Every age is a remarkable one, no doubt, for those who live in it. When immobility reigns most in human affairs, there is still enough of movement to fix the attention, and even to excite the wonder of those who are immediately in proximity with it. This natural bias in favor of the period with which we have most to do, is by no means sufficient, however, to account for the growing conviction, on all minds, that the present epoch is a marked transition from an old to a new order of things. The scattered rays of the gray dawn of the new era date back, indeed, beyond the lifetime of the present generation. The first streak of light that streamed through the dense darkness of the oldregimewas the declaration by Martin Luther of the right of private judgment in matters of conscience. The next, which shed terror upon the old world, as a new portent of impending revolutions, was the denial, by Hampden, Sidney, Cromwell, and others, of the divine right of kings, and the assertion of inherent political rights in the people themselves. This was followed by the American Declaration of Independence, the establishment of a powerful Democratic Republic in the western world upon the basis of that principle, followed by the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, the Re-action, and the apparent death in Europe of the Democratic idea. Finally, in our day, comes the red glare of French Socialism, at which the world is still gazing with uncertainty whether it be some lurid and meteoric omen of fearful events, or whether it be not the actual rising of the Sun of Righteousness, with healing in His wings; for there are those who profoundly and religiously believe that the solution of the social problem will be the virtual descent of the New Jerusalem—the installation of the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth.First in the religious, then in the political, and finally in the social relations of men, new doctrines have thus been broached, which are full of promise to the hopeful, and full of alarm and dismay to the timid and conservative. This distinction marks the broadest division in the ranks of mankind. In church, and state, and social life, the real parties are the Progressionists and the Retrogressionists—those whose most brilliant imaginings are linked with the future, and those whose sweetest remembrances bind them in tender associations to the past. Catholic and Protestant, Whig and Democrat, Anti-Socialist and Socialist, are terms which, in their origin, correspond to this generic division; but no sooner does a new classification take place than the parties thus formed are again subdivided, on either hand, by the ever-permeating tendency, on the one side toward freedom, emancipation, and progress, and toward law, and order, and immobility on the other.Hitherto the struggle between conservatism and progress has seemed doubtful. Victory has kissed the banner, alternately, of either host. At length the serried ranks of conservatism falter. Reform, so called, is becoming confessedly more potent than its antagonist. The admission is reluctantly forced from pallid lips that revolutions—political, social and religious—constitute the programme of the coming age. Reform, so called, for weal or woe, but yet Reform, must rule the hour. The older constitutions of society have outlived their day. No truth commends itself more universally to the minds of men now, than that thus set forth by Carlyle: "There must be a new world if there is to be any world at all. That human things in our Europe can ever return to the old sorry routine, and proceed with any steadiness or continuance there—this small hope is not now a tenable one. These days of universal death must be days of universal new birth, if the ruin is not to be total and final! It is a time to make the dullest man consider, and ask himself, Whence he came? Whither he is bound? A veritable 'New Era,' to the foolish as well as to the wise." Nor is this state of things confined to Europe. The agitations in America may be more peaceful, but they are not less profound. The foundations of old beliefs and habits of thought are breaking up. The old guarantees of order are fast falling away. A veritable "new era" with us, too, is alike impending and inevitable.
Every age is a remarkable one, no doubt, for those who live in it. When immobility reigns most in human affairs, there is still enough of movement to fix the attention, and even to excite the wonder of those who are immediately in proximity with it. This natural bias in favor of the period with which we have most to do, is by no means sufficient, however, to account for the growing conviction, on all minds, that the present epoch is a marked transition from an old to a new order of things. The scattered rays of the gray dawn of the new era date back, indeed, beyond the lifetime of the present generation. The first streak of light that streamed through the dense darkness of the oldregimewas the declaration by Martin Luther of the right of private judgment in matters of conscience. The next, which shed terror upon the old world, as a new portent of impending revolutions, was the denial, by Hampden, Sidney, Cromwell, and others, of the divine right of kings, and the assertion of inherent political rights in the people themselves. This was followed by the American Declaration of Independence, the establishment of a powerful Democratic Republic in the western world upon the basis of that principle, followed by the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror, the Re-action, and the apparent death in Europe of the Democratic idea. Finally, in our day, comes the red glare of French Socialism, at which the world is still gazing with uncertainty whether it be some lurid and meteoric omen of fearful events, or whether it be not the actual rising of the Sun of Righteousness, with healing in His wings; for there are those who profoundly and religiously believe that the solution of the social problem will be the virtual descent of the New Jerusalem—the installation of the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth.
First in the religious, then in the political, and finally in the social relations of men, new doctrines have thus been broached, which are full of promise to the hopeful, and full of alarm and dismay to the timid and conservative. This distinction marks the broadest division in the ranks of mankind. In church, and state, and social life, the real parties are the Progressionists and the Retrogressionists—those whose most brilliant imaginings are linked with the future, and those whose sweetest remembrances bind them in tender associations to the past. Catholic and Protestant, Whig and Democrat, Anti-Socialist and Socialist, are terms which, in their origin, correspond to this generic division; but no sooner does a new classification take place than the parties thus formed are again subdivided, on either hand, by the ever-permeating tendency, on the one side toward freedom, emancipation, and progress, and toward law, and order, and immobility on the other.
