Cannibals all! Part 18

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE NATIONAL ERA AN EXCELLENT WITNESS.

In an article in the _Era_ of August 16, 1855, criticising and denying our theory of the Failure of Free Society, the writer begins by a.s.serting, "We demonstrated, last week, from history, that the condition of the poor of England has greatly improved in modern times, as they have become free from the restraints of feudal bondage." He then goes on to criticise us, but, before concluding, contradicts and refutes his work of the week before, and adopts our theory in its fullest extent. He admits the intolerable exploitation and oppression of capital over labor, but looks forward to the day when it will be corrected. He is, like all Abolitionists, agrarian. He holds our doctrine, too, that the serfs were set free to starve, not because liberty was a good or a boon.

He further holds, that the poor laborers could not get masters if they wanted them, because the rich can get their labor on better terms. Thus he distinctly shows that Free Society has failed, and why it has failed.

We know very well the rich of Western Europe would not willingly take the poor as slaves, but the law should compel them to do so; for that is the only feasible system of agrarianism, the only practicable way of letting in all men to a sufficient, if not equal, enjoyment of terra mater. Here is his refutation of himself, and confirmation of our theory, which he thinks he is upsetting. We never take up an abolition paper without finding doctrines like those of the _Era_, and only adduce it as a specimen:

"Under despotic and corrupt governments, which oppress the people with taxes, to support extravagant misrule and unnecessary war--which debauch them by evil example of those in high places, and discourage education or render it impossible--the condition of the poor and nominally free becomes truly deplorable. But it is not Freedom which is their undoing--it is rather the lack of it.

It is their subjection, through ignorance, to bad rulers, which keeps them in poverty. We know that the claim laid by capital to the lion's share of profits is itself, under any circ.u.mstances, a great obstruction to the progress of the ma.s.ses; but we believe that even that obstacle will one day be removed--that problem in political science be solved by civilization and Christianity. We believe that the human intellect will never, with the light of the Gospel to guide and inspire its efforts, surrender to the cold and heartless reign of capital over labor. But, at any rate, one thing is certain, under the worst form of government, or the best, namely: when Freedom becomes a burden and a curse to the poor, Slavery--that is to say, the enslavement of the ma.s.s of laborers, with responsibility on the part of the master for their support--is no longer possible. When freemen are unable to support, themselves, among all the diversified employments of free societies, it would be impossible for them to find masters willing to take the responsibility. The ma.s.ses in Europe, in fact, owe their liberty to the excessive supply of slave labor, which, when it becomes a burden to the land, was cast aside as worthless. Who believes that Irish landlords would take the responsibility of supporting the peasantry, on the condition of their becoming slaves? In fact, is it not notorious that they help them to emigrate to America, and often pull down their cabins and huts, in order to drive them off?"

In further proof of the agrarian doctrines of the Abolitionists, we add an article from the _Northern Christian Advocate_, a clever Methodist paper, edited in the State of New York:

"FACTORY OPERATIVES.--There is a cla.s.s of laborers, consisting of men, women and children, whom we never contemplate but with regret--we see them, at least, in imagination, subsiding, in spite of all their care, into utter dependence and poverty. Hence, we never look upon a factory or large manufacturing establishment with unmingled pleasure. The men and women, who ply its machinery, are too apt to become identified with such establishments in an improper degree. This process of a.s.similation and identification goes on slowly, but surely, till at last the individual and the factory are so blended into one, that a separate existence is impossible. One or two generations are required to bring about this state of things. Pecuniary dependence, ignorance of other employments, physical malformation, and the general helplessness of a mere factory population, are not the work of a day.

Individuals cannot be detached from other pursuits at once--cannot have manufacturing knowledge and no other knowledge until they have had time to drift away from other occupations. But however r.e.t.a.r.ded the effect, it is sure to follow, and consequently every large mechanical establishment must be considered as having certain malign tendencies, which are to be carefully guarded against.

