aristocracy, and republican majorities, that the right to do a wrong, by virtue of superior force or numbers, may be shown to be a revolting fallacy. In this strain of reasoning, and with the borrowed force of such demonstrations, we are forthwith told that "the act of forcing the individual into the social compact can be justified only on the ground of necessity." The social compact turns up whenever it is wanted. It is a pure fiction, indeed, but it is a fact, nevertheless, when the adversary can be made to answer for its faults; and it is reproduced in this connection only to declare that because it is an involuntary compact it has no rightful authority over individuals or minorities, except in cases of necessity, such necessity as justifies homicide in particular cases, and has the general bad character of knowing no law and regarding none. Such necessary corrections of the system of society imply either a very bad system of natural rights, or a very bad mistake in the theory grounded upon them. But the common sense of civilized men has a very different apprehension of the whole subject of civil government. They understand that civil society is a corporation of mutual insurance, and a partnership of productive industry and commerce; that it is charged with the administration of the general interests of the community; that, much as it leaves to the individual of his private affairs, its general powers extend to every one of them so far as to foster and defend them without interfering with their legitimate liberty; and that it is bound to defend its subjects in all their interests by all its laws as well as by its armies, against injury from foreign and domestic enemies. So absolute and actual is the correspondence between the individual man and the grand or collective man, which is called society, or the community, that there is a State alms-giving, answering to individual benevolence; a State justice, reflecting individual conscience; a State education, representing philanthropy; a State economy, serving in the acquisition of wealth; and, as a necessary incident of all these duties, it has the proper power to effectuate them. The machinery of a democratic government, in fact, answers to every duty, as well as to every necessity of the individual, and the State being the embodiment of its constituent members, has all the rights, powers and duties required for the fulfilment of its intention, which, in general terms, is the promotion of the general welfare. Mr. Newcomb denies.

all this; he says, "This idea, though supported by the propo-
sitions found in our Constitutional Declarations of Rights, is,
we conceive, a pure fiction." He thus takes issue with the pre-
amble to the Federal Constitution and with its authors, and so
far as the theoretical basis of our republicanism goes, we are
content to leave Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison
to his mercy; but for the benefits and blessings resulting from
government, with the whole scope of authority which we claim
for it, some defence may be made against the assaults of the let-
alone doctrine. Briefly, we would put our position thus: Men
are born to get good and do good in the world; individual and
social welfare are the proper aims of earthly existence, and the
best things in us must have some organization and some instru-
mentalities adapted to the best ends; and if the wild liberties of
the state of nature will not serve so well, there must be wisdom
and justice, and fitness, in spite of all "natural rights," in re-
sorting to such organisms of effort as will give freedom and
force to our relative duties, and to the proper charities of
humanity; some machinery by which the strong can help the
weak, the wise guide the ignorant, the rich aid the poor; in a
word, or in the holiest words, some system of agencies by which
the "elder may serve the younger," as "the angels minister unto
them that are the heirs of salvation." To this point we are
bold to affirm that the State and National governments of this
Union have done more good for the millions of its present popu-
lation, and for the coming millions in expectancy, than all the
instances of associated effort made in all time by philanthropists
working by the purely voluntary principle which the original
"natural rights" of man allow and rely upon. The very religion
of progress and reform is in our civil polity, and there are as
large resources of beneficence in it as humanity can ever employ
to purpose. There is that in the organic structure of our system
which is capable of giving force and effect to all the best inten-
tions of wisdom and goodness for the common benefit.
It pro-
vides place, protection and opportunity for the man as an
individual and as a social being; it separates the family from
the neighborhood, guards its privileges and cherishes its influ-
ences; it incorporates the school district, the township, the
county, the State, and the Union, sphere within sphere, and
gives play and impulse to their utmost possibilities of good, as

harmoniously as the planets roll in their respective orbits. The individual man, and all the combinations of which he is capable, fall within its purview for protection, encouragement, and help, and it secures to him every possibility in him, and fitting channels of action.

The powers necessary and proper to so grand a scope of duties as devolve upon civil government cannot be the mere residuum of natural rights after the deductions made by the necessities of an artificial organization, into which the individual "is forced," or of an "involuntary compact" that, "strictly speaking, is an infringement of natural rights." Law is perfectly consistent with liberty, and grudged obedience or compulsory submission to authority need not be invented for the purpose of reconciling men to the necessary surrender of any right. That is a better philosophy that denies rights which would be wrongs, in the only possible conditions of a true society of men; for this theory leaves no capital sum of independence to claim against the duties which the individual owes to society, and the powers required by the social system. The only question, in any given case, would be, Is the mandatory or prohibitive decree fitted to promote the general welfare in all respects which it touches? and the result of the inquiry, obedience to the powers that be, in case of individual dissent, or the other alternative, revolution, when that would best "provide for the common defence, and best promote the general welfare."

