Cannibals all! or, Slaves without mastersFitzhugh, George
General
Cannibals all! or, Slaves without masters
Fitzhugh, George
Slave labor; Slavery -- Justification; Slavery -- United States; Working class
All modern philosophy converges to a single point--the overthrow of all
government, the substitution of the untrammelled "Sovereignty of the
Individual," for the Sovereignty of Society, and the inauguration of
anarchy. First domestic slavery, next religious institutions, then
separate property, then political government, and, finally, family
government and family relations, are to be swept away. This is the
distinctly avowed programme of all able abolitionists and socialists:
and towards this end the doctrines and the practices of the weakest and
most timid among them tend. Proudhon, and the French socialists
generally, avow this purpose in France, and Stephen Pearl Andrews
re-echoes it from America. The more numerous and timid class are
represented by Mr. Greeley and the Tribune, who would not "at once
rush," like French revolutionists, "with the explosive force of
escapement, point blank to the bull's eye of its final destiny," but
would inaugurate social conditions, that would gradually bring about
that result. Mr. Greeley does not propose to do away at once with
marriage, religion, private property, political government and parental
authority, but adopts the philosophy and the practices of Fourier, which
promise gradually to purify human nature, and fit it, in a few
generations, for that social millenium, into which the bolder and more
consistent Andrews urges society at once to plunge.
The Christian socialists are beautifully and energetically co-laborating
with the infidel socialists and abolitionists to bring about this
millenium. They also are divided into two parties. The one would wait
upon Providence--only help it a little, like Mr. Greeley--and permit our
poor old effete world to pass out of existence by gentle euthanasia. The
other and bolder party, feel themselves "called" as special instruments,
to give at once the coup de grace to the old world, and to usher in the
new golden age, of free love and free lands, of free women and free
negroes, of free children and free men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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