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An invention may give the rich capitalist who buys it and applies it a degree of profit which no other individual derives therefrom, but compared with the advantages it yields society at large that profit is the merest trifle.
Socialism or the establishment of co-operative institutions is, then, not reform strictly speaking.
It is not the patent remedy for a disease, but the more complete development of a healthy growth.
It is not the negation of society as now or heretofore existing, but the more thorough inauguration of its vital principle.
It is not to be attained through the warfare of labor and capital, but as the crowning glory of the wealth, power, and prosperity with which invention, industry, and science are endowing the family of man.
While there is a noticeable increase of interest throughout the whole of 1853 in the agitation of the slavery question, one novel and important fact in regard to it was clearly pointed out by the
Tribune as follows:
... Whoever has marked the progress of the discussion respecting slavery in our day must be aware of a radical change in the fundamental assumptions upon which it is defended.
Formerly all who spoke as statesmen or philanthropists on the side of slavery admitted its iniquitous origin, its essential injustice, and the impossibility of rashly and suddenly abolishing it without unsettling, hazarding, and destroying very much and vital good that had in process of time become inextricably involved with it. The new pro-slavery boldly assumes that slavery is essentially good.
Because the negro race is incapable of material improvement it ought to be held in slavery.
Other subjects of greater interest came to the front, and among them the application of
Ericsson's caloric engine to marine navigation about this time began to attract great attention.
An ocean steamer, two thousand tons burden, named after the inventor, had been constructed,
