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Godkin, Edwin Lawrence, 1831-1902

"Reflections and Comments 1865-1895"

" Moreover, in listening to its
champions, a foreigner might conclude that in America debtors either
all live together in a particular part of the country, or worse, a
particular costume, like mediaeval Jews, and are divided from the
rest of the community by tastes and habits, so that it would be
proper for an American to put "debtor" or "creditor" on his card as
a description of his social status. He might, too, not unnaturally
begin to mourn over the negligence of the framers of the
Constitution in not recognizing this marked distribution of American
society. Truly, he would say, the debtors ought to have
representatives in the Senate and House to look after their special
interests; these unfortunate and helpless men ought not to be left
to the charitable care of volunteers like Messrs. Morton, and Logan,
and Kelly. The great sham and pretence with which America has so
long tried to impose on Europe, that there were no classes in the
United States, ought at last to be formally swept away, and proper
legal provision made for the protection of a body of men which has
been in all ages the object of atrocious oppression, and seems in
America, strange to say, to constitute the larger portion of the
community.


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