"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 circumstances, a great obstruction to the progress of the masses; 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 mass 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 masses 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?"
"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 circumstances, a great obstruction to the progress of the masses; 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 mass 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 masses 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 theNorthern Christian Advocate, a clever Methodist paper, edited in the State of New York:
"Factory Operatives.—There is a class 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 assimilation and identification goes on slowly, but surely, till at last the individual and the factory are so blendedinto 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 retarded 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 principal 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 amass 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 astrike. 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 pass 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."
"Factory Operatives.—There is a class 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 assimilation and identification goes on slowly, but surely, till at last the individual and the factory are so blendedinto 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 retarded 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 principal 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 amass 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 astrike. 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 pass 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."
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 associative relations. All the isms concur in promising closer and more associative relations, in establishing 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 competition 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 advertisement, 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.
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 mass 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 class 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 associates 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, fashionable 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. Andslavery, 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 Massachusetts.—The deficiency in the production of wheat in Massachusetts 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."
"Wheat in Massachusetts.—The deficiency in the production of wheat in Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts and North Carolina, and found, in round numbers, that according to population, North Carolina produced annually ten times as much of human food as Massachusetts,—but that Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts is nearly double that in North Carolina. We infer that there is ten times as much of human happiness in North Carolina as in Massachusetts. The census gives no account of the infidels and the isms—of them there are none in North Carolina, and Massachusetts 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, constitute 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.
Tecum vivere amem!Tecum obeam lubens!
Tecum vivere amem!Tecum obeam lubens!
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, coëval and coëxtensive 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.
The services and persons, lives and liberty of soldiers and of officers, belong to the Government; they are, whilst in service, both property and slaves.
Every white working man, be he clerk, carpenter, mechanic, printer, common laborer, or what else, who contracts to serve for a term of days, months, or years, is, for such term, the property of his employer. He is not a slave, like the wife, child, apprentice, sailor or soldier, because, although the employer's right to his services be equally perfect, his remedy to enforce such right is very different. In the one case, he may resort to force to compel compliance; in the other, he is driven to a suit for damages.
Again: Every capitalist holds property in his fellow men to the extent of the profits of his capital, or income. The only income possibly resulting from capital, is the result of the property which capital bestows on its owners, in the labor of other people. In our first three chapters we attempt to explain this.
All civilized society recognizes, and, in some measure, performs the obligation to support and provide for all human beings, whether natives or foreigners, who are unable to provide for themselves. Hence poor-houses, &c.
Hence all men hold valuable property, actual or contingent, in the services of each other.
If, Mr. Garrison, this be the only difficulty to be adjusted between North and South, we are sure that your little pet, Disunion, "living will linger, and lingering will die."
When Mr. Andrews and you have quite "expelled human nature," dissolved and disintegrated society, and reduced mankind to separate, independent, but conflicting monads, or human atoms—then, and not till then, will you establish the 'sovereignty of the individual,' and destroy the property of man in man.
The Abolitionists are all willing to admit that free society has utterly failed in Europe, but will assign two reasons for that failure—"Excess of population, and want of equality and liberty."
Were the population of England doubled, the labor required to support that population would be lessened, could all labor and expenses be supported alike; because the association and division of labor might be rendered more perfect, and the expenses of a single family, or single individual, might be divided among and borne by many. The Socialists and Abolitionists understand this. When one family has to support its own school, its own mill, its own mechanics, its own doctor, parson, &c., living is expensive; but where these and other expenses are divided among many, living becomes cheap; hence it is far less laborious to live in a densely settled country than in a sparsely settled one, if labor and expenses can be equally divided. The soil of England will readily support double itspopulation, if its products be not wasted in luxury, in feeding deer, and game, and horses. England has not attained that density of population which enables men to live by the least amount of labor. Her laboring population has been thinned and labor rendered dearer and scarcer, by emigration, of late years, to America, California and Australia—yet, in the winter of 1854, there was a general outbreak and riot of her operatives, because a fall in prices occasioned a large number of her factories to stop work, and turn their hands out of employment. This happens every day in free society, from the bankruptcy of employers, or from the glut of markets and fall of prices. We will add, that a meeting of the working men of New York, in the Park, asserted that there were 50,000 working men and women, in that city, out of employment last winter.
