“Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuming that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”

– From The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume VII, “Reply to New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association”, March 21, 1864