Chapter XXIX: The National Era an Excellent Witness

In an article in the _Era_ of August 16, 1855, criticising and denying our theory of the Failure of Free Society, the writer begins by 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 the law should compel them to do so; for that is the only feasible system of agrarianism, the only practicable way of letting in all men to a sufficient, if not equal, enjoyment of terra mater. Here is his refutation of himself, and confirmation of our theory, which he thinks he is upsetting. We never take up an abolition paper without finding doctrines like those of the _Era_, and only adduce it as a specimen:

"Under despotic and corrupt governments, which oppress the people
with taxes, to support extravagant misrule and unnecessary
war--which debauch them by evil example of those in high places,
and discourage education or render it impossible--the condition of
the poor and nominally free becomes truly deplorable. But it is
not Freedom which is their undoing--it is rather the lack of it.
It is their subjection, through ignorance, to bad rulers, which
keeps them in poverty. We know that the claim laid by capital to
the lion's share of profits is itself, under any 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 the _Northern 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 blended into one, that a separate existence is
impossible. One or two generations are required to bring about
this state of things. Pecuniary dependence, ignorance of other
employments, physical malformation, and the general helplessness
of a mere factory population, are not the work of a day.
Individuals cannot be detached from other pursuits at once--cannot
have manufacturing knowledge and no other knowledge until they
have had time to drift away from other occupations. But however
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 a _strike_. Strikes in business are like
insurrections in civil governments--a last, desperate remedy, and
as often fatal to the sufferer as protective of his interests.
The same is true of the farmer who does not own the soil on which
he labors, but is compelled to make terms with a landlord. Hence,
the well known insurmountable evils of agricultural tenantry. In
Europe it has produced serfdom and feudalism, besides a good deal
of servitude and degradation concealed under the mild name of
peasant. It matters not what the occupation may be, as soon as the
laborer becomes thoroughly dependent, and feels that dependence,
the system does him an incalculable injury. It is for this reason
that large landholders always deteriorate the population, and
society becomes worthless just in proportion as the means of
independent existence 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."