sluggish beings to strikes and a struggle for a change in their
condition.

Hitherto, in the United States, our cheap and fertile lands have acted
as an important safety-valve for the enterprise and discontent of our
non-capitalist population. Every hired workman knows that if he chooses
to use economy and industry in his calling, he may without great or
insurmountable difficulty establish himself in independence on the
public lands; and, in fact, a large proportion of our most energetic and
intelligent mechanics do constantly seek these lands, where with patient
toil they master nature and adverse circumstances, often make fortunate
and honorable careers, and at the worst leave their children in an
improved condition of life. I do not doubt that the eagerness of some of
our wisest public men for the acquisition of new territory has arisen
from their conviction that this opening for the independence of laboring
men was essential to the security of our future as a free and peaceful
state. For, though not one in a hundred, or even one in a thousand of
our poorer and so-called laboring class may choose to actually achieve
independence by taking up and tilling a portion of the public lands, it
is plain that the knowledge that any one may do so makes those who do
not more contented with their lot, which they thus feel to be one of
choice and not of compulsion.

Any circumstance, as the exhaustion of these lands, which should
materially impair this opportunity for independence, would be, I
believe, a serious calamity to our country; and the spirit of the
Trades-Unions and International Societies appears to me peculiarly
mischievous and hateful, because they seek to eliminate from the
thoughts of their adherents the hope or expectation of independence. The
member of a Trades-Union is taught to regard himself, and to act toward