"The causes of the evil under consideration are very obvious, as is also their appropriate remedy. We must set down as the first and princ.i.p.al cause of injury, the fact that the capital which sustains mechanical business is not under the control of the operatives. The mills or machines may stop at any hour in spite of the wants or wishes of the employees. Wages may be put down, little or much, with or without notice. Operatives are not consulted in such cases. The motive may be good or bad--it may be to guard against bankruptcy, or to ama.s.s wealth from the sinews of a toiling, dependent race. But, whatever the motive and the decision, the operative is helpless--he can control neither the one nor the other. It is his to labor; others are charged with the regulation of prices, and the only check in his power is the precarious one of a _strike_. Strikes in business are like insurrections in civil governments--a last, desperate remedy, and as often fatal to the sufferer as protective of his interests.

The same is true of the farmer who does not own the soil on which he labors, but is compelled to make terms with a landlord. Hence, the well known insurmountable evils of agricultural tenantry. In Europe it has produced serfdom and feudalism, besides a good deal of servitude and degradation concealed under the mild name of peasant. It matters not what the occupation may be, as soon as the laborer becomes thoroughly dependent, and feels that dependence, the system does him an incalculable injury. It is for this reason that large landholders always deteriorate the population, and society becomes worthless just in proportion as the means of independent existence pa.s.s from the hands of the many to the few.

This difficulty is, and must be forever in the way of conducting manufacturing establishments on the present plan. Perhaps some means of diffusing capital among operatives, or, what is the same, of giving the laborer reasonable securities, may yet be discovered; but the change would require to be radical. The monopoly of capital, is so nearly like the monopoly of land, that we may readily see no partial measures can ever effect a cure."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ISMS--SHEWING WHY THEY ABOUND AT THE NORTH, AND ARE UNKNOWN AT THE SOUTH.

The exploitation, or unjust exactions of skill and capital in free society, excite the learned and philanthropic to devise schemes of escape, and impel the laborers to adopt those schemes, however chimerical, because they feel that their situation cannot be worsted.

They are already slaves without masters, and that is the bathos of human misery. Besides, universal liberty has disintegrated and dissolved society, and placed men in isolated, selfish, and antagonistic positions--in which each man is compelled to wrong others, in order to be just to himself. But man's nature is social, not selfish, and he longs and yearns to return to parental, fraternal and a.s.sociative relations. All the isms concur in promising closer and more a.s.sociative relations, in establis.h.i.+ng at least a qualified community of property, and in insuring the weak and unfortunate the necessaries and comforts of life. Indeed, they all promise to establish slavery--minus, the master and the overseer. As the evils which we have described are little felt at the South, men here would as soon think of entering the lion's cage, as going into one of their incestuous establishments. Mormonism is only a monster development of the isms. They are all essentially alike, and that the most successful, because, so far, it has been socialism--plus the overseer. The mantle of Joe Smith descended on Brigham Young, and if he transmit to a true prophet, there is no telling how long the thing may work. Mormonism had its birth in Western New York, that land fertile of isms--where also arose Spiritual Rappings and Oneida Perfectionism--where Shakers, and Millenarians, and Millerites abound, and all heresies do most flourish. Mormonism now is daily gathering thousands of recruits from free society in Europe, Asia, Africa, and our North, and not one from the South. It has no religion, but in place of it, a sensual moral code, that shocks the common sense of propriety. But it holds property somewhat in common, draws men together in closer and more fraternal relations, and promises (probably falsely) a safe retreat and refuge from the isolated and inimical relations, the killing compet.i.tion and exploitation, of free society. All the other isms do the same--but mal-administration, or the want of a master, soon explodes them. We saw last year an advertis.e.m.e.nt, under the hammer, of the last of fourteen phalansteries, established at the North on the Greely-Fourierite plan. The Shakers do better; but Mr. S. P. Andrews, who is an expert, informs us that they, like the Mormons, have a despotic head. Socialism, with such despotic head, approaches very near to Southern slavery, and gets along very well so long as the despot lives. Mr. S. P. Andrews should enlighten the public as to the progress of the Free Love villages of Trialville, in Ohio, Modern Zion, on Long Island, &c. "Self-elected despotism" is his theory of the perfection of society. Has any Cromwell, or Napoleon, or Joe Smith, seized the sceptre in those delightful villages, which we hope will soon inspire the pen of some Northern Bocaccio. Human opinion advances in concentric circles.