Hitherto the struggle between conservatism and progress has seemed doubtful. Victory has kissed the banner, alternately, of either host. At length the serried ranks of conservatism falter. Reform, so called, is becoming confessedly more potent than its antagonist. The admission is reluctantly forced from pallid lips that revolutions—political, social and religious—constitute the programme of the coming age. Reform, so called, for weal or woe, but yet Reform, must rule the hour. The older constitutions of society have outlived their day. No truth commends itself more universally to the minds of men now, than that thus set forth by Carlyle: "There must be a new world if there is to be any world at all. That human things in our Europe can ever return to the old sorry routine, and proceed with any steadiness or continuance there—this small hope is not now a tenable one. These days of universal death must be days of universal new birth, if the ruin is not to be total and final! It is a time to make the dullest man consider, and ask himself, Whence he came? Whither he is bound? A veritable 'New Era,' to the foolish as well as to the wise." Nor is this state of things confined to Europe. The agitations in America may be more peaceful, but they are not less profound. The foundations of old beliefs and habits of thought are breaking up. The old guarantees of order are fast falling away. A veritable "new era" with us, too, is alike impending and inevitable.
So much to show the width and scope of the social revolution that is contemplated as well by destructives as conservatives; for Mr. Carlyle is like ourselves, and thinks society needs more government, screwing up, instead of relaxing. He, too, is a socialist, but a conservative socialist. He asserts, like Mr. Andrews, that society has failed, but proposes a different mode of reconstruction. At the very moment we in America were announcing the Failure of Free Society, he in Europe proclaimed the 'Latter Day' of that Society. It was but a different mode of expressing the same thought. Now we will show from this same lecture of Mr. Andrews, that the annihilation of the Family is part of the programme of Abolition. He says, page 31, in this same lecture:
Every variety of conscience, and every variety of deportment in reference to this precise subject of love is already tolerated among us. At one extreme of the scale stand the Shakers, who abjure the connection of the sexes altogether. At the other extremity stands the association of Perfectionists, at Oneida, who hold and practice, and justify by the Scriptures, as a religious dogma, what they denominate complex marriage, or the freedom of love. We have, in this State, stringent laws against adultery and fornication; but laws of that sort fall powerless, in America, before the all-pervading sentiment of Protestantism, which vindicates the freedom of conscience to all persons and in all things, provided theconsequences fall upon the parties themselves. Hence the Oneida Perfectionists live undisturbed and respected, in the heart of the State of New York, and in the face of the world; and the civil government, true to the Democratic principle, which is only the same principle in another application, is little anxious to interfere with this breach of its own ordinances, so long as they cast none of the consequences of their conduct upon those who do not consent to bear them.
Every variety of conscience, and every variety of deportment in reference to this precise subject of love is already tolerated among us. At one extreme of the scale stand the Shakers, who abjure the connection of the sexes altogether. At the other extremity stands the association of Perfectionists, at Oneida, who hold and practice, and justify by the Scriptures, as a religious dogma, what they denominate complex marriage, or the freedom of love. We have, in this State, stringent laws against adultery and fornication; but laws of that sort fall powerless, in America, before the all-pervading sentiment of Protestantism, which vindicates the freedom of conscience to all persons and in all things, provided theconsequences fall upon the parties themselves. Hence the Oneida Perfectionists live undisturbed and respected, in the heart of the State of New York, and in the face of the world; and the civil government, true to the Democratic principle, which is only the same principle in another application, is little anxious to interfere with this breach of its own ordinances, so long as they cast none of the consequences of their conduct upon those who do not consent to bear them.
And, page 33, he says:
In general, however, Government still interferes with the marriage and parental relations. Democracy in America has always proceeded with due reference to the prudential motto,festina lente. In France, at the time of the first Revolution, Democracy rushed with the explosive force of escapement from centuries of compression, point blank to the bull's eye of its final destiny, from which it recoiled with such force that the stupid world has dreamed, for half a century, that the vital principle of Democracy was dead. As a logical sequence from Democratic principle, the legal obligation of marriage was sundered, and the Sovereignty of the Individual above the institution was vindicated.
In general, however, Government still interferes with the marriage and parental relations. Democracy in America has always proceeded with due reference to the prudential motto,festina lente. In France, at the time of the first Revolution, Democracy rushed with the explosive force of escapement from centuries of compression, point blank to the bull's eye of its final destiny, from which it recoiled with such force that the stupid world has dreamed, for half a century, that the vital principle of Democracy was dead. As a logical sequence from Democratic principle, the legal obligation of marriage was sundered, and the Sovereignty of the Individual above the institution was vindicated.
Page 42:
I must apologize as well for the incompleteness as for the apparent dogmatism of any brief exposition of this subject. I assert that it is not only possible and rationally probable, but that it is rigidly consequential upon the right understanding of the constitution of man, thatall government, in the sense of involuntary restraint upon the Individual, or substantially all, must finally cease, and along with it the whole complicated paraphernalia and trumpery of Kings, Emperors, Presidents, Legislatures, and Judiciary. I assert that the indicia of this result abound in existing society, and that it is the instinctive or intelligent perception of that fact by those who have not bargained for so much, which gives origin and vital energy to the re-action in church and state and social life. I assert that the distance is less to-day forward from the theory and practice of Government as it is in these United States, to the total abrogation of all Government above that of the Individual, than it is backward to the theory and practice of Government as Government now is in the despotic countries of the old world.
I must apologize as well for the incompleteness as for the apparent dogmatism of any brief exposition of this subject. I assert that it is not only possible and rationally probable, but that it is rigidly consequential upon the right understanding of the constitution of man, thatall government, in the sense of involuntary restraint upon the Individual, or substantially all, must finally cease, and along with it the whole complicated paraphernalia and trumpery of Kings, Emperors, Presidents, Legislatures, and Judiciary. I assert that the indicia of this result abound in existing society, and that it is the instinctive or intelligent perception of that fact by those who have not bargained for so much, which gives origin and vital energy to the re-action in church and state and social life. I assert that the distance is less to-day forward from the theory and practice of Government as it is in these United States, to the total abrogation of all Government above that of the Individual, than it is backward to the theory and practice of Government as Government now is in the despotic countries of the old world.
