CHAPTER I.METHOD PURSUED IN THIS WORK .-- THE IDEA OF A REVOLUTION.
If I were asked to answer the following question: WHAT IS SLAVERY?
and I should answer in one word, IT IS MURDER, my meaning would be understood at once.

No extended argument would be required to show that the power to take from a man his thought, his will, his personality, is a power of life and death; and that to enslave a man is to kill him.

Why, then, to this other question: WHAT IS PROPERTY! may I not likewise answer, IT IS ROBBERY, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?
I undertake to discuss the vital principle of our government and our institutions, property: I am in my right.

I may be mistaken in the conclusion which shall result from my investigations: I am in my right.
I think best to place the last thought of my book first: still am I in my right.
Such an author teaches that property is a civil right, born of occupation and sanctioned by law; another maintains that it is a natural right, originating in labor,--and both of these doctrines, totally opposed as they may seem, are encouraged and applauded.

I contend that neither labor, nor occupation, nor law, can create property; that it is an effect without a cause: am I censurable?
But murmurs arise! PROPERTY IS ROBBERY! That is the war-cry of '93! That is the signal of revolutions! Reader, calm yourself: I am no agent of discord, no firebrand of sedition.