as well as the common feeling of mankind revolts at it. Property, as the world is constituted by God, is the source of new industry, because it is, under the laws of all civilized nations, the original result of industry. "It makes the meat it feeds on." Without it there would be no duty of labor, no exercise of human ingenuity or talent, no responsibility, no reward. The mind and body would stagnate under such a monstrous contradiction of all our physical and intellectual laws. The race would degenerate into its former savage condition; and force, instead of its antagonists, industry and honest competition, would usurp the dominion of the world and end this vicious circle of bastard civilization.
And yet it is the duty of an American,—who, from his superior position, both in regard to space in which he can find employment and equal political laws by which that employment is protected, stands on a vantage ground above the confined and badly governed masses of Europe,—to regard the present position of the European masses not only with humane compassion, but to sympathize with that natural feeling that revolts against a state of society which it seems impossible to ameliorate, and yet whose wants or luxuries do not afford them support. It is hard to suffer hunger and to see our dependants die of starvation, when we are both able and willing to work for wages but can obtain no work upon which to exercise our ingenuity or our hands. It is frightful to reflect, says Mr. Carlyle, in one of his admirable essays, that there is hardly an English horse, in a condition to labor for his owner, that is deprived of food and lodging, whilst thousands of human beings rise daily from their obscure and comfortless dens in the British isles, who do not know how they shall obtain employment for the day by which they may purchase a meal.
To this dismal account of European suffering, the condition of the American continent affords the best reply. The answer and the remedy are both displayed in the social and political institutions, as well as in the boundless unoccupied and prolific tracts of our country. Labor cries out