The reader will thus see that Abolition contemplates the total overthrow of the Family and all other existing social, moral, religious and governmental institutions. We quote Mr. Andrews because he is 'longo intervallo,' the ablest Abolition Philosopher. Many volumes would be needed to display and expose the opinions of all the votaries of the New Philosophy. But every man who sets to work honestly to discover truth, will find at every step, that we have neither distorted nor exaggerated. The Family is threatened, and all men North or South who love and revere it, should be up and a doing.
Until the lands of America are appropriated by a few, population becomes dense, competition among laborers active, employment uncertain, and wages low, the personal liberty of all the whites will continue to be a blessing. We have vast unsettled territories; population may cease to increase, or increase slowly, as in most countries, and many centuries may elapse before the question will be practically suggested, whether slavery to capital be preferable to slavery to human masters. But the negro has neither energy nor enterprise, and, even in our sparser population, finds, with his improvident habits, that his liberty is a curse to himself, and a greater curse to the society around him. These considerations, and others equally obvious, have induced the South to attempt to defend negro slavery as an exceptional institution, admitting, nay asserting, that slavery, in the general or in the abstract, is morally wrong, and against common right. With singular inconsistency, after making this admission, which admits away the authority of the Bible, of profane history, and ofthe almost universal practice of mankind—they turn round and attempt to bolster up the cause of negro slavery by these very exploded authorities. If we mean not to repudiate all divine, and almost all human authority in favor of slavery, we must vindicate that institution in the abstract.
To insist that a status of society, which has been almost universal, and which is expressly and continually justified by Holy Writ, is its natural, normal, and necessary status, under the ordinary circumstances, is on its face a plausible and probable proposition. To insist on less, is to yield our cause, and to give up our religion; for if white slavery be morally wrong, be a violation of natural rights, the Bible cannot be true. Human and divine authority do seem in the general to concur, in establishing the expediency of having masters and slaves of different races. The nominal servitude of the Jews to each other, in its temporary character, and no doubt in its mild character, more nearly resembled our wardship and apprenticeship, than ordinary domestic slavery. In very many nations of antiquity, and in some of modern times, the law has permitted the native citizens to become slaves to each other. But few take advantage of such laws; and the infrequency of the practice, establishes the general truth that master and slave should be of different national descent. In some respects, the wider the difference the better, as theslave will feel less mortified by his position. In other respects, it may be that too wide a difference hardens the hearts and brutalizes the feelings of both master and slave. The civilized man hates the savage, and the savage returns the hatred with interest. Hence, West India slavery, of newly caught negroes, is not a very humane, affectionate or civilizing institution. Virginia negroes have become moral and intelligent. They love their master and his family, and the attachment is reciprocated. Still, we like the idle, but intelligent house-servants, better than the hard-used, but stupid out-hands; and we like the mulatto better than the negro; yet the negro is generally more affectionate, contented and faithful.
The world at large looks on negro slavery as much the worst form of slavery; because it is only acquainted with West India slavery. Abolition never arose till negro slavery was instituted; and now abolition is only directed against negro slavery. There is no philanthropic crusade attempting to set free the white slaves of Eastern Europe and of Asia. The world, then, is prepared for the defence of slavery in the abstract—it is prejudiced only against negro slavery. These prejudices were in their origin well founded. The Slave Trade, the horrors of the Middle Passage, and West India slavery, were enough to rouse the most torpid philanthropy.
But our Southern slavery has become a benign and protective institution, and our negroes are confessedly better off than any free laboring population in the world.
How can we contend that white slavery is wrong, whilst all the great body of free laborers are starving; and slaves, white or black, throughout the world, are enjoying comfort?
We write in the cause of Truth and Humanity, and will not play the advocate for master or for slave.
The aversion to negroes, the antipathy of race, is much greater at the North than at the South; and it is very probable that this antipathy to the person of the negro, is confounded with or generates hatred of the institution with which he is usually connected. Hatred to slavery is very generally little more than hatred of negroes.
There is one strong argument in favor of negro slavery over all other slavery: that he, being unfitted for the mechanic arts, for trade, and all skillful pursuits, leaves those pursuits to be carried on by the whites; and does not bring all industry into disrepute, as in Greece and Rome, where the slaves were not only the artists and mechanics, but also the merchants.
Whilst, as a general and abstract question, negro slavery has no other claims over other forms of slavery, except that from inferiority, or rather peculiarity, of race, almost all negroes require masters, whilst only the children, the women, the very weak, poor, and ignorant, &c., among the whites, need some protective and governing relation of this kind; yet as a subject of temporary, but world-wide importance, negro slavery has become the most necessary of all human institutions.
The African slave trade to America commenced three centuries and a half since. By the time of the American Revolution, the supply of slaves had exceeded the demand for slave labor, and the slaveholders, to get rid of a burden, and to prevent the increase of a nuisance, became violent opponents of the slave trade, and many of them abolitionists. New England, Bristol, and Liverpool, who reaped the profits of the trade, without suffering from the nuisance, stood out for a long time against its abolition. Finally, laws and treaties were made, and fleets fitted out to abolish it; and after a while, the slaves of most of South America, of the West Indies, and of Mexico were liberated. In the meantime, cotton, rice, sugar, coffee, tobacco, and other products of slave labor, came into universal use as necessaries of life. The population of Western Europe, sustained and stimulated by those products, was trebled, and that of the North increased tenfold. The products of slave labor became scarce and dear, and famines frequent. Now, it is obvious, that to emancipate all the negroes would be tostarve Western Europe and our North. Not to extend and increase negro slavery,pari passu, with the extension and multiplication of free society, will produce much suffering. If all South America, Mexico, the West Indies, and our Union south of Mason and Dixon's line, of the Ohio and Missouri, were slaveholding, slave products would be abundant and cheap in free society; and their market for their merchandise, manufactures, commerce, &c., illimitable. Free white laborers might live in comfort and luxury on light work, but for the exacting and greedy landlords, bosses and other capitalists.