Abolition swallows up the little isms, and Socialism swallows up Abolition. Socialism long since attained the point of the circle most distant from slavery, and is now rapidly coming round to the point whence it started--that is, to slavery. Mr. Andrews, who is no humbug, (except in so far as any philosopher is a humbug,) Mr. Andrews, who is probably the foremost thinker in America, could, if he would, prove to the Abolitionists and Socialists, that after a furious day's drive, like that of Toby Lumpkin and his mother, they are just about to haul up at the horse pond, in a few yards of the place where they started in the morning. The Socialists, Louis Napoleon included, are trying to establish slavery, whilst abusing the word.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

DEFICIENCY OF FOOD IN FREE SOCIETY.

The normal state of free society is a state of famine. Agricultural labor is the most arduous, least respectable, and worst paid of all labor. Nature and philosophy teach all who can to avoid and escape from it, and to pursue less laborious, more respectable, and more lucrative employments. None work in the field who can help it. Hence free society is in great measure dependent for its food and clothing on slave society. Western Europe and New England get their cotton, sugar, and much of their bread and meat from the South, from Cuba, Russia, Poland and Turkey. After all, the ma.s.s of their population suffers continual physical want. McCulloch informs us in his edition of Adam Smith, "that the better sort of Irish laborers eat meat once a month, or once in six months; the lowest order never. The better cla.s.s of English laborers eat meat twice or three times a week." Now no Southern negro would believe this if you were to swear to it. Yet it is a very favorable account of those laborers. The Irish rarely eat bread, and the English peasantry have wholly inadequate allowance of it. On the Continent, the peasantry generally live on fruits, nuts and olives, and other things, which our slaves do not seek as food at all, but as mere condiments to give a relish to their meat and bread. Agriculture is the proper pursuit of slaves, to be superintended and directed, however, by freemen. Its profits are inadequate to the support of separate families of laborers, especially of white laborers in cold climates, whose wants are greater than those of negroes at the South. The expenses of families are greatly lessened where slavery a.s.sociates a large number under a common head, or master, and their labor is rendered more efficient and productive.

This is the great idea of the Socialists, and it is a truer one than the "every-man-for-himself" doctrine of the political economists. Free society is in great measure fed and clothed by slave society, which it pays for in worthless baubles, fas.h.i.+onable trifles, and deleterious luxuries;--without which, slave society would do much better. Every one should study the census of the Union, in order to see how dependent the North-east is on slave labor, and how trifling are her agricultural products.

The profits of slave farming enure chiefly to the advantage of Western Europe and our North. Practical men, therefore, at the North, so far from going to work to abolish slavery, are bringing daily a larger supply of slaves into the slave market, than ever was brought before.

Add the Coolies of Asia and apprentices from Africa to the old negro slave trade, and the annual supply of new slaves exceeds by far that of any other period.

The Abolitionists will probably succeed in dissolving the Union, in involving us in civil and fratricidal war, and in cutting off the North from its necessary supply of food and clothing; but they should recollect that whilst they are engaged in this labor of love, Northern and English merchants are rapidly extending and increasing slavery, by opening daily new markets for the purchase and sale of Coolies, apprentices and Africans.

The foreign slave trade is not necessary for the supply of the slave markets. The increase of the present slaves, if humanely treated, would suffice to meet that demand. But Africans and Coolies cost less than the rearing of slaves in America, and the trade in them, whenever carried on, induces masters to work their old slaves to death and buy new ones from abroad.

