who wishes it sincerely in private would but speak as firmly in publick , it would be abolished." Social hierarchy Neal's Quaker upbringing likely instilled in him an aversion to "worldly titles" he claimed were unfitting in republican society. He mocked them with humorous works like the title page of his first novel (1817) that claimed the book was "Reviewed By—Himself—'Esquire. In "A Summary View of America" (1824) he decried that the US had fallen away from its ideals of equality to a place in which "titles are multiplying... Even the pride of ancestry... has found root in that republican soil. There is a tremendous contention... between the families of yesterday, and those of the day before." As a lawyer he refused to address Chief Justice John Marshall or any other judge as "your honor," claiming that "there is no greater humbug in the minds of men than this obsequious bowing to men of high station. The great thinkers of the world are the workers of the world, the producers of the world." Militia tax In his "United States" essay (1826), Neal made his first published argument against the poll tax that financed the US militia system. He illustrated that both "the poor and the rich are taxed... under the militia law" which was designed "to defend property of the rich man. The rich, of course, do not appear in the field. The poor do. The latter cannot afford to keep away; the former can." He proposed replacing the poll tax with a property tax to pay men serving in militias, thereby making the system more equitable. Lotteries Neal made his earliest arguments against lotteries in Baltimore newspapers as a law apprentice, then in Logan (1822). His argument that the law should treat lotteries the same as other forms of gambling found influence across the US and in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. In The Yankee, he "opened fire upon all [lottery] offices,... both at the bar, and in our legislative halls, and never rested, until the system was up-rooted... throughout our whole country". Lotteries fell into disfavor in the US in the 1830s. Capital punishment Neal began his campaign against public executions after witnessing one in Baltimore. He attacked capital punishment by writing in newspapers, magazines, novels, and debates, achieving national influence in the US and reaching a more limited audience in the UK. Late in