In still another way, the government denies men's _natural_ right to
life. And that is by denying their _natural_ right to make any of those
contracts with each other, for buying and selling, borrowing and
lending, giving and receiving, property, which are necessary, if men are
to exist in any considerable numbers on the earth.
Even the few savages, who contrive to live, mostly or wholly, by
hunting, fishing, and gathering wild fruits, without cultivating the
earth, and almost wholly without the use of tools or machinery, are yet,
_at times_, necessitated to buy and sell, borrow and lend, give and
receive, articles of food, if no others, as their only means of
preserving their lives. But, in civilized life, where but a small
portion of men's labor is necessary for the production of food, and they
employ themselves in an almost infinite variety of industries, and in
the production of an almost infinite variety of commodities, it would be
impossible for them to live, if they were wholly prohibited from buying
and selling, borrowing and lending, giving and receiving, the products
of each other's labor.
Yet the government of the United States--either acting separately, or
jointly with the State governments--has heretofore constantly denied,
and still constantly denies, the _natural_ right of the people, _as
individuals_, to make their own contracts, for such buying and selling,
borrowing and lending, and giving and receiving, such commodities as
they produce for each other's uses.
I repeat that both the national and State governments have constantly
denied the _natural_ right of individuals to make their own contracts.
They have done this, sometimes by arbitrarily forbidding them to make
particular contracts, and sometimes by arbitrarily qualifying the
obligation of particular contracts, when the contracts themselves were
naturally and intrinsically as just and lawful as any others that men
ever enter into; and were, consequently, such as men have as perfect a
_natural_ right to make, as they have to make any of those contracts
which they are permitted to make.
The laws arbitrarily prohibiting, or arbitrarily qualifying, certain
contracts, that are naturally and intrinsically just and lawful, are so
numerous, and so well known, that they need not all be enumerated here.
But any and all such prohibitions, or qualifications, are a denial of
men's _natural_ right to make their own contracts. They are a denial of
men's right to make any contracts whatever, except such as the
governments shall see fit to permit them to make.
It is the _natural_ right of any and all human beings, who are mentally
competent to make reasonable contracts, to make any and every possible
contract, that is naturally and intrinsically just and honest, for
buying and selling, borrowing and lending, giving and receiving, any and
all possible commodities, that are naturally vendible, loanable, and
transferable, and that any two or more individuals may, at any time,
without force or fraud, choose to buy and sell, borrow and lend, give
and receive, of and to each other.
And it is plainly only by the untrammelled exercise of this _natural_
right, that all the loanable capital, that is required by men's
industries, can be lent and borrowed, or that all the money can be
supplied for the purchase and sale of that almost infinite diversity and
amount of commodities, that men are capable of producing, and that are
to be transferred from the hands of the producers to those of the
consumers.
But the government of the United States--and also the governments of the
States--utterly deny the _natural_ right of any individuals whatever to
make any contracts whatever, for buying and selling, borrowing and
lending, giving and receiving, any and all such commodities, as are
naturally vendible, loanable, and transferable, and as the producers and
consumers of such commodities may wish to buy and sell, borrow and lend,
give and receive, of and to each other.
These governments (State and national) deny this _natural_ right of
buying and selling, etc., by arbitrarily prohibiting, or qualifying, all
such, and so many, of these contracts, as they choose to prohibit, or
qualify.
The prohibition, or qualification, of _any one_ of these contracts--that
are intrinsically just and lawful--is a denial of all individual
_natural_ right to make any of them. For the right to make any and all
of them stands on the same grounds of _natural_ law, natural justice,
and men's natural rights. If a government has the right to prohibit, or
qualify, any one of these contracts, it has the same right to prohibit,
or qualify, all of them. Therefore the assertion, by the government, of
a right to prohibit, or qualify, any one of them, is equivalent to a
denial of all _natural_ right, on the part of individuals, to make any
of them.
The power that has been thus usurped by governments, to arbitrarily
prohibit or qualify all contracts that are naturally and intrinsically
just and lawful, has been the great, perhaps the greatest, of all the
instrumentalities, by which, in this, as in other countries, nearly all
the wealth, accumulated by the labor of the many, has been, and is now,
transferred into the pockets of the few.
_It is by this arbitrary power over contracts, that the monopoly of
money is sustained._ Few people have any real perception of the power,
which this monopoly gives to the holders of it, over the industry and
traffic of all other persons. And the one only purpose of the monopoly
is to enable the holders of it to rob everybody else in the prices of
their labor, and the products of their labor.
