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
Society need not fail in the North-east until the whole West is settled,
and a refluent population, or excess of immigration, overstocks
permanently the labor market on the Atlantic board. Till then, the
despotism of skill and capital, in forcing emigration to the West, makes
proprietors of those emigrants, benefits them, peoples the West, and by
their return trade, enriches the East. The social forms of the North and
the South are, for the present, equally promotive of growth and
prosperity at home, and equally beneficial to mankind at large, by
affording asylums to the oppressed, and by furnishing food and clothing
to all. Northern society is a partial failure, but only because it
generates isms which threaten it with overthrow and impede its progress.
Despite of appearing vain and egotistical, we cannot refrain from
mentioning another circumstance that encourages us to write. At the very
time when we were writing our pamphlet entitled "Slavery Justified," in
which we took ground that Free Society had failed, Mr. Carlyle began to
write his "_Latter Day_ Pamphlets," whose very title is the assertion of
the failure of Free Society. The proof derived from this coincidence
becomes the stronger, when it is perceived that an ordinary man on this
side the Atlantic discovered and was exposing the same social phenomena
that an extraordinary one had discovered and was exposing on the other.
The very titles of our works are synonymous--for the "Latter Day" is the
"Failure of Society."
Mr. Carlyle, and Miss Fanny Wright (in her England the Civilizer)
vindicate Slavery by shewing that each of its apparent relaxations in
England has injured the laboring class. They were fully and ably
represented in Parliament by their ancient masters, the Barons. Since
the Throne, and the Church, and the Nobility, have been stripped of
their power, and a House of Commons, representing lands and money, rules
despotically, the masses have become outlawed. They labor under all the
disadvantages of slavery, and have none of the rights of slaves. This is
the true history of the English Constitution, and one which we intend,
in the sequel, more fully to expound. This presents another reason why
we again appear before the public. Blackstone, which is read by most
American gentlemen, teaches a doctrine the exact reverse of this, and
that doctrine we shall try to refute.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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