successors stripped them of their
lands, and the later rulers depended nearly altogether on
mercenary soldiers, chiefly from other countries. To sustain
them, heavier exactions were made from the people. In order
to keep the turbulent spirits of this unpatriotic army employed,
and to offer them the inducement of plunder, indispensable
for such soldiers, foreign conquests were attempted, chiefly
in Asia, and these were not always successful. Weakened,
robbed and dispirited, it is no wonder that Egypt succumbed
to the Persian conqueror. It is significant of the indifference
of the people, that he was able in one battle and a siege of
ten days, to decide the fate of the w T hole country. Cambyses
lost an army of seventy thousand men, endeavoring to pene-
trate the upper Nile, destroyed by the inhospitable deserts
rather than hostilities. From this period forward the history
of Egypt is one of wars, conquests, and political vicissitudes,
in which the people suffer from one set of kingly robbers
after another, Darius, Xerxes, Ochus, Alexander. Then for
nearly three hundred years Egyptian history is again elevated
by the dynasty of the Ptolemys and then came Caesar, Anthony
and the Romans, and for more than three hundred years it
was a Roman province : its wealth was drained to benefit an
alien nation. Then came the conquest of the Persians once
more, and then of the Saracen and Turk. In the midst of all
these, Egypt, the cradle of human civilization and power, has

54 ANCIENT EMPIEES.

sunk so low that no people are now as wretched, spiritless
or poverty-stricken, and this notwithstanding the country
possesses the finest natural resources.

The valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates were richer than
even the Nile. Herodotus tells us that no country in the
world is so fertile, and that the blade of wheat is often four
fingers in width. Babylon, Nineveh and all their ruling
cities were dens of plunder. The monarch owned the land
and demanded heavy tribute from it. The system of irrigation
was in charge of the king and his subordinates, while the
wretched agriculturist was ground to death between the exac-
tions of the monarch and his horde of petty princes, deputies and
tax collectors. Herodotus tells us of one governor who derived
from his province two bushels of silver each day in tribute,
and who had a stud of sixteen thousand mares. Hosts of slaves
captured in war were employed to perform the most menial
tasks, but the condition of the poor native laborer was hardly
any better. He was generally so severely burdened by regular
taxes and special tribute for war purposes, that it was almost
impossible for him to retain a bare subsistence. If he made
more he was obliged to conceal it, or expose himself to petty
banditti, or further exaction from deputies of royal robbers.

The worst governments known to men have been govern-
ments of deputies. A royal ruler may have an occasional
gleam of greatness about him, and even his position invites
from him some exercise of magnanimity, but a deputy has all
the vices of his master added to his own. No portion of the
globe has been so governed by deputies as the various Asiatic
countries. These ancient deputies, local governors and petty
satraps, to some extent resemble the directors of our mod-
ern railroads, whose first business is to get rich themselves,
and finally, to extract from their employees all they can for
the benefit of the corporation. An Eastern potentate rarely
made any inquiries of his deputy so long as he sent forward
a liberal amount of tribute.

ARTAXEBXES. 55

The gods of the Assyrians were gods of war. War and
conquest ran through their whole dominion. They adopted
a somewhat novel policy intended to open a field of enterprise
to the ambitious at home, and maintain a subordinate popula-
tion in the seats of empire. As fast as they, by force of arms,
subjugated states, they sent all the inhabitants thereof who
might be troublesome to them, as slaves, to the country of
the conqueror, and colonized the countries taken with num-
bers of their own people, who thus became the local rulers of
the conquered provinces.* The vanquished people were sub-
ject to tribute. Phoenicia and Israel fell before them. They
carried their arms with great atrocity into Armenia and the
other northern provinces, and in case of revolt or refusal to
pay tribute, flayed the insurgents alive. They conquered a
portion of Media and built fortresses in that country. Egypt
paid tribute. Damascus became an outpost for their troops,
and while Arabia did not entirely succumb, it was subject to
their influence. Indeed, Assyria is the first great conquering
power we encounter in the history of the world. It united
the Semetic races for the first time of which we have record.f
In all its annals of blood and violence it would be vain to
seek for statutes maintaining human rights, a religion founded
on justice, or a people whose interests were ever considered.
An empire resting on an aristocracy of soldiers, and main-
tained by tribute and slavery, is all that can be discovered.

The founding of a new Persian empire, about 230 A.D.,
under Artaxerxes, was of significant importance in this, that
it re-established an authority strong enough to cope with the
Romans, if not to drive them from Asia, and substituted the
rule of the Aryan Persians for that of the ruder Scyths of
the North. Five hundred years had elapsed between the old
Persia