The theory, on which the advocates of this monopoly attempt to justify
it, is simply this: _That it is not at all necessary that money should
be a bona fide equivalent of the labor or property that is to be bought
with it;_ that if the government will but specially license a small
amount of money, and prohibit all other money, the holders of the
licensed money will then be able to buy with it the labor and property
of all other persons for a half, a tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth, or
a millionth, of what such labor and property are really and truly worth.
David A. Wells, one of the most prominent--perhaps at this time, the
most prominent--advocate of the monopoly, in this country, states the
theory thus:
A three-cent piece, if it could be divided into a sufficient
number of pieces, with each piece capable of being handled,
would undoubtedly suffice for doing all the business of the
country in the way of facilitating exchanges, if no other
better instrumentality was available.--_New York Herald,
February 13, 1875._
He means here to say, that "a three-cent piece" contains _as much real,
true, and natural market value_, as it would be necessary that all the
money of the country should have, _if the government would but prohibit
all other money_; that is, if the government, by its arbitrary
legislative power, would but make all other and better money
unavailable.
And this is the theory, on which John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith,
David Ricardo, J. R. McCulloch, and John Stuart Mill, in England, and
Amasa Walker, Charles H. Carroll, Hugh McCulloch, in this country, and
all the other conspicuous advocates of the monopoly, both in this
country and in England, have attempted to justify it. They have all held
that it was not necessary that money should be a _bona fide_ equivalent
of the labor or property to be bought with it; but that, by the
prohibition of all other money, the holders of a comparatively worthless
amount of licensed money would be enabled to buy, at their own prices,
the labor and property of all other men.
And this is the theory on which the governments of England and the
United States have always, with immaterial exceptions, acted, in
prohibiting all but such small amounts of money as they (the
governments) should specially license. _And it is the theory upon which
they act now._ And it is so manifestly a theory of pure robbery, that
scarce a word can be necessary to make it more evidently so than it now
is.
But inasmuch as your mind seems to be filled with the wildest visions of
the excellency of this government, and to be strangely ignorant of its
wrongs; and inasmuch as this monopoly of money is, in its practical
operation, one of the greatest--possibly the greatest--of all these
wrongs, and the one that is most relied upon for robbing the great body
of the people, and keeping them in poverty and servitude, it is plainly
important that you should have your eyes opened on the subject. I
therefore submit, for your consideration, the following self-evident
propositions:
1. That to make all traffic just and equal, it is indispensable that, in
each separate purchase and sale, the money paid should be a _bona fide_
equivalent of the labor or property bought with it.
Dare you, or any other man, of common sense and common honesty, dispute
the truth of that proposition? If not, let us consider that principle
established. It will then serve as one of the necessary and infallible
guides to the true settlement of all the other questions that remain to
be settled.
2. That so long as no force or fraud is practised by either party, the
parties themselves, to each separate contract, have the sole, absolute,
and unqualified right to decide for themselves, _what money, and how
much of it_, shall be considered a _bona fide_ equivalent of the labor
or property that is to be exchanged for it. All this is necessarily
implied in the _natural_ right of men to make their own contracts, for
buying and selling their respective commodities.
Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?
3. That any one man, who has an honest dollar, of any kind whatsoever,
has as perfect a right, as any other man can have, to offer it in the
market, in competition with any and all other dollars, in exchange for
such labor or property as may be in the market for sale.
Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?
4. That where no fraud is practised, every person, who is mentally
competent to make reasonable contracts, must be presumed to be as
competent to judge of the value of the money that is offered in the
market, as he is to judge of the value of all the other commodities that
are bought and sold for money.
Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?
5. That the free and open market, in which all honest money and all
honest commodities are free to be given and received in exchange for
each other, is the true, final, absolute, and only test of the true and
natural market value of all money, as of all the other commodities that
are bought and sold for money.
Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?
6. That any prohibition, by a government, of any such kind or amount of
money--provided it be honest in itself--as the parties to contracts may
voluntarily agree to give and receive in exchange for labor or property,
is a palpable violation of their natural right to make their own
contracts, and to buy and sell their labor and property on such terms as
they may find to be necessary for the supply of their wants, or may
think most beneficial to their interests.
Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?
7. That any government, that licenses a small amount of an article of
such universal necessity as money, and that gives the control of it into
a few hands, selected by itself, and then prohibits any and all other
money--that is intrinsically honest and valuable--palpably violates all
other men's natural right to make their own contracts, and infallibly
proves its purpose to be to enable the few holders of the licensed money
to rob all other persons in the prices of their labor and property.
Will you dispute the truth of that proposition?
Are not all these propositions so self-evident, or so easily
demonstrated, that they cannot, with any reason, be disputed?
If you feel competent to show the falsehood of any one of them, I hope
you will attempt the task.