If then the question is put: Shall Americans own ships? I do not see how any one can avoid the simple answer: Yes, if they want them. Universally, if an American wants anything, he ought to have it if he can get it, and if he hurts no one else by getting it. To enter on the question whether he is going to make it or buy it, and whether he is going to buy it of A or of B, is an impertinence. We boast a great deal of having a free country; our orators shout themselves hoarse about liberty and freedom. Stop one of them, however, and ask him if he means free trade and free ships, and he will demur. No; not that; that will not do. He is in favor of freedom for himself and his friends in those respects in which they want liberty against other people, but he is not in favor of freedom for other people against restraints which are advantageous to him and his political allies. He is in favor of freedom for those who are being oppressed--by somebody else; not for those who are being oppressed by himself. I heard it asserted not long ago that we have no monopolies in this country, _because_ it is a free country. It is not a free country, because there are more artificial monopolies in it than in any other country in the world. The popular notion that it is free rises from the fact that there are fewer natural monopolies in it than in any other great civilized country. It is necessary, however, to go to Turkey or Russia to find instances of legislative and administrative abuses to equal the existing laws and regulations of the United States about ships, the carrying trade, and foreign commerce. These laws have been brought to public attention again and again, but apparently with little effect in awakening popular attention, while the newspapers carry all over the country details about abuses in Ireland, Russia, and South Africa. We should stop bragging about a free country and about the enlightened power of the people in a democratic republic to correct abuses, while laws remain which treat the buying, importing, owning, and sailing of ships as pernicious actions, or, at least, as doubtful and suspicious ones. I have no conception of a free man or a free country which can be satisfied if a citizen of that country may not own a ship, if he wants one, getting it in any legitimate manner in which he might acquire other property; or may not sail one, if he finds that a profitable industry suited to his taste and ability; or may not exchange the products of his labor with that person, whoever he may be, who offers the most advantageous terms. POLITICS IN AMERICA, 1776–1876[48]