Our author having thus spread a firmament of logical abstractions, which impress our judgment, as we have shown, proceeds to sun and moon it with subordinate abstractions, and to star it with specialties of demonstration, for the more particular illumination of the subject of protection of home industry and commerce by duties imposed with that intent upon foreign imports which compete with domestic products for the home market. He begins with "two propositions, on which the. let-alone policy, in its most general application, is founded:" "1st. In the long run, each individual is a better judge of what is the most advantageous employment of his labor or his capital than any other man or set of men can be;" and he thinks that "this proposition will not be disputed if once clearly understood." Now our understanding of it is, that it clearly means the same thing as the resolution offered in Tammany Hall by a fresh-made

citizen from the Emerald Isle: "Resolved, that every man is as good as any other man, and a great deal better." We do not stop to dispute such a proposition, but we answer the expectation of the writer by saying that we deny it, both in the long and the short run, in the trust that upon reflection our readers will agree with us that if there is a profession or special branch of human knowledge demanding the deepest insight and the most commanding attainments of mind and of experience, it is just that which must preside over the industrial and commercial interests of a nation; and that, consequently, statesmanship, in which some men are ahead of others, is demanded for the welfare of individuals and for the community in this very thing, above all others, and that this is the reason that Political Economy is cultivated by the best abilities of men in modern times.

The second and finishing proposition propounded, fearless of disputation, is: "The advantage of the community is the sum of the advantages of its component members; and, therefore, to prove that a community is prosperous, it is necessary to show that its individual members prosper, or at least that the gains of those who prosper exceed the losses of those whose condition is made worse." This is plain enough, and may pass for indisputable. We admit that the whole is equal to its parts, and that the converse proposition, that the sum of all the parts is equal to the whole, is also true; but if it is fundamental to the let-alone argument, why do we never hear of it again? Why is it never applied, even by the remotest hint or allusion? Or how could any ingenuity make any use of it in this dispute? We, however, accept the proposition as we would accept a coin, head or tail up, having the privilege of turning it from the reverse to the obverse presentment. Preferring the face to the back view, we read it thus: The advantages of the several constituent members of a community are their distributive shares of the common advantage of the community; and, therefore, to prove that the individual members prosper, it is necessary to show that the community prospers, or at least to show that the common gains of the aggregate community exceed the general loss. Certainly, the individual is a partner in loss and gain in the common stock of the partnership, and the care of the entirety is the only way to provide for the prosperity of the severalties.

Fond as the writer is of the ideal, he feels the necessity of

dealing with the actual, and so he brings his let-alone philosophy down from the skies, under a feeling that, after all, "it is by its good or bad results that it will actually stand or fall;" and he begins by grappling the notion of the protectionists, that "if free trade in foreign commodities be allowed, we shall import more than we can pay for without injury to our interests." He meets this trouble by showing that nobody can suffer from such incapacity to pay but those who buy the goods-either the dealers or the consumers. If the dealers, "they suffer justly for overestimating the demand;" if the consumers, "they suffer simply from buying what they find it very hard to pay for." That's all! This answer, or solution, or evasion, or whatever it is, when the logic is eliminated, and the substance is left, fairly matches Tony Lumpkin's reply to the lost travellers who asked him for direction. "Well, gentlemen," said Tony, "you admit that you don't know which way you came, nor which way to go, nor where you are, and all that I have to tell you is, that you have lost your way." People in this predicament are to be let alone, for the reason that under the natural-rights system "man is able to take care of himself better than any governing power can take care of him.” Mr. Newcomb and Squire Lumpkin agree exactly as to the assistance, or guidance, or protection, that the unfortunates ask for, only Mr. Newcomb has the philosophical way of telling them that it serves them right. If they grumble, as men will do when they are lost on crack-skull common or bankrupt in free-trade markets, let them read the January number of The North American Review, and they will there see that a coachman, acquainted with the road, or a congress, however qualified, would be an infringement of natural rights, and are a part of that system of absolutism which nobody can bear, except protectionists, who are the subjects of "a curious aberration of intellect," such as severely affected the intellects of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Quincy Adams, as their cases are now regarded by "the wisest and most far-sighted of the human race."

To the argument that "foreign goods by their cheapness injure our domestic industries," it is admitted "that the policy proposed by the protectionists tends to increase this supposed good." But the writer meets "the whole argument by denying the truth of the proposition that industry is in itself a good."