The Rural Magazine, and Literary Evening Fire-Side

Though so much has been said on political economy as applicable to the national prosperity, by profits derived from national industry, that we despair of offering any new thing on the subject, we have so far yielded to the wishes of many friends as to resolve upon the publication of a new series of essays, to elucidate some of the facts that belong to this deeply interesting concern—a concern that presses itself into every man's business, which invades our fire-sides and accompanies us to our bed-chambers: yet, so beset with it, and feeling it in all that we have to sell or want to buy, and in whatsoever business we do that requires the aid of money or use of credit—still we shrink from the trouble of ascertaining its operation and extent. The mind, by repeated mortifications and disappointments, loses its tone; and we seem rather disposed to trust to the chapter of accidents for redress, than rouse ourselves to an exertion to put an end to our wrongs, through the means afforded; forgetting that effects flow from causes.
It has pleased Providence to bless us with a "goodly land," and we are favoured with the best system of government ever devised—but the seat of ancient Paradise is a howling waste, and Greece and Rome are tenanted by slaves.
A nation's prosperity is the happiness of the individuals composing it. The freeman cannot be a happy man unless private industry secures private independence; and freedom itself must pass into despotism. The power of a government rests in the moral and physical force of the governed, and its wealth is constituted by personal acquisitions of property. Governments were made for the good of the people, not the people for governments; and their object fails when private happiness ceases to be respected. Emancipation from political tyranny, without the means of preserving personal liberty, is a nullity. The gift of life without the means of living, is destitute of value.