Luther, Seth:

$2,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

AN ADDRESS ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF AVARICE, AND ITS DELETERIOUS EFFECTS ON HUMAN HAPPINESS, WITH A PROPOSED REMEDY FOR THE COUNTLESS EVILS RESULTING FROM AN INORDINATE DESIRE FOR ... A rare early work by Rhode Island labor organizer Seth Luther, following his first printed work, An Address to the Working-Men of New England... and his An Address on the Right of Free Suffrage, published the previous two years. Seth Luther (1795–1863) was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and worked as a carpenter by trade. Like his earlier publications, the present Address was printed from a speech Luther delivered, this time before the Union Association of Working Men in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in late January 1834. Setting the tone for the speech in the first paragraph, Luther rails against those "clothed in purple and fine linen" on the backs "of those who labor day after day." The present work is further described by the Dictionary of American Biography as follows:"[A] denunciation of political and religious as well as economic oppression...the author laid down the following program of reform: universal equal education by means of manual labor schools supported at the public expense; abolition of all licensed monopolies; abolition of capital punishment and of imprisonment for debt...equal taxation for property; and an effective mechanic's lien law. His deadly sincerity, forceful language, grim humor, and biting sarcasm made his pamphlets valuable weapons in the labor movement."Thi

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