A Man's a Man for a' That BY ROBERT BURNS (Scotland's most popular poet, 1759–1796) S there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head, and a' that? Our toils obscure and a' that, What though on hamely fare we dine, Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine- For a' that, and a' that, The honest man, though e'er sae puir, Ye see yon birkie, ca'ed a lord, Wha struts, and stares, and a' that; Though hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof for a' that: For a' that, and a' that, His riband, star, and a' that; The man of independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that. A king can make a belted knight, Their dignities and a' that, The pith o' sense and pride o' worth Then let us pray that come it may, That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, It's coming yet, for a' that, BY THOMAS JEFFERSON (President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, 1743-1826) LL eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. ALL The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. A Vindication of Natural Society BY EDMUND BURKE (British statesman and orator, 1729–1797; defended the American colonies in Parliament during the Revolutionary War) ASK of politicians the ends for which laws were orig inally designed, and they will answer that the laws were designed as a protection for the poor and weak, against the oppression of the rich and powerful. But surely no pretence can be so ridiculous; a man might as well tell me he has taken off my load, because he has changed the burden. If the poor man is not able to support his suit according to the vexatious and expensive manner established in civilized countries, has not the rich as great an advantage over him as the strong has over the weak in a state of nature? . The most obvious division of society is into rich and poor, and it is no less obvious that the number of the former bear a great disproportion to those of the latter. The whole business of the poor is to administer to the idleness, folly, and luxury of the rich, and that of the rich, in return, is to find the best methods of confirming the slavery and increasing the burdens of the poor. In a state of nature it is an invariable law that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labors. In a state of artificial society it is a law as constant and invariable that those who labor most enjoy the fewest things, and that those who labor not at all have the greatest number of enjoyments. A constitution of things this, strange and ridiculous beyond expression! We scarce believe a thing when we are told it which we actually see before our eyes every day without being in the least surprised. I suppose that there are in Great Britain upwards of an hundred thousand people employed in lead, tin, iron, copper, and coal mines; these unhappy wretches scarce ever see the light of the sun; they are buried in the bowels of the earth; there they work at a severe and dismal task, without the least prospect of being delivered from it; they subsist upon the coarsest and worst sort of fare; they have their health miserably impaired, and their lives cut short, by being perpetually confined in the close vapors of these malignant minerals. An hundred thousand more at least are tortured without remission by the suffocating smoke, intense fires, and constant drudgery necessary in refining and managing the products of those mines. If any man informed us that two hundred thousand innocent persons were condemned to so intolerable slavery, how should we pity the unhappy sufferers, and how great would be our just indignation against those who inflicted so cruel and ignominious a punishment! This is an instance-I could not wish a stronger of the numberless things which we pass by in their common dress, yet which shock us when they are nakedly represented. . . In a misery of this sort, admitting some few lenitives, and those too but a few, nine parts in ten of the whole race of mankind drudge through life. It may be urged, perhaps, in palliation of this, that at least the rich few find a considerable and real benefit from the wretchedness of the many. But is this so in fact?... The poor by their excessive labor, and the rich by their enormous luxury, are set upon a level, and rendered equally ignorant of any knowledge which might conduce to their happiness. A dismal view of the interior of all civil society! The lower part broken and ground |