Now, what is true in Europe, is substantially true in this country. The
difference is the immaterial one, that, in this country, there is no
visible, permanent head, or chief, of these robbers and murderers, who
call themselves "the government." That is to say, there is no _one man_,
who calls himself the state, or even emperor, king, or sovereign; no one
who claims that he and his children rule "by the Grace of God," by
"Divine Right," or by special appointment from Heaven. There are only
certain men, who call themselves presidents, senators, and
representatives, and claim to be the authorized agents, _for the time
being, or for certain short periods, of all_ "the people of the United
States"; but who can show no credentials, or powers of attorney, or any
other open, authentic evidence that they are so; and who notoriously are
not so; but are really only the agents of a secret band of robbers and
murderers, whom they themselves do not know, and have no means of
knowing, individually; but who, they trust, will openly or secretly,
when the crisis comes, sustain them in all their usurpations and crimes.
What is important to be noticed is, that these so-called presidents,
senators, and representatives, these pretended agents of all "the people
of the United States," the moment their exactions meet with any
formidable resistance from any portion of "the people" themselves, are
obliged, like their co-robbers and murderers in Europe, to fly at once
to the lenders of blood money, for the means to sustain their power. And
they borrow their money on the same principle, and for the same
purpose, viz., to be expended in shooting down all those "people of the
United States"--their own constituents and principals, as they profess
to call them--who resist the robberies and enslavement which these
borrowers of the money are practising upon them. And they expect to
repay the loans, if at all, only from the proceeds of the future
robberies, which they anticipate it will be easy for them and their
successors to perpetrate through a long series of years, upon their
pretended principals, if they can but shoot down now some hundreds of
thousands of them, and thus strike terror into the rest.
Perhaps the facts were never made more evident, in any country on the
globe, than in our own, that these soulless blood-money loan-mongers are
the real rulers; that they rule from the most sordid and mercenary
motives; that the ostensible government, the presidents, senators, and
representatives, so called, are merely their tools; and that no ideas
of, or regard for, justice or liberty had anything to do in inducing
them to lend their money for the war. In proof of all this, look at the
following facts.
Nearly a hundred years ago we professed to have got rid of all that
religious superstition, inculcated by a servile and corrupt priesthood
in Europe, that rulers, so called, derived their authority directly from
Heaven; and that it was consequently a religious duty on the part of the
people to obey them. We professed long ago to have learned that
governments could rightfully exist only by the free will, and on the
voluntary support, of those who might choose to sustain them. We all
professed to have known long ago, that the only legitimate objects of
government were the maintenance of liberty and justice equally for all.
All this we had professed for nearly a hundred years. And we professed
to look with pity and contempt upon those ignorant, superstitious, and
enslaved peoples of Europe, who were so easily kept in subjection by the
frauds and force of priests and kings.
Notwithstanding all this, that we had learned, and known, and professed,
for nearly a century, these lenders of blood money had, for a long
series of years previous to the war, been the willing accomplices of the
slave-holders in perverting the government from the purposes of liberty
and justice, to the greatest of crimes. They had been such accomplices
_for a purely pecuniary consideration_, to wit, a control of the markets
in the South; in other words, the privilege of holding the slave-holders
themselves in industrial and commercial subjection to the manufacturers
and merchants of the North (who afterwards furnished the money for the
war). And these Northern merchants and manufacturers, these lenders of
blood-money, were willing to continue to be the accomplices of the
slave-holders in the future, for the same pecuniary consideration. But
the slave-holders, either doubting the fidelity of their Northern
allies, or feeling themselves strong enough to keep their slaves in
subjection without Northern assistance, would no longer pay the price
which these Northern men demanded. And it was to enforce this price in
the future--that is, to monopolize the Southern markets, to maintain
their industrial and commercial control over the South--that these
Northern manufacturers and merchants lent some of the profits of their
former monopolies for the war, in order to secure to themselves the
same, or greater, monopolies in the future. These--and not any love of
liberty or justice--were the motives on which the money for the war was
lent by the North. In short, the North said to the slave-holders: If you
will not pay us our price (give us control of your markets) for our
assistance against your slaves, we will secure the same price (keep
control of your markets) by helping your slaves against you, and using
them as our tools for maintaining dominion over you; for the control of
your markets we will have, whether the tools we use for that purpose be
black or white, and be the cost, in blood and money, what it may.
On this principle, and from this motive, and not from any love of
liberty, or justice, the money was lent in enormous amounts, and at
enormous rates of interest. And it was only by means of these loans that
the objects of the war were accomplished.
And now these lenders of blood-money demand their pay; and the
government, so called, becomes their tool, their servile, slavish,
villainous tool, to extort it from the labor of the enslaved people both
of the North and the South. It is to be extorted by every form of
direct, and indirect, and unequal taxation. Not only the nominal debt
and interest--enormous as the latter was--are to be paid in full; but
these holders of the debt are to be paid still further--and perhaps
doubly, triply, or quadruply paid--by such tariffs on imports as will
enable our home manufacturers to realize enormous prices for their
commodities; also by such monopolies in banking as will enable them to
keep control of, and thus enslave and plunder, the industry and trade of
the great body of the Northern people themselves. In short, the
industrial and commercial slavery of the great body of the people, North
and South, black and white, is the price which these lenders of blood
money demand, and insist upon, and are determined to secure, in return
for the money lent for the war.