We must confess, that overstock the world as you will with comforts and with luxuries, we do not see how to make capital relax its monopoly—how to do aught but tantalize the hireling. Capital, irresponsible capital, begets, and ever will beget, the "immedicabile vulnus" of so-called Free Society. It invades every recess of domestic life, infects its food, its clothing, its drink, its very atmosphere, and pursues the hireling, from the hovel to the poor-house, the prison and the grave. Do what he will, go where he will, capital pursues and persecutes him. "Hæret lateri lethalis arundo!"
Capital supports and protects the domestic slave; taxes, oppresses and persecutes the free laborer.
An unexplored moral world stretches out before us, and invites our investigation; but neither our time, our abilities, nor the character of our work, will permit us to do more than glance at its loveliness.
It is pleasing, however, to turn from the world of political economy, in which "might makes right," and strength of mind and of body are employed to oppress and exact from the weak, to that other and better, and far more numerous world, in which weakness rules, clad in the armor of affection and benevolence. It is delightful to retire from the outer world, with its competitions, rivalries, envyings, jealousies, and selfish war of the wits, to the bosom of the family, where the only tyrant is the infant—the greatest slave the master of the household. You feel at once that you have exchanged the keen air of selfishness, for the mild atmosphere of benevolence. Each one prefers the good of others to his own, and finds most happiness in sacrificing selfish pleasures, and ministering to others' enjoyments. The wife, the husband, the parent, the child, the son, the brother and the sister, usually act towards each other on scriptural principles. The infant, in its capricious dominion over mother, father, brothers and sisters, exhibits, in strongest colors, the "strength of weakness," the power of affection. The wife and daughters are more carefully attended by the father, than the sons, because they are weaker and elicit more of his affection.
The dependent exercise, because of their dependence, as much control over their superiors, in most things, as those superiors exercise over them. Thus, and thus only, can conditions be equalized. This constitutes practical equality of rights, enforced not by human, but by divine law. Our hearts bleed at the robbing of a bird's nest; and the little birds, because they are weak, subdue our strength and command our care. We love and cherish the rose, and sympathize with the lily, which some wanton boy has bruised and broken. Our faithful dog shares our affections, and we will risk our lives to redress injustice done him.
Man is not all selfish. "Might does not always make right." Within the family circle, the law of love prevails, not that of selfishness.
But, besides wife and children, brothers and sisters, dogs, horses, birds and flowers—slaves, also, belong to the family circle. Does their common humanity, their abject weakness and dependence, their great value, their ministering to our wants inchildhood, manhood, sickness and old age, cut them off from that affection which everything else in the family elicits? No; the interests of master and slave are bound up together, and each in his appropriate sphere naturally endeavers to promote the happiness of the other.
The humble and obedient slave exercises more or less control over the most brutal and hard-hearted master. It is an invariable law of nature, that weakness and dependence are elements of strength, and generally sufficiently limit that universal despotism, observable throughout human and animal nature. The moral and physical world is but a series of subordinations, and the more perfect the subordination, the greater the harmony and the happiness. Inferior and superior act and re-act on each other through agencies and media too delicate and subtle for human apprehensions; yet, looking to usual results, man should be willing to leave to God what God only can regulate. Human law cannot beget benevolence, affection, maternal and paternal love; nor can it supply their places: but it may, by breaking up the ordinary relations of human beings, stop and disturb the current of these finer feelings of our nature. It may abolish slavery; but it can never create between the capitalist and the laborer, between the employer and employed, the kind and affectionate relations that usually exist between master and slave.
From the days of Plato and Lycurgus to the present times, Social Reformers have sought to restrict or banish the use of money. We do not doubt that its moderate use is essential to civilization and promotive of human happiness and well-being—and we entertain as little doubt, that its excessive use is the most potent of all causes of human inequality of condition, of excessive wealth and luxury with the few, and of great destitution and suffering with the many, and of general effeminacy and corruption of morals. Money is the great weapon in free, equal, and competitive society, which skill and capital employ in the war of the wits, to exploitate and oppress the poor, the improvident, and weak-minded. Its evil effects are greatly aggravated by the credit and banking systems, and by the facilities of intercommunication and locomotion which the world now possesses. Every bargain or exchange is more or less a hostile encounter of wits. Money vastly increases the number of bargains and exchanges, and thus keep society involved, if not in war, at least in unfriendly collision. Within the family, money is not employed between its members. Where thefamily includes slaves, the aggregate use of money is greatly restricted. This furnishes us with another argument to prove that Christian morality is practicable, to a great extent, in slave society—impracticable in free society.
The Socialists derive this idea of dispensing with or restricting the use of money, from Sparta and other ancient States; and to the same sources may be traced almost all their schemes of social improvement. Plato, in his philosophy, borrowed from those sources, and subsequent Socialists have borrowed from him. We annex an interesting article on this subject of money from Sir Thomas Moore's Utopia:
"Therefore, I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the richer sort, who, on pretence of managing the public, do only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts that they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all they have so ill acquired, and then, that they may engage the former sort to toil and labor for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws; and yet these wicked men, after they have, by a most insatiable covetousness, divided that among themselves, with which all the rest might have been well supplied, are far from that happiness that is enjoyed by the Utopians;for the use us well as the desire of money being extinguished, there is much anxiety and great occasion of mischief cut off with it. And who does not see that frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders, treacheries and witchcrafts, that are indeed rather punished than restricted by the severities of the law, would fall off, if money were not any more valued by the world. Their fears, solicitudes, cares, labors and watchings would all perish in the same moment that the value of money did sink."