The foreign slave trade, especially the Cooley trade, is the most inhuman pursuit in which man ever engaged. Equally inhuman to the victims which it imports, and to the old slaves, whose treatment and condition it renders intolerably cruel. By directing philanthropy and public opinion in a false direction, the Abolitionists have become the most efficient propagandists of slavery and the slave trade. And slavery, such as it exists in pursuance of the foreign slave trade, shocks our sense of humanity quite as much as that of the most sensitive Abolitionists.

Since writing thus far, we met with the following in the Charleston Mercury:

"WHEAT IN Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.--The deficiency in the production of wheat in Ma.s.sachusetts alone, in 1855, for the consumption of her inhabitants, was 3,915,550 bushels; and of Indian corn, 3,420,675 bushels, (_without allowing any thing for the consumption of corn by cattle_.)

"In 1850, the deficiency in the production of wheat in all the New England States, was equal to 1,691,502 barrels of flour; and to 3,464,675 bushels of corn, (_without allowing any thing for the consumption by cattle_.)

"This is 327,185 barrels more than was exported of domestic flour from all of the United States to foreign countries during the year ending 30th June, 1855, and 87,000 more barrels than was exported both of domestic and foreign flour from the United States for the same period."

We conclude, from our examination of the census, that the grain and potatoes made in New England would about feed her cattle, horses, hogs and sheep--leaving none for her inhabitants. We lately compared carefully the census of Ma.s.sachusetts and North Carolina, and found, in round numbers, that according to population, North Carolina produced annually ten times as much of human food as Ma.s.sachusetts,--but that Ma.s.sachusetts balanced the account by producing annually ten times as many paupers and criminals as North Carolina. We also discover that the want of food in the one State and its abundance in the other, tells on the duration of human life. The mortality in Ma.s.sachusetts is nearly double that in North Carolina. We infer that there is ten times as much of human happiness in North Carolina as in Ma.s.sachusetts. The census gives no account of the infidels and the isms--of them there are none in North Carolina, and Ma.s.sachusetts may boast that she rivals Germany, France and Western New York in their production.

Really, it is suicidal folly in New England to talk of disunion and setting up for herself. She does not possess the elements of separate nationality. She is intelligent and wealthy; but her wealth is cosmopolitan--her poverty indigenous. Her commerce, her manufactures, and moneyed capital, const.i.tute her wealth. Disunion would make these useless and unprofitable at home, and they would be transferred immediately to other States and Nations.

North Carolina might well set up for herself, for she can produce all the necessaries and comforts and luxuries of life within herself, and has Virginia between herself and danger on the one side, and an inaccessible sea coast on the other. But we of Virginia, being a border State, would be badly situated in case of disunion, and mean to cling to it as long as honor permits. Besides, Virginia loves her nearest sister, Pennsylvania, and cannot bear the thought of parting company with her.

Tec.u.m vivere amem!

Tec.u.m obeam lubens!

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

MAN HAS PROPERTY IN MAN!

In the Liberator of the 19th December, we observe that the editor narrows down the slavery contest to the mere question, whether "Man may rightfully hold property in man?"

We think we can dispose of this objection to domestic slavery in a very few words.

Man is a social and gregarious animal, and all such animals hold property in each other. Nature imposes upon them slavery as a law and necessity of their existence. They live together to aid each other, and are slaves under Mr. Garrison's higher law. Slavery arises under the higher law, and is, and ever must be, coeval and coextensive with human nature.

We will enumerate a few of its ten thousand modifications.

The husband has a legally recognized property in his wife's services, and may legally control, in some measure, her personal liberty. She is his property and his slave.

The wife has also a legally recognized property in the husband's services. He is her property, but not her slave.

The father has property in the services and persons of his children till they are twenty-one years of age. They are his property and his slaves.

Children have property, during infancy, in the services of each parent.

Infant negroes, sick, infirm and superannuated negroes, hold most valuable property in the services and capital of their masters. The masters hold no property in such slaves, because, for the time, they are of no value.

Owners and captains of vessels own property in the services of sailors, and may control their personal liberty. They (the sailors) are property, and slaves also.