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
One day he met us, with a face beaming with smiles, and said, "I can
explain and justify that new theory of yours. This oppression and
exaction of skill and capital which we see continually practiced, and
which is too natural to man ever to cease, is necessary in order to
disperse and diffuse population over the globe. Half the good lands of
the world are unappropriated and invite settlement and cultivation. Most
men who choose can become proprietors by change of residence. They are
too much crowded in many countries, and exploitation that disperses them
is a blessing. It will be time enough to discuss your theory of the
despotism of skill and capital, when all the world is densely settled,
and the men without property can no longer escape from the exactions of
those who hold property."
Our friend's theory is certainly ingenious and novel, and goes far to
prove that exploitation is not an unmitigated evil. Under exceptional
circumstances, its good effects on human happiness and well-being, may
greatly over-balance its evil influences. Such, probably, is the case at
the North. There, free competition, and the consequent oppressions of
skill and capital are fiercer and more active than in any other country.
But in forty-eight hours, laborers may escape to the West, and become
proprietors. It is a blessing to them to be thus expelled, and a
blessing to those who expel them. The emigration to the West rids the
East of a surplus population, and enriches it by the interchanges of
trade and commerce which the emigration immediately begets. As an
exceptional form of society, we begin to think that at the North highly
useful. It will continue to be good and useful until the North-west is
peopled. Then, and not till then, it will be time for Mr. Greely to
build phalansteries, and for Gerrit Smith to divide all the lands. We
find that we shall have to defend the North as well as the South against
the assaults of the abolitionist--still, we cannot abate a jot or tittle
of our theory: "Slavery is the natural and normal condition of society."
The situation of the North is abnormal and anomalous. So in desert or
mountainous regions, where only small patches of land can be cultivated,
the father, wife and children are sufficient for the purpose, and
slavery would be superfluous.
In order to make sure that our reader shall comprehend our theory, we
will give a long extract from the "Science of Society," by Stephen
Pearle Andrews of New York. He is, we think, far the ablest writer on
moral science that America has produced. Though an abolitionist, he has
not a very bad opinion of slavery. We verily believe, there is not one
intelligent abolitionist at the North who does not believe that slavery
to capital in free society is worse than Southern negro slavery; but
like Mr. Andrews, they are all perfectionists, with a Utopia in full
view:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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