thrift in the manufacturing districts, while, in point of fact, the prosperity of the whole country is diminished. And, in such case, the partial benefit, being, as it were, concentrated and local, would probably be more apparent to the eye, than the general mischief, which is spread over a vast area, and depresses an universal interest in detail. Thus, sections may be enriched at the expense of the whole, and local interests be at war with those of the country at large. Keeping this in view, and remembering to be on our guard against both the speciousness of appearances and the zeal of selfishness, let us consider the general theory of a home

market.

In the first place, if we, as a people, are better adapted, under all circumstances, to engage in manufactures rather than agriculture, it is fair to presume that the private sagacity of freemen will find it out, without the hints and helps of government. If we are not, then the artificial diversion of labor from a more to a less profitable pursuit, will diminish the aggregate income of labor, and, of course, the average to be distributed to every depart ment of it.

In the second place, such an artificial distinction of labor does not increase the number of mouths to be fed, or stimulate. consumption, so that a greater quantity of products will be required.

In the third place, if this country is capable, as it certainly is, from its great extent, fertile soil, and thin population, of raising agricultural products enough to supply half of Europe, it is the very height of absurdity to talk of a home market, to be furnished merely by a change in its industry, and not in its population, as offering an adequate demand for the unlimited supplies it is capable of producing.

In fine, this theory of a home market is based upon the idea, that commerce cannot regulate itself; that industry, left free, will not seek the most profitable employment, nor be rewarded by the most profitable exchanges, and that foreign trade is pernicious and wasteful. This theory, if carried out, leads to the ridiculous conclusion, that all sorts of business should be carried on close together, for the sake of con

venience in the transactions between them. It is difficult to define how large a home market should be, or to say why, if it is to be limited at all, it should go beyond the limits of a single state, or county, or township. How many separate home markets are there to be in this little world, when the home market system comes to full perfection? To true economy, liberality, and humanity, the whole earth is one home market, where every commodity should be made where it can be made to the best advantage, and sold where it can be sold to the best advantage. Every other doctrine is local, timid, and selfish, and as freemen, we utterly reject and deny it.

Thus we have endeavored to show, apart from any consideration of revenue, that free trade is better than restriction; that the doctrine of protection is an injustice and a fallacy; that retaliatory tariffs are delusive; that the quantum of wages does not fall with the prevalence of free exchange; and that the theory of a home market, is utter sophistry and nonsense. If these views are correct, it must be admitted that the necessity of raising a revenue by duties is purely a burthen, both in its direct effect as taxation, and its indirect effect as protection; and that it ought to be collected without reference to the encouragement of any particular branch of industry whatever. With such theoretical views as a chart to guide the statesman, he can approach the complicated subject of revenue, with something like clearness of ideas; and giving up all false collateral objects, can arrange the load of taxation on principles of impartial economy.

We should find pleasure in pursuing these speculations into practice, but our limits forbid at present. We will dismiss the subject by expressing our admiration of the wise and liberal policy advocated in the late Treasury Report of Mr. Walker; and our sincere hope that the Democratic party will abandon its hesitating position on this subject; and, as a party, while yet adhering to the system of indirect taxation, will utterly renounce and explode the theory of protection for the sake of protection, whether direct or incidental, that has been so fallaciously interwoven with it.

To the Editor of the Democratic Review:

I have read in the December number of the Democratic Review a criticism of the "Wandering Jew," of Eugene Sue. This work is made the occasion of a violent philippic against the American Associationists and the social doctrines of Charles Fourier. The article is such a tissue of misrepresentations and perversions that I hardly know how to answer it, or what part to take up and refute, without exceeding ten-fold the limits you could give me. Knowing, as I do, that the article was published during your absence from the country, I hasten to take advantage of your return, to appeal to your sense of justice to allow me the privilege, on behalf of no small number of high-minded and honor able men, honest in their views of social reform, of replying in the same pages to that which we regard as personally injurious, as well as calumnious and unjust to a doctrine. Without putting this reply in a controversial form, or undertaking a detailed criticism of the article of your correspondent, I shall best attain my object by proceeding to explain simply and briefly the aims, the objects, and the principles of those who have been so extremely and unwarrantably misrepresented.

The American Associationists advocate a Social Reform-a thorough and organic reform in the present system of Society, inherited from the dark ages of monarchical Europe and blood-stained Greece and Rome, and which is still erect, governing the destinies of the most advanced nations on the earth. We believe that this system of Society, called Civilization, has entailed carnage and servitude, misery, conflicts, disunion and ignorance long enough upon Mankind, and that the time has at length arrived for a change in this monstrous social mechanism, and the peaceful establishment of a new social order in its place.