"Therefore, I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the richer sort, who, on pretence of managing the public, do only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts that they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all they have so ill acquired, and then, that they may engage the former sort to toil and labor for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws; and yet these wicked men, after they have, by a most insatiable covetousness, divided that among themselves, with which all the rest might have been well supplied, are far from that happiness that is enjoyed by the Utopians;for the use us well as the desire of money being extinguished, there is much anxiety and great occasion of mischief cut off with it. And who does not see that frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders, treacheries and witchcrafts, that are indeed rather punished than restricted by the severities of the law, would fall off, if money were not any more valued by the world. Their fears, solicitudes, cares, labors and watchings would all perish in the same moment that the value of money did sink."
Within the last week, we have received theLand Reformer, an agrarian paper, just started in New York, in which we are sure we recognize the pen of Gerrit Smith, the leader of the New York abolitionists; and also a No. of the Liberator, in which Mr. Garrison, the leader of the New England abolitionists, defines his No-Government doctrines.
In calling attention, North and South, to opinions openly and actively promulgated by such distinguished men, which opinions are at war with all existing institutions, we are rendering equal service to all sections of our common country.
Mr. Smith says:
"Why should not this monopoly be broken up? Because, says the objector, vested rights forbid it. But there can be no vested rights against original and natural rights. No claim of a part of the human family to the while earth can be valid against the claim of the whole human family to it. No passing of papers or parchments in former generations can foreclose the rights of the present generation. No bargains and no conventional titlescan avail in justice against the great title-deeds, by which Nature grants and conveys herself to each generation, as it comes upon the earth; and by which she makes the living (simply because they are the living, and not at all because of their relation to the dead) the equal owners of her soil and seas, her light and air. No arrangements, by which the six thousand, who have monopolized the lands of Ireland, should be allowed to overcome the title of the six millions to it. If the natural and inherent right of the whole is not paramount to that, which the fractions claim to have acquired, then arethe six millions born into the world trespassers; and then is the Creator chargeable with a lack of wisdom and goodness. If it is right that the mass of men should hold their standing-place on the earth by mere sufferance, or upon terms dictated by their fellows, then is it not true that God is an Impartial Father—for then it is not true that he has given the earth to all his children, but only to a select."
"Why should not this monopoly be broken up? Because, says the objector, vested rights forbid it. But there can be no vested rights against original and natural rights. No claim of a part of the human family to the while earth can be valid against the claim of the whole human family to it. No passing of papers or parchments in former generations can foreclose the rights of the present generation. No bargains and no conventional titlescan avail in justice against the great title-deeds, by which Nature grants and conveys herself to each generation, as it comes upon the earth; and by which she makes the living (simply because they are the living, and not at all because of their relation to the dead) the equal owners of her soil and seas, her light and air. No arrangements, by which the six thousand, who have monopolized the lands of Ireland, should be allowed to overcome the title of the six millions to it. If the natural and inherent right of the whole is not paramount to that, which the fractions claim to have acquired, then arethe six millions born into the world trespassers; and then is the Creator chargeable with a lack of wisdom and goodness. If it is right that the mass of men should hold their standing-place on the earth by mere sufferance, or upon terms dictated by their fellows, then is it not true that God is an Impartial Father—for then it is not true that he has given the earth to all his children, but only to a select."
We, too, think Free Society a very bad thing, and a decided failure, but not half so bad as Mr. Smith paints it. There is a poor-house system in Ireland, which, to some extent, recognizes the doctrine that all men are entitled to live on the earth, and be supported from it. In practice, the system does not always work well; yet we are confident it works much better for all parties, than would Mr. Smith's plan of agrarianism.
But slavery does, in practice as well as in theory,acknowledge and enforce the right of all to be comfortably supported from the soil. There was, we repeat, no pauperism in Europe till feudal slavery was abolished.
It will be strange, indeed, if the voters in New York, a majority of whom own no land, do not take Mr. Smith at his word, and assert their superior claim, under his Higher Law and "Fundamental Principles," to all the land. 'Tis a concise and ingenious syllogism, to this effect: "The earth belongs equally to all mankind, under the Higher Law, or Law of God, which is superior to all human laws; therefore, the lackland majority have a better right to the soil than the present proprietors, whose title is derived from mere human law."
It never did occur to us, that the paupers had the best right to all the farms, until we saw this new application of the Higher Law. But 'tis clear as noon-day, if you grant the Higher Law, as expounded by Mr. Seward; and we expect soon to hear that they are bringing their titles into court. Anti-rentism looked this way, and anti-rentism chose its own Governor and Judges.
But Mr. Garrison outbids Mr. Smith all hollow for the pauper vote. He promises not only to every one his "vine and fig-tree," but a vine and fig-tree that will bear fruit without culture. He is going to get up a terrestrial paradise, in which there will be no jails, no taxes, no labor, no want,no sickness, no pain, no government—in fact, no anything. But he shall speak for himself. We find the following in theLiberatorof 1st August:
"Indeed, properly speaking, there is but one government, and that is not human, but divine; there is but one law, and that is 'the Higher Law;' there is but one ruler, and that one is God, 'in whom we live and move, and have our being.' What is called human government is usurpation, imposture, demagoguism, peculation, swindling, and tyranny, more or less, according to circumstances, and to the intellectual and moral condition of the people. Unquestionably, every existing government on earth is to be overthrown by the growth of mind and moral regeneration of the masses. Absolutism, limited monarchy, democracy—all are sustained by the sword; all are based upon the doctrine, that 'Might makes right;' all are intrinsically inhuman, selfish, clannish, and opposed to a recognition of the brotherhood of man. They are to liberty, what whiskey, brandy and gin are to temperance. They belong to the 'Kingdoms of this World,' and in due time are to be destroyed by the Brightness of the coming of Him, 'whose right it is to reign;' and by the erection of a Kingdom which cannot be shaken. They are not for the people, but make the people their prey; they are hostile to all progress; they resist to the utmost all radical changes. All history shows that Liberty, Humanity, Justice and Right have ever been in conflict with existing governments, no matter what their theory or form."
