Abraham Lincoln on Labor and Capital

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President. At bottom, he represented the interests of the small farmers - sandwiched in between big merchant capital in the North and the Slaveocracy of the South.  So on this historical May Day (first celebrated in Chicago after the Haymarket affair), it is appropriate to take note of the statement in his “State of the Union” address to congress in 1861: 

    “It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. ...
    “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much higher consideration.”
        -- Abraham Lincoln, State of the Union Message to Congress, Dec. 3, 1861