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
"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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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