"Indeed, properly speaking, there is but one government, and that is not human, but divine; there is but one law, and that is 'the Higher Law;' there is but one ruler, and that one is God, 'in whom we live and move, and have our being.' What is called human government is usurpation, imposture, demagoguism, peculation, swindling, and tyranny, more or less, according to circumstances, and to the intellectual and moral condition of the people. Unquestionably, every existing government on earth is to be overthrown by the growth of mind and moral regeneration of the masses. Absolutism, limited monarchy, democracy—all are sustained by the sword; all are based upon the doctrine, that 'Might makes right;' all are intrinsically inhuman, selfish, clannish, and opposed to a recognition of the brotherhood of man. They are to liberty, what whiskey, brandy and gin are to temperance. They belong to the 'Kingdoms of this World,' and in due time are to be destroyed by the Brightness of the coming of Him, 'whose right it is to reign;' and by the erection of a Kingdom which cannot be shaken. They are not for the people, but make the people their prey; they are hostile to all progress; they resist to the utmost all radical changes. All history shows that Liberty, Humanity, Justice and Right have ever been in conflict with existing governments, no matter what their theory or form."
Mr. Greely's Phalansteries, Mr. Andrews' Free Love, Mr. Goodell's Millenium, and Mr. Smith's Agrarianism, all pale before this Kingdom of Mr. Garrison's. He is King of the Abolitionists, Great Anarch of the North.
We cannot reconcile this millennial doctrine of Mr. Garrison's with another doctrine, which we have seen imputed to him in theRichmond Examiner, to wit, that there is no God, because no beneficent Creator would have so constituted mankind as to have made slavery almost universal. Now, assume, as he does, that slavery is a cruel, sinful and wicked institution, destructive alike of human happiness and well-being, and his conclusion is irresistible. To be consistent, all anti-slavery men should be atheists. Ere long, we suspect, their consistency will equal their folly and profanity.
With us, who think slavery a benevolent institution, equally necessary to protect the weak, and to govern the wicked and the ignorant, its prevalence is part of that order and adaptation of the universe that "lifts the soul from Nature up to Nature's God."
Mr. Carlyle very properly contends that abolition and all the other social movements of the day, propose little or no government as the moral panacea that is to heal and save a suffering world. Proudhon expressly advocates anarchy; and Stephen Pearl Andrews, the ablest of American socialistic and abolition philosophers, elaborately attacks all existing social relations, and all legal and governmental restraints, and proposes No-Government as their substitute. He is the author of the Free Love experiment in New York, and a co-laborer and eulogist of similar experiments in villages or settlements in Ohio, Long Island and other places in the North and Northwest. He is a follower of Josiah Warren, who was associated with Owen of Lanark at New Harmony. We do not know that there is any essential difference between his system and that which has been for many years past practically carried out in Oneida county, New York, by the Perfectionists, who construe the Bible into authority for the unrestrained indulgence of every sensual appetite. The doctrines of Fourier, of Owen and Fanny Wright, and the other earlySocialists, all lead to No-Government and Free Love. 'Tis probable they foresaw and intended this result, but did not suggest or propose it to a world then too wicked and unenlightened to appreciate its beatific purity and loveliness. The materials, as well as the proceedings of the infidel, woman's rights, negro's rights, free-every thing and anti-every school, headed and conducted in Boston, by Garrison, Parker, Phillips, and their associate women and negroes, show that they too are busy with "assiduous wedges" in loosening the whole frame of society, and preparing for the glorious advent of Free Love and No-Government. All the Infidel and Abolition papers in the North betray a similar tendency. The Abolitionists of New York, headed by Gerrit Smith and Wm. Goodell, are engaged in precisely the same projects, but being Christians, would dignify Free Love and No-Government with the appellation of a Millenium. Probably half the Abolitionists at the North expect a great social revolution soon to occur by the advent of the Millenium. If they would patiently await that event, instead of attempting to get it up themselves, their delusions, however ridiculous, might at least be innocuous. But these progressive Christian Socialists differ not at all from the Infidel Socialists of Boston. They are equally intent and busy in pulling down the priesthood, and abolishing or dividing all property—seeingthat whether the denouement be Free Love or a Millenium, the destruction of all existing human relations and human institutions is pre-requisite to their full fruition.
Many thousand as have been of late years the social experiments attempting to practice community of property, of wives, children, &c., and numerous as the books inculcating and approving such practices, yet the existence and growth of Mormonism is of itself stronger evidence than all other of the tendency of modern free society towards No-Government and Free Love. In the name of polygamy, it has practically removed all restraints to the intercourse of sexes, and broken up the Family. It promises, too, a qualified community of property and a fraternal association of labor. It beats up monthly thousands of recruits from free society in Europe and America, but makes not one convert in the slaveholding South. Slavery is satisfied and conservative. Abolition, finding that all existing legal, religious, social and governmental institutions restrict liberty and occasion a quasi slavery, is resolved not to stop short of the subversion of all those institutions, and the inauguration of Free Love and No-Government. The only cure for all this is for free society sternly to recognize slavery as right in principle, and necessary in practice, with more or less of modification, to the very existence of government, of property, of religion, and of social existence.
