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
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 its population, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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