The competitive system (so injurious to the laboring class) is carried out with less exception or restriction in America than in Europe. Hence, considering the sparseness of our population, the laboring class are worse off in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, than in London, Manchester or Paris. And this begets more Socialists in the higher classes, and more mobs, riots and trade-unions, with the laborers, than in Europe.
Finally, if it be excess of numbers, or want of liberty, that occasions the failure of free society,why are our Abolitionists and Socialists so hot and so active in upsetting and re-organizing society? They have pronounced, with entire unanimity, that free society is intolerable, whether a country be densely or sparsely settled.
The Abolitionists boast, that lands are dearer and labor cheaper in free than in slave society. Either proposition contains the admission that free laborers work more for others and less for themselves than slaves—in effect, that they are less free than slaves. The profits of land are what the land-owner appropriates of the results of work of the laborer. Where he appropriates most, and leaves the laborer least, there lands are dearest, labor cheapest, and laborers least free. In Europe, lands sell much higher than at the North; hence, laborers are less free in fact than at the North. In the North they sell higher than in the South, because the slaves consume more of the results of their own labor than laborers at the North, and leave less profit to the land-owner. The high price of land is, in the general, an unerring indication of the poverty and actual slavery of the laboring class. Its low price, equally proves that the laborers, whether called slaves or freemen, work more for themselves, and less for the land-owners, than where lands are dear. In settled countries, where all the lands are appropriated, this theory is undeniable and irrefutable.
As this is a short chapter, we take the opportunity to apologize and account for our discursive, immethodical and unartistic manner.
In the first place, the character of the enemy we have to contend with prevents anything like regular warfare. They are divided into hundreds of little guerrilla bands of isms, each having its peculiar partizan tactics, and we are compelled to vary our mode of attack from regular cannonade to bush-fighting, to suit the occasion.
Again, we practiced as a jury lawyer for twenty-five years, and thereby acquired an inveterate habit of cumulation and iteration, and of various argument and illustration. But, at the same time, we learned how "to make out our case," and to know when it is "made out." The lawyer who observed the Unities in an argument before a jury would be sure to lose his cause; and now the world is our jury, who are going to bring in a verdict against free society of "guilty."
We admire not the pellucid rivulet, that murmurs and meanders, in cramped and artificial current, through the park and gardens of the nobleman; but we do admire the flooded and swollen Mississippi, whose turbid waters, in their majestic course, sweep along upon their bosom, with equal composure, the occupants of the hen-roost and the poultry yard, the flocks, the herds, the crops, the uprooted forest, and the residences of man. The Exhaustive,not the Artistic, is what we would aspire to. And yet, the Exhaustive may be the highest art of argument. The best mode, we think, of writing, is that in which facts, and argument, and rhetoric, and wit, and sarcasm, succeed each other with rapid iteration.
Intonuere poli, et crebris micat ignibus æther!
Intonuere poli, et crebris micat ignibus æther!
Again, Artistic execution is un-English. It neither suits their minds nor their tastes. Discursiveness and prurient exuberancy of thought and suggestion, they often possess, but always fail when they attempt a literary or other work of Art. Indeed, we have a strong suspicion that Art went out of the world about the time the Baconian Philosophy came in.
A continuous argument, without pause or break, on a subject profoundly metaphysical, equally fatigues the writer and the reader. Nobody likes it, and very few read it. "Desipere in loco" is not only a very agreeable maxim to the author, but a very wise and prudent one.
Lastly. Like Porthos, when "we have an idea," we are at once seized with a feverish anxiety to communicate it, and we think it better to break in on the regular thread of our discourse, and do so at once, than to spoil our whole discourse by having our minds occupied with two subjects at a time.
Another idea strikes us. As yet we hardly aspire to the dignity of authorship. We indulge in abandon, because, as a writer, we have no reputation to jeopard or to lose. But, should this book take, we will mount the antithetical stilts of auctorial dignity—write a book as stale and dry as "the remainder biscuit after a long voyage," and as free from originality, wit, thought or suggestiveness, as the Queen's Speech, the President's Message, or a debate in the United States Senate. We do not as yet bore the world with "respectable stupidity," because our position does not authorize it.
It is a common theory with political economists, that national wealth is but the sum of individual wealth, and that as individual wealth increases, national wealth increases,pari passu.
We think this theory false and pernicious, and the more so because it is plausible.
All profit-bearing possessions or capital, tend to exonerate their owners from labor, and to throw the labor that supports society on a part only of its members. Now, as almost all wealth is the product of labor, this diminution of labor diminishes wealth, or, at least, increases poverty, by placing heavier burdens on the laboring class.
This, however, is a very small part of the evil effects of individual wealth. Society requires it of the rich to live according to their income, to fare sumptuously, to have costly dress, furniture, equipage, houses, &c., and to keep many servants.
Their incomes are spent in luxuries, and thousands of laborers are taken off from the production of necessaries to produce those luxuries, or to wait ontheir owners. Thus, the burden of the support of society, so far as the ordinary comforts and necessaries of life are concerned, are thrown on fewer and fewer, as private wealth and luxury increase. It requires a thousand pauper laborers to sustain one millionaire, and without them his capital will produce no profit. This accounts for the great numbers and excessive poverty of the mass in England. Half the boasted capital of England, probably two-thirds of it, is but a mortgage of the bones and sinews of the laborers, now and forever, to the capitalists. The national debt, stocks of all kinds, money at interest, and indeed all debts, represent this sort of private wealth, which is national poverty.
Sumptuous houses, parks, and all establishments that are costly to sustain and keep up, and do not facilitate, but check the production of necessaries, are also part of private wealth, and of national poverty. Four-fifths of the private wealth of England, and half of that of our Northeast, is a severe tax on labor, and a constant preventive of the accumulation of national wealth.
Private wealth at the South consists chiefly in negro laborers, and improvements of land, that increase its productive capacities. Fine enclosures, improved stock, good granaries, and machines and implements for farming, comfortable negro cabins, good orchards, &c., are as strictly a part of national, as of individual wealth. Not so with the costly private dwellings in our Northern cities. The expense of building, of repairing, of furnishing, and of keeping servants for their owners or tenants, is a constant drawback from productive industry, increases the burdens of the laboring poor, and diminishes national wealth. The poverty-stricken fields of New England are the necessary consequence of the luxurious expenditure in her cities. Yet that luxury is no part of national wealth, but a constant tax on it, whilst unproved farms constitute almost three-fourths of all her real wealth, for they feed and clothe mankind.
This is a most interesting subject; one which we have not mastered, or, if we had, this work on which we are engaged is not the proper one for its full discussion and exposition. We merely throw out a few suggestions for the consideration of the thinking and ingenuous. If we are right, luxury is the greatest sin against society; economy and industry, the chiefest of social virtues.
We do not agree with the authors of the Declaration of Independence, that governments "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The women, the children, the negroes, and but few of the non-property holders were consulted, or consented to the Revolution, or the governments that ensued from its success. As to these, the new governments were self-elected despotisms, and the governing class self-elected despots. Those governments originated in force, and have been continued by force. All governments must originate in force, and be continued by force. The very term, government, implies that it is carried on against the consent of the governed. Fathers do not derive their authority, as heads of families, from the consent of wife and children, nor do they govern their families by their consent. They never take the vote of the family as to the labors to be performed, the moneys to be expended, or as to anything else. Masters dare not take the vote of slaves, as to their government. If they did, constant holiday, dissipation and extravagance wouldbe the result. Captains of ships are not appointed by the consent of the crew, and never take their vote, even in "doubling Cape Horn." If they did, the crew would generally vote to get drunk, and the ship would never weather the cape. Not even in the most democratic countries are soldiers governed by their consent, nor is their vote taken on the eve of battle. They have some how lost (or never had) the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;" and, whether Americans or Russians, are forced into battle, without and often against their consent. The ancient republics were governed by a small class of adult male citizens, who assumed and exercised the government, without the consent of the governed. The South is governed just as those ancient republics were. In the county in which we live, there are eighteen thousand souls, and only twelve hundred voters. But we twelve hundred, the governors, never asked and never intend to ask the consent of the sixteen thousand eight hundred whom we govern. Were we to do so, we should soon have an "organized anarchy." The governments of Europe could not exist a week without the positive force of standing armies.