We shall not attempt to reconcile the doctrines of the Socialists, which propose to remove all legal restraints, with their denunciations of Political Economy. Let Alone is the essence of Political Economy and the whole creed of most of the Socialists. The Political Economists, Let Alone, for a fair fight, for universal rivalry, antagonism, competition and cannibalism. They say, the eating up the weaker members of society, the killing them out by capital and competition, will improve the breed of men and benefit society. They foresee the consequences of their doctrine, and are consistent. Hobbes saw men devouring one another, under their system, two hundred years ago, and we all see them similarly engaged now. The Socialists promise that when society is wholly disintegrated and dissolved, by inculcating good principles and "singing fraternity over it," all men will co-operate, love, and help one another.
They place men in positions of equality, rivalry, and antagonism, which must result in extreme selfishness of conduct, and yet propose this system as a cure for selfishness. To us their reasonings seem absurd.
Yet the doctrines so prevalent with Abolitionists and Socialists, of Free Love and FreeLands, Free Churches, Free Women and Free Negroes—of No-Marriage, No-Religion, No-Private Property, No-Law and No-Government, are legitimate deductions, if not obvious corollaries from the leading and distinctive axiom of political economy—Laissez Faire, or let alone.
All the leading Socialists and Abolitionists of the North, we think, agree with Fanny Wright, that the gradual changes which have taken place in social organization from domestic slavery to prædial serfdom and thence to the present system of free and competitive society, have been mere transitive states, each placing the laborer in a worse condition than that of absolute slavery, yet valuable as preparing the way for a new and more perfect social state. They value the present state of society the more highly because it is intolerable, and must the sooner usher in a Millenium or Utopia.
It is strange that theories, self-evidently true so soon as suggested, remain undiscovered for centuries. What more evident, obvious, and axiomatic, than that equals must from necessity be rivals, antagonists, competitors, and enemies. Self-preservation, the first law of human and animal nature, makes this selfish course of action essential to preserve existence. It is almost equally obvious, that in the natural, social, or family state, unselfishness, or the preference of others' good and happiness, is the dictate of nature and policy. Nature impels the father and husband to self-abnegation and self-denial to promote the happiness of wife and children, because his reflected enjoyments will be a thousand times greater than any direct pleasure he can derive by stinting or maltreating them. Their misery and their complaints do much more to render him wretched than what he has denied them can compensate for. Wife and children, too, see and feel that in denying themselves and promoting the happiness of the head of the family, they pursue truepolicy, and are most sensibly selfish when they seem most unselfish. Especially, however, is it true with slaves and masters, that to "do as they would be done by" is mutually beneficial. Good treatment and proper discipline renders the slave happier, healthier, more valuable, grateful, and contented. Obedience, industry and loyalty on the part of the slave, increases the master's ability and disposition to protect and take care of him. The interests of all the members of a natural family, slaves included, are identical. Selfishness finds no place, because nature, common feelings and self-interest dictate to all that it is their true interest "to love their neighbor as themselves," and "to do as they would be done by,"—at least, within the precincts of the family. To throw off into the world wife, children, and slaves, would injure, not benefit them. To neglect to punish children or slaves when they deserved it, would not be to do as we would be done by. Such punishment is generally the highest reach of self-abnegation and self-control. 'Tis easy and agreeable to be indulgent and remiss—hard to exact and enforce duty. Severe disciplinarians are the best officers, teachers, parents, and masters, and most revered and loved by their subordinates. They sacrifice their time and their feelings to duty, and for the ultimate good of others. Easy, lax, indulgent men are generally selfish and sensual, and justly forfeit the respect and affection of those whom they neglect to punish,because to do so would disturb their Epicurean repose. Christian morality is neither difficult nor unnatural where dependent, family, and slave relations exist, and Christian morality was preached and only intended for such.
The whole moralé of free society is, "Every man, woman and child for himself and herself." Slavery in every form must be abolished. Wives must have distinct, separate, and therefore antagonistic and conflicting interests from their husbands, and children must as soon as possible be remitted to the rights of manhood. Is it not passing strange, wonderful, that such men as Channing and Wayland did not see that their world of universal liberty was a world of universal selfishness, discord, competition, rivalry, and war of the wits. Hobbes did see it, and supposing there was no other world, said "a state of nature was a state of war." But the family, including slaves, which the Abolitionists would destroy, has been almost universal, and is therefore natural. Christian morality is the natural morality in slave society, and slave society is the only natural society. Such society as that of the early Patriarchs of Judea, under Moses and Joshua, and as that of the South, would never beget a sceptic, a Hobbes, a Wayland, nor a Channing. In such society it is natural for men to love one another. The ordinary relations of men are not competitive and antagonistic as in free society; and selfishness is not general, but exceptionable. Duty to self is thefirst of duties: free society makes it the only duty. Man is not naturally selfish or bad, for he is naturally social. Free society dissociates him, and makes him bad and selfish from necessity.
It is said in Scripture, that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. We are no theologian; but do know from history and observation that wealthy men who are sincere and devout Christians in free society, feel at a loss what to do with their wealth, so as not to make it an instrument of oppression and wrong. Capital and skill are powers exercised almost always to oppress labor. If you endow colleges, you rear up cunning, voracious exploitators to devour the poor. If you give it to tradesmen or land owners, 'tis still an additional instrument, always employed to oppress laborers. If you give it to the really needy, you too often encourage idleness, and increase the burdens of the working poor who support every body: We cannot possibly see but one safe way to invest wealth, and that is to buy slaves with it, whose conduct you can control, and be sure that your charity is not misapplied, and mischievous.
Is there any other safe way of investing wealth, or bestowing charity? We regret that delicacy restrains us from putting the question to a celebrated, wealthy philanthropist of the North, who is candid, bold, experienced, and an Abolitionist to boot.