The American people have taken the initiative in this great and righteous work; they have reformed a part of this old and rotten social system-the offspring of epochs of war, slavery and oppression; they have reformed the political part; they have stripped it of its political tyranny, injustice, inequalities and extortions and Kings, Aristocracies, entailed estater. titles,

&c. &c., have been swept away by the spirit of progress of the American people. It now remains for us, as a people, to complete the great work, and reform the social system itself, with its false, degrading, brutalizing, unrequited and ill-requited system of Labor-its conflict of all interests-its unequal war of Capital against Labor-and its fierce, envious and relentless competition, with its hatreds, and jealousies, and the industrial anarchy to which it gives rise-its grossly unequal social opportunities and privileges-its domestic servitude-its system of menial and hireling labor-its protracted, unjust and quibbling system of Law, and its other social evils and abuses.

We believe that this is the true work of our age and nation, and we, as Americans, have undertaken it. We advocate a Social Reform, and we are, in fact, Social Reformers; we prosecute our enterprise in the name of God and humanity, with a deep and firm faith and conviction that we are right, that we are engaged in the most sacred and holy of causes in which men can be engaged-for it is the cause of the elevation of mankind from poverty, suffering, ignorance, and degradation, to universal abundance, universal intelligence and happiness.

Not wishing to take a name so much abused as that of Reformer," we have chosen the simple name of Associationists, and used it in all our works and on all occasions.

The writer of the article to which I answer, the reasonings and sophistries of which, together with isolated quotations from Eugene Sue, are strung together in a manner most disgusting to the moral sense of our souls-has seen fit to call us Fourierites, a name which we have always rejected, first, because we do not wish to clothe our great work with the livery of any man's name; and second, because we look upon Fourier as an eminent writer and thinker on Social Science-and it would be false to give it his name, as it would be to give to Astronomy the name of Kepler or Newton.

Let me state the general principles on which we base our conviction of the necessity of a great reform in the social condition of the human race, and the possibility of their elevation to a high state

of dignity, truth and happiness. My view of these principles may differ slightly from those of others, but I believe not essentially.

1. We believe that a God of infinite Love and infinite Wisdom, created and governs the Universe.

2. We believe that our globe and the Humanity upon it form a part of the Universe, and that hence the Laws of divine Justice, Order and Harmony, which govern the Universe, can be extended to and established upon our earth.

3. We believe that these Laws of Divine Order are revealed and manifested in the works of creation-in the movement of the heavenly bodies, in the distribution and arrangement of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms-in the harmonies discovered by science, like the mathematical and musical; and in all other departments, These laws are the attributes of the wisdom of the Creator. We believe, also, that the commandments of His Love, have been given to the world by the Prophets, and in their fulness by Christ, who proclaimed the brotherhood and unity of the race-that they were all one, brothers of one family, children of one God; and who said: "As I have loved you, so love ye one another;" and instructed his disciples to pray and labor that the kingdom of God, and his justice, might come, and his will be done ON EARTH, as it is in heaven-and that to all might be given their daily bread or an abundance of all things necessary to the body and soul.

4. We believe that man is a free agent, endowed with independent action, and the high gift of reason and mental association with God, and that he must discover by his own efforts and genius these Laws of divine Order and Justice, and establish them upon earth. If Man does not do this, then discord and incoherence reign in their place, govern the world, and engender all the evils that now oppress and curse it. But to be impelled to seek for these Laws, man must be animated by love to God and humanity; the love must exist first, and give power and direction to his intellect. If those literary critics that are biting at the heels of genius, were fired by any spark of this noble sentiment, they would endeavor to discover remedies for the miseries that oppress their fellow men, instead of making a hypocritical parade of their pretended purity and virtue, and sensibility to truth and principle.

That the laws of divine Order and Harmony with their results, the Brotherhood and unity of the race, and the elevation and happiness of the whole human family, do not exist on the earth, is abundantly proved by facts around us.

Look at your wars between nations, with their carnage and devastation; look at your incompatible castes and classes in each nation-masters and slaves, rich and poor, employers and hirelings-with arrogance, oppression and contempt on one side, and envy and hatred on the other; look at your strifes and intrigues between sects and parties; at your frauds, overreachings, duplicity, lying, cheating and legalized plunder in commerce, finance and industry; look at your dissensions in families, at your quarrels, antipathies and calumnies between individuals in all their daily business affairs; look at rampant mammon, wringing from the toiling millions the wealth created by their sweat and their blood; look at men devouring

the substance of each other like beasts of prey; look at the vice, crime and drunkenness that prevail, particularly in your large cities; look at the prostitutes in your streets, at your poor-houses and your prisons; at your beggars and your criminals,

look at all this and far more than I can describe, and say whether the present system of society is a true and divine Order in which the laws of God reign, or if it is not rather a Social Hell? When we contemplate this awful scene, what can we say of those benighted souls, who, instead of taking any part in the great and sacred work of social progress and human elevation, have only attacks, calumnies and criticisms to level against every and all reforms that come up, and who, in order to pander to and gain the favor of interests monstrously selfish and inhuman, actually uphold this Social Hell?

