The daily Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1841-1845, 1845-04-18

|of few rich men. Instead of being as they
ought, the infeXible guardians of equal rights,
and dispensing like the dews Of heaven, their
iavors upon all they devote themselves to the
building up Of privileged orders, and creating
artificial distinctions in society, exating few
and debasing the many making small num-
Der enormously rich, and reducing the mass TO
penury and degradation. Suppose the world
were perfect plains it not evident that
there could be no mountains without excava-
uons-the valley would deepen in the same pro
portion as the mountain increased In height
So with the people under the operation OF par
tial legislation; that which is given to the few,
is taken from the many; if the few are made
rich by an act of the legislature, the many are
robbed, and become poor in the same proportion
as the others increase in wealth by a legs-
laliye body, instead Of industry. If there
were no rich men, there would be equally as
much wealth and infinitely more happiness and
virtue in the world than there is al present.
Riches would then be dfiused like the other
blessings of heaven, the air the light, and the
rain, and the many would be contented and
happy.
We are greatly deceived by the phrase poor
nations il is there where the people are in the
enjoyment Of ease, and the blessings of comfort;
the rich nation is where the mass of the people
are reduced to poverty and the wealth is in the
hands of few. This artificial and unequal
distribution Of property, by legal enactments, is
at the foundation, is the fruitful source, of all
the evils and vice Of which society complains.
Every inequality Of means, and OF facilities, is
at bottom an inequality of power. Inequality of
wealth brings with j, that of instruction in
knowledge, capacity and influence, producing
poverty and its consequent vice. This tends TO
reproduce or re-establish the inequality OF pow
err, and consequently TO subver society. The
more there are of great fortunes, the more there
are who are idle and pay for no labor but f..
their pleasure, and the more riches tend to de-
cay, and population TO diminish. Wherever
you see exaggerated fortunes, you there see the
greatest misery and the greatest stagnation ofin-
dustry. Thus reasons this eminent banker and
political economist-and he was seldom in the
wrong; and he might have added there you see
the most vice and crime. Nations are never de-
stroyed by thu mass of the inhabitants becoming
efeminate by luxury. This we have been told
thousand times, but it is untrue, because it is
impossible. When we hear Of nation having
become enervated by luxury, let il be under
stood that about an hundredth part fit, at most,
are corrupted by overgrown wealth, and all the
rest are trodden down by the heel of oppression
in the dust of shame and disgrace, and living in
squalor and wretchedness. To talk of the en-
joyments of Capua, destroying those brave ar
mics by having plentiully enjoyed the means of
life, is the height of nonsense. No. The Chiefs
only were corrupted by having amassed for
tunes, and were no longer ambitious; they suf.
fered their soldiers to become brigands by set
ting them an example of plundering the de-
fenceless, and by this means their discipline was
destroyed.