Beaten at every other quarter, we learn that a distinguished writer at the North, is about to be put forward by the Abolitionists, to prove that the influence of slavery is deleterious on the whites who own no slaves.
Now, at first view it elevates those whites; for it makes them not the bottom of society, as at the North—not the menials, the hired day laborer, the work scavengers and scullions—but privileged citizens, like Greek and Roman citizens, with a numerous class far beneath them. In slave society, one white man does not lord it over another; for all are equal in privilege, if not in wealth; and the poorest would not become a menial—hold your horse, and then extend his hand or his hat for a gratuity, were you to proffer him the wealth of the Indies. The menial, the exposed and laborious, and the disgraceful occupations, are all filled by slaves. But filled they must be by some one, and in free society, half of its members are employed in occupations that are not considered or treated as respectable. Our slaves till the land, do the coarse and hard labor on our roads and canals, sweep ourstreets, cook our food, brush our boots, wait on our tables, hold our horses, do all hard work, and fill all menial offices. Your freemen at the North do the same work and fill the same offices. The only difference is, we love our slaves, and we are ready to defend, assist and protect them; you hate and fear your white servants, and never fail, as a moral duty, to screw down their wages to the lowest, and to starve their families, if possible, as evidence of your thrift, economy and management—the only English and Yankee virtues.
In free society, miscalled freemen fulfill all the offices of slaves for less wages than slaves, and are infinitely less liked and cared for by their superiors than slaves. Does this elevate them and render them happy?
The trades, the professions, the occupations that pay well, and whose work is light, is reserved for freemen in slave society. Does this depress them?
The doctor, the lawyer, the mechanic, the dentist, the merchant, the overseer, every trade and profession, in fact, live from the proceeds of slave labor at the South. They divide the profits with the owner of the slaves. He has nothing to pay them except what his slaves make. But you Yankees and Englishmen more than divide the profits—you take the lion's share. You make more money from our cotton, and tobacco, and sugar, and indigo, and wheat, and corn, and rice, than we make ourselves. You live by slave labor—would perish without it—yet you abuse it. Cut off England and New England from the South American, East and West India and our markets, from which to buy their food, and in which to sell their manufactures, and they would starve at once. You live by our slave labor. It elevates your whites as well as ours, by confining them, in a great degree, to skillful, well-paying, light and intellectual employments—and it feeds and clothes them. Abolish slavery, and you will suffer vastly more than we, because we have all the lands of the South, and cancommandlabor as you do, and a genial soil and climate, that require less labor. But while in the absence of slavery, we could support ourselves, we should cease to support you. We would neither send you food and clothing, nor buy your worse than useless notions.
The Abolitionists and Socialists, who, alone, have explored the recesses of social science, well understand that they can never establish their Utopia until private property is abolished or equalized. The man without property is theoretically, and, too often, practically, without a single right. Air and water, 'tis generally believed, are the common property of mankind; but nothing is falser in fact as well as theory. The ownership of land gives to the proprietor the exclusive right to every thing above and beneath the soil. The lands are all appropriated, and with them the air above them, the waters on them, and the mines beneath them. The pauper, to breathe the air or drink the waters, must first find a place where he may rightfully enjoy them. He can find, at all times, no such place, and is compelled, by his necessities, to inhale the close and putrid air of small rooms, damp cellars and crowded factories, and to drink insufficient quantities of impure water, furnished to him at aprice he can ill afford. He pays for the water which he drinks, because it has ceased to be common property. He is not free, because he has no where that he may rightfully lay his head. Private property has monopolized the earth, and destroyed both his liberty and equality. He has no security for his life, for he cannot live without employment and adequate wages, and none are bound to employ him. If the earth were in common, he could always enjoy not only air and water, but by his industry might earn the means of subsistence. His situation is theoretically and practically desperate and intolerable. Were he a slave, he would enjoy in fact as well as in legal fiction, all necessary and essential rights. Pure air and water, a house, sufficient food, fire, and clothing, would be his at all times. Slavery is a form of communism, and as the Abolitionists and Socialists have resolved to adopt a new social system, we recommend it to their consideration. The manner in which the change shall be made from the present form of society to that system of communism which we propose is very simple. Negro slaves are now worth seven hundred dollars a-head. As whites work harder, they are worth about a thousand. Make the man who owns a thousand dollars of capital the guardian (the term master is objectionable) of one white pauper of average value; give the man whois worth ten thousand dollars ten paupers, and the millionaire a thousand. This would be an act of simple mercy and justice; for the capitalists now live entirely by the proceeds of poor men's labor, which capital enables them to command; and they command and enjoy it in almost the exact proportions which we have designated. Thus, a family of poor laborers, men, women and children, ten in number, can support themselves, and make about six hundred dollars, for their employer, which is the interest on ten thousand. They would work no harder than they do now, would be under no greater necessity to work, would be relieved of most of the cares of life, and let into the enjoyment of all valuable and necessary rights. What would they lose in liberty and equality? Just nothing. Having more rights, they would have more liberty than now, and approach nearer to equality. It might be, that their security and exemption from care would render their situation preferable to that of their employers. We suspect it would be easier to find wards or slaves than guardians or masters—for the gain would be all on the laborer's side, and the loss all on that of the capitalist.
Set your miscalled free laborers actually free, by giving them enough property or capital to live on, and then call on us at the South to free our negroes.At present, you Abolitionists know our negro slaves are much the freer of the two; and it would be a great advance towards freeing your laborers, to give them guardians, bound, like our masters, to take care of them, and entitled, in consideration thereof, to the proceeds of their labor.
In an article in theEraof August 16, 1855, criticising and denying our theory of the Failure of Free Society, the writer begins by asserting, "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 thelaw 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 theEra, and only adduce it as a specimen: