freed from the obligation to ask permission of their masters. The various products of the earth becoming more and more utilized, the value of commodities declines, while that of land and man still further rises. the slave becoming free, and his late master, the land-owner, becoming rich-and the beautiful harmony of natural laws being thus established.

§ 3. Circulation becomes more rapid as men become more free. Men become more free as land becomes more and more divided. Land becomes divided as wealth accumulates, and land, itself, acquires value. The rapidity of circulation is, therefore, in the direct ratio of the tendency in capital to become fixed and immovable.

Seeking evidence of this, we may turn to England of the days of Cœur de Lion, when serfs were almost the only property — Gurth being then allowed the privilege of circulating among his fellow-men, only in consideration of wearing a collar testifying that he was "the born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood." Cedric himself then ate from a table formed of rough-hewn planks - sitting, too, in a room half filled with smoke, protected against the weather only by a roof somewhat similar to those of the poorest of modern pig-styes - being composed of the rudest planks, covered with thatch.*

*Ivanhoe, vol. i. chap. iv.

That the facts of early England are being reproduced in the nineteenth century, is shown by the following picture of the cabin of a Red River plantation-yielding, annually, sixty bales of cotton, whose worth may be taken at $3000:

The house was a small square log-cabin, with a broad, open shed or piazza in front, and a chimney, made of sticks and mud, leaning against one end. A smaller detached cabin, twenty feet in the rear, was used for a kitchen. A cistern under a roof, and collecting water from the three roofs, stood between. The water from the bayou was not fit to drink, nor is the water of the Red River, or of any springs in this region. The people depend entirely on cisterns for drinking water. It's very little white folks need, however-milk, claret, and whisky being the more common beverages. "About the house was a large yard, in which were two or three Chinatrees, and two splendid evergreen Cherokee roses; half a dozen hounds; several negro babies; turkeys and chickens; and a pet sow, teaching a fine litter of pigs how to root and wallow. Three hundred yards from the house was a gin-house and stable, and in the interval between were two rows of comfortable negro cabins. Between the house and the cabins was a large post, on which was a bell to call the negroes. A rack for fastening horses stood near it. On the bell-post, and on each of the rack-posts, were nailed the antlers of a buck, as well as on a large oak-tree near by. On the logs of the kitchen a fresh deer-skin was drying, On the railing of the piazza

How trivial was then the value of land, is shown by the conditions of early leases all proving, that its use was obtainable in return for an annual contribution, that now appears to us entirely insignificant. As population increased, towns grew in number and in size becoming strong to afford protection to those who sought it at their hands. Land steadily advanced in. value wealth thus increasing with the diminished proportion borne by land to man. Division kept steady pace with wealththe number of actual proprietors having been, in the days of Adam Smith, no less than 200,000, and the average proprietorship but 150 acres. Adding to these, those persons who had acquired permanent rights in lots in towns and cities, we should obtain perhaps twice that number-giving an owner for every 75 acres, and more than one for every five of the adult males; whereas, in the days of the Plantagenets, descendants of Norman knights held manors that counted by hundreds, and the Church was chief proprietor.

The circulation of landed property had, of course, much increased. While it remained in the hands of the Church, or of great barons, there could be none. So soon, however, as it passed from their hands, either by permanent division among heirs or purchasers, or by the grant of leases of long duration, it became a thing that could readily be bought and sold.

The circulation of services, too, became more rapid. So long as the land continued thus locked up, but few exchanges could be made without the intervention of its proprietors, as rent-receivers, or as owners of the land, and of the serf by whom it was occupied. The land becoming divided, the class of free proprietors increased. in number and in power-gradually freeing themselves from the necessity for paying rent for the use of land employed in raising

lay a Mexican saddle with immense wooden stirrups. The house had but one door, and no window, nor was there a pane of glass on the plantation.

Entering the house, we found it to contain but a single room, about twenty feet by sixteen. Of this space, one-quarter was occupied by a beda great four-poster, with the curtains open, made up in the French style, with a strong furniture-calico day-coverlid. A smaller camp-bed stood beside it. These two articles of furniture nearly filled the house on one side the door. At the other end was a great log fire-place, with a fine fire. The outer door was left constantly open to admit the light. On one side the fire, next the door, was a table; a kind of dresser, with crockery, and a bureau stood on the other side, and there were two deer-skin-seated chairs, and one (Connecticut-made) rocking-chair."- OLMSTED: Texas Journey, p. 47.

corn, as well as from the limitation to the use of the master's mill and oven, when desiring to convert the corn into meal, or the meal into bread. The workman within the towns, too, exchanged services directly with his brother-workmen, like himself now free. The restraints upon the circulation of land, labor, and its products thus steadily diminishing, the motion of society became from year to year more rapid with growing tendency to the development of the hidden treasures of the earth, and to the creation of local centres of activity, by means of which the centralizing effects of great landed estates, and of great trading cities, were to be further neutralized.