This programme having been fully arranged and systematized, they put
their sword into the hands of the chief murderer of the war, and charge
him to carry their scheme into effect. And now he, speaking as their
organ, says: "_Let us have peace_."
The meaning of this is: Submit quietly to all the robbery and slavery we
have arranged for you, and you can have "peace." But in case you resist,
the same lenders of blood-money, who furnished the means to subdue the
South, will furnish the means again to subdue you.
These are the terms on which alone this government, or, with few
exceptions, any other, ever gives "peace" to its people.
The whole affair, on the part of those who furnished the money, has
been, and now is, a deliberate scheme of robbery and murder; not merely
to monopolize the markets of the South, but also to monopolize the
currency, and thus control the industry and trade, and thus plunder and
enslave the laborers, of both North and South. And Congress and the
president are today the merest tools for these purposes. They are
obliged to be, for they know that their own power, as rulers, so-called,
is at an end, the moment their credit with the blood-money loan-mongers
fails. They are like a bankrupt in the hands of an extortioner. They
dare not say nay to any demand made upon them. And to hide at once, if
possible, both their servility and their crimes, they attempt to divert
public attention, by crying out that they have "Abolished Slavery!" That
they have "Saved the Country!" That they have "Preserved our Glorious
Union!" and that, in now paying the "National Debt," as they call it (as
if the people themselves, _all of them who are to be taxed for its
payment_, had really and voluntarily joined in contracting it), they are
simply "Maintaining the National Honor!"
By "maintaining the national honor," they mean simply that they
themselves, open robbers and murderers, assume to be the nation, and
will keep faith with those who lend them the money necessary to enable
them to crush the great body of the people under their feet; and will
faithfully appropriate, from the proceeds of their future robberies and
murders, enough to pay all their loans, principal and interest.
The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a motive or
justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of
"maintaining the national honor." Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and
murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except
one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable
of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from
any love of liberty in general--not as an act of justice to the black
man himself, but only "as a war measure," and because they wanted his
assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had
undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial,
and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of
the people, both white and black. And yet these imposters now cry out
that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man--although
that was not the motive of the war--as if they thought they could
thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they
were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable
than it ever was before. There was no difference of principle--but only
of degree--between the slavery they boast they have abolished, and the
slavery they were fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's
natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice,
are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree.
If their object had really been to abolish slavery, or maintain liberty
or justice generally, they had only to say: All, whether white or black,
who want the protection of this government, shall have it; and all who
do not want it, will be left in peace, so long as they leave us in
peace. Had they said this, slavery would necessarily have been abolished
at once; the war would have been saved; and a thousand times nobler
union than we have ever had would have been the result. It would have
been a voluntary union of free men; such a union as will one day exist
among all men, the world over, if the several nations, so called, shall
ever get rid of the usurpers, robbers, and murderers, called
governments, that now plunder, enslave, and destroy them.
Still another of the frauds of these men is, that they are now
establishing, and that the war was designed to establish, "a government
of consent." The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a
government of consent, is this--that it is one to which everybody must
consent, or be shot. This idea was the dominant one on which the war was
carried on; and it is the dominant one, now that we have got what is
called "peace."
Their pretenses that they have "Saved the Country," and "Preserved our
Glorious Union," are frauds like all the rest of their pretenses. By
them they mean simply that they have subjugated, and maintained their
power over, an unwilling people. This they call "Saving the Country"; as
if an enslaved and subjugated people--or as if any people kept in
subjection by the sword (as it is intended that all of us shall be
hereafter)--could be said to have any country. This, too, they call
"Preserving our Glorious Union"; as if there could be said to be any
Union, glorious or inglorious, that was not voluntary. Or as if there
could be said to be any union between masters and slaves; between those
who conquer, and those who are subjugated.
All these cries of having "abolished slavery," of having "saved the
country," of having "preserved the union," of establishing "a government
of consent," and of "maintaining the national honor," are all gross,
shameless, transparent cheats--so transparent that they ought to deceive
no one--when uttered as justifications for the war, or for the
government that has succeeded the war, or for now compelling the people
to pay the cost of the war, or for compelling anybody to support a
government that he does not want.
The lesson taught by all these facts is this: As long as mankind
continue to pay "national debts," so-called--that is, so long as they
are such dupes and cowards as to pay for being cheated, plundered,
enslaved, and murdered--so long there will be enough to lend the money
for those purposes; and with that money a plenty of tools, called
soldiers, can be hired to keep them in subjection. But when they refuse
any longer to pay for being thus cheated, plundered, enslaved, and
murdered, they will cease to have cheats, and usurpers, and robbers, and
murderers and blood-money loan-mongers for masters.