They are all governments of force, not of consent. Even in our North, the women, children, and free negroes, constitute four-fifths of the population; and they are all governed without their consent. Butthey mean to correct this gross and glaring iniquity at the North. They hold that all men, women, and negroes, and smart children, are equals, and entitled to equal rights. The widows and free negroes begin to vote in some of those States, and they will have to let all colors and sexes and ages vote soon, or give up the glorious principles of human equality and universal emancipation.
The experiment which they will make, we fear, is absurd in theory, and the symptoms of approaching anarchy and agrarianism among them, leave no doubt that its practical operation will be no better than its theory. Anti-rentism, "vote-myself-a-farm" ism, and all the other isms, are but the spattering drops that precede a social deluge.
Abolition ultimates in "Consent Government;" Consent Government in Anarchy, Free Love, Agrarianism, &c., &c., and "Self-elected despotism," winds up the play.
If the interests of the governors, or governing class, be not conservative, they certainly will not conserve institutions injurious to their interests. There never was and never can be an old society, in which the immediate interests of a majority of human souls do not conflict with all established order, all right of property, and all existing institutions. Immediate interest is all the mass look to; and they would be sure to revolutionize government, as often as the situation of the majority wasworse than that of the minority. Divide all property to-day, and a year hence the inequalities of property would provoke a re-division.
In the South, the interest of the governing class is eminently conservative, and the South is fast becoming the most conservative of nations.
Already, at the North, government vibrates and oscillates between Radicalism and Conservatism; at present, Radicalism or Black Republicanism is in the ascendant.
The number of paupers is rapidly increasing; radical and agrarian doctrines are spreading; the women and the children, and the negroes, will soon be let in to vote; and then they will try the experiment of "Consent Government and Constituted Anarchy."
It is falsely said, that revolutions never go backwards. They always go backwards, and generally farther back than where they started. The Social Revolution now going on at the North, must some day go backwards. Shall it do so now, ere it has perpetrated an infinitude of mischief, shed oceans of blood, and occasioned endless human misery; or will the Conservatives of the North let it run the length of its leather, inflict all these evils, and then rectify itself by issuing into military despotism? We think that by a kind of alliance, offensive and defensive, with the South, Northern Conservatism may now arrest and turn back the tide of Radicalism and Agrarianism. We will not presume to point out the whole means and modus operandi. They on the field of action will best see what is necessary to be done.
Whilst we hold that all government is a matter of force, we yet think the governing class should be numerous enough to understand, and so situated as to represent fairly, all interests. The Greek and Roman masters were thus situated; so were the old Barons of England, and so are the white citizens of the South. If not all masters, like Greek and Roman citizens, they all belong to the master race, have exclusive rights and privileges of citizenship, and an interest not to see this right of citizenship extended, disturbed, and rendered worthless and contemptible.
Whilst the governments of Europe are more obviously kept alive and conducted by force than at any other period, yet are they all, from necessity, watchful and regardful of Public Opinion. Opinion now rules the world, but not as expressed through the ballot-box. Governments become more popular as they become more forcible. A large governing class is not apt to mistake or disregard opinion; and, therefore, Republican institutions are best adapted to the times. Under Monarchical forms, the governments of Europe are daily becoming more Republican. The fatal error committed in Western Europe is, the wielding of government bya class who govern, but do not represent, the masses. Their interests and those of the masses are antagonistic, whilst those of masters and slaves are identical.
Looking to theory, to the examples of the Ancient Republics, and to England under the Plantagenets, we shall find that Southern institutions are far the best now existing in the world.
We think speculations as to constructing governments are little worth; for all government is the gradual accretion of Nature, time and circumstances. Yet these theories have occurred to us, and, as they are conservative, we will suggest them. In slaveholding countries all freemen should vote and govern, because their interests are conservative. In free states, the government should be in the hands of the land-owners, who are also conservative. A system of primogeniture, and entails of small parcels of land, might, in a great measure, identify the interests of all; or, at least, those who held no lands would generally be the children and kinsmen of those who did, and be taken care of by them. The frequent accumulation of large fortunes, and consequent pauperism of the masses, is the greatest evil of modern society. Would not small entails prevent this? All cannot own lands, but as many should own them as is consistent with good farming and advanced civilization. The social institutions of the Jews, as established by Moses andJoshua, most nearly fulfill our ideas of perfect government.
