(signature) John Jay, esq.
The Dishonor of Labor.
The fundamental, essential cause of slavery and its concomitants, ignorance, degradation and suffering on the one side, as of idleness, prodigality and luxury-born disease on the other, is a false idea of the nature and offices of Labor.
Labor is not truly a curse, as has too long been asserted. It only becomes such through human perverseness, misconception and sin. It was no curse to the first pair in Eden, and will not be to their descendants, whenever and wherever the spirit of Eden shall pervade them. It is only a curse because too many seek to engross the product of others' work, yet do little or none themselves. If the secret were but out, that no man can really enjoy more than his own moderate daily labor would produce, and none can truly enjoy this without doing the work, the death-knell of Slavery in general—in its subtler as well as its grosser forms—would be rung. Until that truth shall be thoroughly diffused, the cunning and strong will be able to prey upon the simple and feeble, whether the latter be called slaves or something else.
Horace Greeley. (Engraved by J. C. Buttre.)
The great reform required is not a work of hours nor of days, but of many years. It must first pervade our literature, and thence our current ideas and conversation, before it can be infused into the common life. Meanwhile, it would be well to remember that—