2. Benjamin Franklin [1784
people of the trading towns may be rich and luxurious,
 while the country possesses all the virtues that
tend to promote happiness and public prosperity.
Those towns are not regarded by the country, they
are hardly considered as an essential part of the
States; and the experience of the last war has
shown that their being in possession of the enemy
did not necessarily draw on the subjection of the
country, which bravely continued to maintain its
freedom and independence notwithstanding.
It has been computed by some political arithmetician,
 that if every man and woman would work for
four hours each day on something useful, that labor
would produce sufficient to procure all the necessaries
 and comforts of life, want and misery would
be banished out of the world, and the rest of the
twenty-four hours might be leisure and pleasure.
What occasions then so much want and misery?
It is the employment of men and women in works
that produce neither necessaries nor conveniences
of life, who, with those who do nothing, consume
necessaries raised by the laborious. To explain
this.
The first elements of wealth are obtained by labor,
from the earth and waters. I have land, and raise
corn. With this, if I feed a family that does nothing,
my corn will be consumed, and at the end of the
year I shall be no richer than I was at the beginning.
But if, while I feed them, I employ them, some in
spinning, others in making bricks, etc., for building,
the value of my corn will be arrested and remain with
me, and at the end of the year we may all be better

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