The day is not far distant when these defenders of things as they are in the midst of the complicated miseries that reign, will receive, as they merit, the contempt of mankind.

5. We believe that a great Social Reform must and will be effected; that the condition of mankind throughout the world calls for it with imperious necessity. We believe that the new Social Order, which is destined to replace the old social system of man, slavery, oppression and gigantic wrong, and which has now lasted about thirty centuries, must be based upon those principles of eternal justice, those laws of divine Order which produce harmony throughout the universe, and not human devising or invention. upon any arbitrary plan or theories of

As we said, these laws of universal Harmony, having their origin in the wisdom of God, are manifested in all the works of creation; Man is the interpreter of them for this globe; he must, by the efforts of the high intelligence with which he has been endowed, discover and apply

them to the world over which he presides, and thus bring it under the government of the laws of harmony and justice of the Creator. We believe that several interpreters of parts of these laws, have appeared within a century or two, and that the present epoch in the history of the world is destined to explain them, and give to mankind the true scientific basis of society. We, who are laboring for a Social Reform, feel particularly the want of full knowledge of these laws, for we know that this greatest of all problems, can only be solved by the highest wisdom. For this reason we study with deep interest, and impartially, the labors of every man of genius who pretends to have had an insight into this intricate subject.

We believe that the illustrious Swedenborg has discovered some portion of these laws of universal Harmony; his scientific works in particular, his Animal Kingdom, Principia, &c., contain most important things. He is condemned as a visionary and an impostor. by many sects, yet we consult him with reverence, and take gladly whatever we can find to guide us in our difficult and complicated work.

sure

Charles Fourier had a clear insight into the existence of these laws, and the absolute necessity of their discovery, before mankind could have positively a guide in the organization of their societies, and their social career on earth. He labored for years at their discovery, and it is said by those who knew him, that he has passed six days and nights without sleep, engaged upon the solution of some deep and complicated problem. I, who knew him well, and who knew the intensity and the power of his nature, can readily believe that it was so. Fourier claims to have discovered the laws of universal harmony in all their powers or degrees, but in his works he has given only a general outline of them, and laid down their general and fundamental principles. The results of the labors which he has left behind, are however, of inestimable value, and candid minds, if they would but look into the subject, would see it, and pursue the study, and endeavor to arrive at a complete knowledge of these laws.

Many of the leading scientific minds of the day are now searching for the great principles of Nature, which control and regulate, with such sublime wisdom, the vast universe. Among others, we find BURDACH, the physiologist; CARUS, the comparative anatomist; and OKEN, the naturalist, of Germany; GEOFFROY ST. HILAIRE, of France, and others. There is a decided tendency, in our age, to arrive at this Science of Sciences, or a knowledge of the Laws of Nature, or universal Order and Harmony, and, we believe, that it may be accomplished.

From what we have said, it will be seen that we hold there are many interpreters of Nature's Laws. We consult these interpreters with great respect, but do not take the men as our leaders and masters; we accept only the Laws themselves. These Laws, as we said, are not yet fully discov ered, and clearly and scientifically explained, and we are still seeking. Fourier has had a deeper, a more definite and compre hensive view of them than any other man we know; he has given, in addition, an Organization of Society, which he believes is based upon them, so that we consult him with respect, and in one important practical sphere, in the Organization of Industry-by which Labor will be dignified, and rendered honorable and attractive-we take him as a guide. We look upon him as an interpreter, not as our master: he was not a prophet, a revealer, a being clothed with undoubted authority; he was a man of gigantic genius, operating with the powers of reason, which are always liable to error, in him as well as in every one else. It is very probable that he did commit errors, as he operated in so new and vast a field; it would, indeed, be remarkable if he did not; we know that the great Kepler, and the great Newton, wrote some extravagant things-as extravagant as their genius was great, for powerful men do nothing, whether for good or evil, in a small way. It may be the same with Fourier, but it is for the men who are following in the same direction,—that is, searching for the Laws of divine Order and Justice, and their application to this world-to correct these errors, and to substitute the corresponding Truths in their place. Besides, the common sense of mankind, as the great work of a Social Reform progresses, can test, step by step, the truth and practicability of principles and measures, which may be proposed by Interpreters or Discoverers of Social

Laws.

Small souls and triflers do not know how to separate any errors that may occur in a system, or in the discoveries of a man, from the truths that are contained in them-making use of the one while they correct the other: all they can do is to cry out like frightened children, and point with great trepidation to some dreadful things they have seen. This appears to have been the case with the poor Critic in the last number of the Democratic Review. He has read, in Eugene Sue, something that is in conflict with marriage as it now exists: he attributes all this to Fourier's system, and the American Associationists, (although I know, positively, that Eugene Sue does not know what Fourier's views are upon the question of the relation of the sexes, for they are not explained in his works) and, then, sets up a cry of alarm,