The prohibition, or qualification, of _any one_ of these contracts--that are intrinsically just and lawful--is a denial of all individual _natural_ right to make any of them. For the right to make any and all of them stands on the same grounds of _natural_ law, natural justice, and men's natural rights. If a government has the right to prohibit, or qualify, any one of these contracts, it has the same right to prohibit, or qualify, all of them. Therefore the assertion, by the government, of a right to prohibit, or qualify, any one of them, is equivalent to a denial of all _natural_ right, on the part of individuals, to make any of them. The power that has been thus usurped by governments, to arbitrarily prohibit or qualify all contracts that are naturally and intrinsically just and lawful, has been the great, perhaps the greatest, of all the instrumentalities, by which, in this, as in other countries, nearly all the wealth, accumulated by the labor of the many, has been, and is now, transferred into the pockets of the few. _It is by this arbitrary power over contracts, that the monopoly of money is sustained._ Few people have any real perception of the power, which this monopoly gives to the holders of it, over the industry and traffic of all other persons. And the one only purpose of the monopoly is to enable the holders of it to rob everybody else in the prices of their labor, and the products of their labor. The theory, on which the advocates of this monopoly attempt to justify it, is simply this: _That it is not at all necessary that money should be a bona fide equivalent of the labor or property that is to be bought with it;_ that if the government will but specially license a small amount of money, and prohibit all other money, the holders of the licensed money will then be able to buy with it the labor and property of all other persons for a half, a tenth, a hundredth, a thousandth, or a millionth, of what such labor and property are really and truly worth. David A. Wells, one of the most prominent--perhaps at this time, the most prominent--advocate of the monopoly, in this country, states the theory thus: A three-cent piece, if it could be divided into a sufficient number of pieces, with each piece capable of being handled, would undoubtedly suffice for doing all the business of the country in the way of facilitating exchanges, if no other better instrumentality was available.--_New York Herald, February 13, 1875._ He means here to say, that "a three-cent piece" contains _as much real, true, and natural market value_, as it would be necessary that all the money of the country should have, _if the government would but prohibit all other money_; that is, if the government, by its arbitrary legislative power, would but make all other and better money unavailable.