THE AUSTIN PAPERS 795 We have a No. of another class-able bodied men, capable of earning an honest and competent living by labor-but having been raised in a country where the credit system prevails to such an extent that everything is regulated by it where men of empty pockets and emptier heads with a little credit to begin with, disdain to work, and live by their wits, upon the earnings of honest laborers, they have acquired habits of cunning and the art of imposing by ap- pearances and fictions, which renders them nuisances to society. ,ve have some southern men who are longing after negros to make cotton to buy more negros-it is in vain to tell them of the demoraliz- ing influence of slavery, of its ruinous effect upon the physicnl energies and enterprise of the community-or to lead forward their imaginations to the period {perhaps not very distant) when the natural increase of the slaves will enable them to masacre their masters and desolate the country-all stuff-the future will take care of itself, and as to the present, nothing is wanted but money, and negros are necessary to make it. The mass of the settlers are plain honest farmers, working men-untill within a short time past they have had no lawyers amongst them, and consequently very little litigation. The monied 1nania did not disturb the repose of the wilderness-it enters not the temple of nature they have had time to contemplate from the peaceful solitudes of their new homes the war of lawyers the intreagues of speculators, in short the agonizing th[r]oes of neighborhoods counties and states, under the high pressure of the credit system. Having enjoyed a few years of quietness they dread a change and [wish to] shield themselves from the evils of the monied mania and the expensive labarinths of the old law systems but how prevent it? Here sir is the great ques- tion which we all wish to have solved. Many very wise and good men have raised their voices for centuries past against the mal organization of society, the rottenness of the old systems etc. Books have been written and Rob. Owen undertook to teach man- kind how to govern themselves.. He expected to distroy the monied mania, by making everything common. This clistroyed man's indi- viduality it confounded him with a common herd, character was therefore of no consequence to him. 1Vould not the reverse of Mr Owens basis be a better one? The old systems recognize the indi- viduality of property-to this let us add that of character but entirely divested of the weight which property gives to it-charac- ter based upon intrinsic moral worth good faith and virtue without any regard whatever to wealth. How is this to be effected 1 By changing the old laws so as to base the credit system upon moral character alone, and not upon wealth and coersive means-or in other words to pince .the whole credit system upon good faith, and
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