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 enslavements 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 [i.e, the Civil 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
considerations. 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, villanous tool, to extort
it from the labor of the enslaved people both of the North and 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, [undoubtedly a
reference to General Grant, who had just become president] 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 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
black and white. 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
suceeded 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.