From age to age, we mark a growing tendency towards increasing the divisibility, and thus quickening the circulation, of fixed property. The stockholders of the East India Company are, in effect, proprietors of all the land of Hindostan, the right to a share in which is transferred by a simple entry on the books, and the delivery of a new certificate. The turnpikes and railroads of England are as fixed property as is the land on which they are laid; yet are they divisible into the smallest shares, the ownership of which is as readily transferred as is a bag of meal. Mines are opened at vast expense, the property in which is held in transferable shares. Till now, the English circulation has been everywhere retarded by the maintenance of a system of barbarous liabilities, handed down from olden time; but the general sentiment has recently found expression, in the passage of an act of Parliament, in virtue of which mills, factories, and furnaces may be built, and other descriptions of fixed property created, the ownership of which may be divided among thousands of persons — circulating through society with a facility equal to that which attends the bag of cotton, and the circulating note. Each and every such step in the course of progress, is attended, necessarily, with an increase in the proportion of fixed property, and an augmentation of the facilities of commerce.

§ 4. The conclusions at which we now arrive may be briefly stated in the following propositions:—

That, in the early period of society, all property is movableland being wholly destitute of value :

That, of what is then regarded as property, the larger portion

consists of men, women, and children, who are denied the power to determine for themselves for whom they will work, or what shall be their reward:

That, as wealth augments and numbers increase, employments become diversified, with constant increase in the power to subject to cultivation the richer soils :

That, land now acquiring value, it becomes divided-its power of circulation increasing geometrically, as the work of division proceeds arithmetically:

That man acquires value, as the ruder products of the earth lose it *—increase in the proportion of fixed to movable property thus keeping steady pace with the growing freedom of man, and with the increase in the rapidity of the societary circulation :

That, thus, the more capital becomes fixed, the more rapid is the circulation of property of every description, whether consisting of land or of its products; the greater is the power of association; the more rapid is the development of individuality; and the greater is the power of further progress:

That, with every increase in the rapidity of circulation, local attraction becomes more and more complete; with increase in the individuality of families, towns, townships, and cities, and steady diminution in the centralizing forces by which societary action had previously been disturbed and

That, with every such increase, the community tends more and more to take upon itself that natural form in which strength and beauty are most combined, with constant increase in its own individuality, and in its power to associate with other communities on terms of strict equality.

§ 5. The course of things above described, being the natural one, the accuracy of the views thus presented, is proved by the records of every community of the world in which wealth and population have steadily advanced; and for the reason, that in all of them, the power of association has as steadily grown. The reverse effects are found in those in which population has diminished, as will now be shown.

* Value is obtained by a comparison with labor: Price, by a comparison with money. The value of the rude products declines as the price rises man then increasing in value as compared with silver, gold, and corn.

VOL. III.-6

Solon having provided for the distribution of land among the male heirs, and thus secured rapidity of circulation, the increase in the proportion of immovable property to that which was movable, was shown in extensive enfranchisements of slaves, while land grew steadily in value. The circulation of land and its products. - of men and their services became more rapid from year to year until the occurrence of the Persian wars; with constant increase of local action. From that period, however, the proportion changed the movable property increasing in its proportions, until at length we find the land consolidated, with Herodes Atticus almost sole proprietor and sole improver in a country tilled by slaves circulation having ceased.

Lycurgus desired to assure to every Spartan an equal share of land. War and trade, however, produced a reverse effect. Slaves increased in number, but land declined in value, until it became consolidated in the hands of a few great families. Circulation ceasing, all power was lost.

Rome, in the days of Servius, presented to view a numerous body of small proprietors — cultivating the land they owned. Later, we find palaces owned by Scipios and Pompeys-the land having become consolidated, and the free proprietors having disappeared. Fixed property declined steadily in value, while slaves increased in number, and bankers in wealth and power. The circulation, however, had almost ceased-war and trade having done their work.

In Italy of the Middle Ages, we mark a constant increase in the variety of employments in the value of land and in the rapidity of circulation. Trade and war, however, becoming again the chief pursuits, whole populations were once more driven to seek in the labors of the field the only employment for their faculties, with constant increase in the proportion borne by floating capital to that which was fixed. Land gradually losing its value, it became again consolidated the Campagna, that once could boast its thirty prosperous cities, being now owned by two hundred and fifty persons; and Sicily, whose cities once ranked in civilization with those of Greece that were most distinguished, having become the property of a few great houses, and being occupied by a people to whom commerce is scarcely known.

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