A word, at parting, to Northern Conservatives. A like danger threatens North and South, proceeding from the same source. Abolitionism is maturing what Political Economy began. With inexorable sequence "Let Alone" is made to usher in No-Government. North and South our danger is the same, and our remedies, though differing in degree, must in character be the same. "Let Alone" must be repudiated, if we would have any Government. We must, in all sections, act upon the principle that the world is "too little governed," You of the North need not institute negro slavery; far less reduce white men to the state of negro slavery. But the masses require more of protection, and the masses and philosophers equally require more of control. Leave it to time and circumstances to suggest the necessary legislation; but, rely upon it, "Anarchy, plus the street constable," wont answer any longer. The Vigilance Committee of California is but a mob, rendered necessary by the inadequacy of the regular government. It is the "vis medicatrix naturæ," vainly attempting to discharge the office of physician. That country is "too little governed," where the best and most conservative citizens have to resolve themselves into mobs and vigilance committees to protect rights which government should, but dues not, protect.
The element of force exists probably in too small a degree in our Federal Government. It has neither territory nor subjects. Kansas is better off; for she has a few citizens and a large and fertile territory. She is backing the Government out, if not whipping her. Massachusetts, too, has nullified her laws. Utah contemns her authority, and the Vigilance Committee of California sets her at successful defiance. She is an attempt at apaper consentgovernment, without territory or citizens. Considered and treated as a league or treaty betweenseparate StatesorNations, she may yet have a long and useful existence; for then thoseNationsorStates, seeing that she has no means of self-enforcement, self-support, or self-conservation, may, for their mutual interests, combine to sustain and defend her. Heretofore, domestic weakness and danger from foreign foes has combined the States in sustaining the Union. Hereafter, the great advantages of friendly and mutual intercourse, trade and exchanges, may continue to produce a like result. But the prospects are alarming, and it is well that all patriots should know that the Union has little power to sustain and perpetuate itself.
There are three kinds of force that occur to us will sustain a government. First, "inside necessity," such as slavery, that occasions a few to usurp power, and to hold it forcibly, without consulting the many; secondly, the force of foreignpressure or aggression, which combines men and States together for common defence; and thirdly, the inherent force of a prescriptive or usurpative government, which sustains itself by standing armies. Such are all the governments of Western Europe. Not one of them could exist forty-eight hours, but for the standing armies. These standing armies became necessary and grew up as slavery disappeared. The old Barons kept the Canaille, the Proletariat, the Sans Culottes, the Nomadic Beggars, in order, by lashing their backs and supplying their wants. They must be fed and kept at work. Modern society tries to effect this (but in vain) by moral suasion and standing armies. Riots, mobs, strikes and revolutions are daily occurring. The mass of mankind cannot be governed by Law. More of despotic discretion, and less of Law, is what the world wants. We take our leave by saying, "There is too much of Law and too little of Government in this world."
Physical force, not moral suasion, governs the world. The negro sees the driver's lash, becomes accustomed to obedient, cheerful industry, and is not aware that the lash is the force that impels him. The free citizen fulfills, "con amore," his round of social, political and domestic duties, and never dreams that the Law, with its fines and jails, penitentiaries and halters, or Public Opinion, with its ostracism, its mobs, and its tar and feathers, helpto keep him revolving in his orbit. Yet, remove these physical forces, and how many good citizens would shoot, like fiery comets, from their spheres, and disturb society with their eccentricities and their crimes.
Government is the life of a nation, and as no one can foresee the various future circumstances of social, any more than of individual life, it is absurd to define on paper, at the birth of either the nation or individual, what they shall do and what not do. Broad construction of constitutions is as good as no constitution, for it leaves the nation to adapt itself to circumstances; but strict construction will destroy any nation, for action is necessary to national conservation, and constitution-makers cannot foresee what action will be necessary. If individual or social life were passed in mere passivity, constitutions might answer. Not in a changing and active world. Louisiana, Florida and Texas would have been denied to the South under strict construction, and she would have been ruined. A constitution, strictly construed, is absolutely inconsistent with permanent national existence.