hese
arrangements were matured, and the produce of the plunder, or the
tribute, or the tax, or whatever we call it, increased, just so far it
became for the interest of the chieftains that the cultivation of the
land and the traffic on the river should be increased, and should be
protected from all depredations but their own. Thus a system of law grew
up, and arrangements for preserving public order, for promoting the
general industry, and rules and regulations for the collection of the
tribute, until at length, when all these arrangements were matured, and
the multitude of petty chieftains became combined under one great
chieftain ruling over the whole, and collecting the revenue for his
subordinates, we find a great kingdom as the result, in which the
descendants of the ancient marauders that lived in castles on the hills,
under the name of princes and nobles, collect the means of enabling
themselves to live in idleness and luxury out of the avails of the labor
of the agriculturists, the merchants, and the manufacturers, by a
combined and concerted arrangement, and a regular system of rents,
taxes, and tolls, instead of by irregular forrays and depredations, as
in former years.

When any one of these nobles is questioned as to the nature of his claim
to the enjoyment of so large a portion of the produce of the land,
without doing any thing to earn or deserve it, he says that it is a
_vested right_; that is, that he has a right to claim and take a certain
portion of the proceeds of the toil of the _present_ generation of
laborers, because his forefathers claimed and took a similar portion
from theirs. And the one monarch, whose ancestors succeeded in
overpowering or crowding out the others, claims his right to rule on the
same ground. Thus, in the progress of ages, by a strange commutation,
robbery and plunder, when systematized, and extended, and established on
a permanent basis, become legitimacy, and the divine right of kings.

In America there is no such division of the fruits of industry between
those who do the work and a class of idle nobles, and soldiers, and
priests, who do nothing but consume the proceeds of it. There every man
possesses the full fruit of his labor, except so far as he himself joins
with his fellow-citizens in setting apart a portion for the purposes of
public and general utility. This is the reason why such immense numbers
of laboring men are every year leaving Germany and emigrating to
Am