"Wa-all, that's not my way of thinking at all. In my judgment, the privileged classes in this country are your patroons and your landlords; men that's not satisfied with a reasonable quantity of land, but who wish to hold more than the rest of their fellow-creatur's."
"I am not aware of a single privilege that any patroon—of whom, by the way, there no longer exists one, except in name—or any landlord, possesses over any one of his fellow-citizens."
"Do you call it no privilege for a man to hold all the land that may happen to be in a township? I call that a great privilege; and such as no man should have in a free country. Other people want land as well as your Van Rensselaers and Littlepages; and other people mean to have it, too."
"On that principle, every man who owns more of any one thing than his neighbor is privileged. Even I, poor as I am, and am believed to be, am privileged over you, Mr. Newcome. I own a cassock, and have two gowns, one old and one new, and various other things of the sort, of which you have not one. What is more, I am privileged in another sense; since I can wear my cassock and gown, and bands, and do wear them often; whereas you cannot wear one of them at all without making yourself laughed at."
"Oh! but them are not privileges I care anything about; if I did I would put on the things, as the law does not prohibit it."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Newcome; the law does prohibit you from wearing my cassock and gown contrary to my wishes."
"Wa-all, wa-all, Mr. Warren; we never shall quarrel about that; I don't desire to wear your cassock and gown."
"I understand you, then; it is only the things that you desire to use that you deem it a privilege for the law to leave me."
"I am afraid we shall never agree, Mr. Warren, about this anti-rent business; and I'm very sorry for it, as I wish particularly to think as you do," glancing his eye most profanely toward Mary as he spoke. "I am for the movement-principle, while you are too much for the stand-still doctrine."
"I am certainly for remaining stationary, Mr. Newcome, if progress mean taking away the property of old and long-established families in the country, to give it to those whose names are not to be found in our history; or, indeed, to give it to any but those to whom it rightfully belongs."