Part 9 (1/2)
Even in America, our Northern folks affected a disease, which they did not feel, just as Alexander's courtiers aped his wry neck; and anti-rentism and land monopoly became the constant theme of conversation, lectures, speeches, books and essays. In France and in England, prior to 1830, there had been a few Socialists, such as Fourier and St. Simon, Owen and f.a.n.n.y Wright--but they were little heeded, and generally considered about half crazy. Immediately thereafter, by far the greater portion of the literary mind of Europe imbibed, in whole or in part, the doctrines of these early Socialists. The infection soon reached the lower cla.s.ses, and occasioned revolution, intended to be social as well as political, throughout Western Europe. The Provisional Government in France, which immediately succeeded to the expulsion of Louis Philippe, was composed entirely of Socialists, and its programme and attempted measures were thoroughly socialistic.
The subject of the condition of the laboring cla.s.ses in Europe, and especially in France, was handled with an accuracy of detail and a breadth of scientific expression in a review of our own work in the Literary Messenger of March, 1855, of which we are incapable. The author, Professor H. of Virginia, is our corresponding acquaintance only. Informed by letter that he would review us, and that he concurred in the general truth of our theory, we suggested to him in reply, that he should, from his vast stores of learning, strengthen our main positions. He thought the suggestion a good one, and fulfilled our request, with an ability and learning, that no other man, on so short a notice, could have done. As we have prompted, if not caused his toil, we make no apology for appropriating so much of his review as seems to be a reply to our suggestion:
From the principles as laid down in theory and exemplified in practice, we proceed to the effects. That religion has been undermined, morals contaminated, crime increased, misery extended, deepened and multiplied, want and starvation augmented, society agitated, and orderly government endangered by the progress of the so-called prosperity of the free labor system, is evident, without further proof, to any one who reads contemporary literature, who pays attention to the statements of newspapers, and of Poor Law Reports, who notes the cases brought before the police or criminal courts, or is cognizant from any source of information, of the actual condition of the mult.i.tude and of the poor in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Prussia, and parts of Switzerland, and in New England and the Northern States. The connection of the results with the causes, is ably traced by Mr.
Fitzhugh, but not with sufficient care, minuteness and precision; and the actual character and enormity of the results is exhibited by him, and by an indefinite array of the most various and unexceptionable testimony. The History of the Working Cla.s.ses, by Robert du Var, which we have joined with the Sociology for the South, as the text for the present observations, is full of evidence to this effect with regard to France; and for the other countries specified, ample testimony may be easily obtained. The Boston papers will suffice to ill.u.s.trate the wretchedness of the laboring cla.s.ses in New England: the New York Herald and Tribune, the works of Stephen Pearl Andrews, and of Greeley himself, will render the same service for the other Northern States: Alton Locke, Mary Barton, Mayhew's London Labor and the London Poor, the debates in Parliament, the Reports of the Poor Law Commissioners, and the English Reviews, will amply ill.u.s.trate the condition of Great Britain and Ireland; and for Germany, reference may be made to Hacklander's Europarsches Sclavenleben, a work which has followed the example of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and portrayed the condition of the inferior cla.s.ses in Europe, as a much more legitimate object of European sympathy and consideration than American Slavery. Where the evidence is so abundant and voluminous, selection would be as unnecessary as it would be tedious. It is within the reach of every one who desires to consult it; and we need not load our pages with extracts to prove what has been frequently and sufficiently proved before, and what is so notoriously true as to be undeniable. A few quotations to ill.u.s.trate the condition of free labor societies we may indeed quote at a later period, in connection with a different division of the argument; but they are wholly unnecessary to confirm the allegation of the wretchedness and depravity which are consuming the vitals of the princ.i.p.al free societies of the Nineteenth Century. They are rendered still more unnecessary by the fact that the acceptability of Socialism in all of those communities, betrays the extent of both the misery and the social disease to be cured; and the confession of the mult.i.tude of recent writers on social topics, admits not merely the evils which we have specified, and their dependence on the theory and practice of free societies, but acknowledges also the truth of the general conclusion, that the free societies enumerated have unquestionably failed, they have not produced the permanent or general blessings antic.i.p.ated from them, they have produced overwhelming social disaster, multiplied indefinitely the woes and the vices of the poor, threatened all society and government and national existence in those communities, and announced a future so dark that little more than its gloom and spectral shapes can be distinctly recognized.
We regard Mr. Fitzhugh's employment of these admissions by European writers and Northern reformers, as const.i.tuting the most important position of his argument, and the most characteristic novelty in his defence of the South. The testimonies which he adduces are very strong and pointed, but they may be easily multiplied, and will gain an accession of strength from such multiplications. For years we have carefully collected similar acknowledgments from foreign writers, and cheerfully contribute them to the cause of the South, and the fortification of Mr.
Fitzhugh's position. And let it be remembered, that neither in the Sociology for the South, nor in the quotations which will be shortly introduced here, is the sole or princ.i.p.al obligation due to Chartists, Socialists, Communists, or Agrarians of any sort.
From such authors some admissions have been received, but the chief contributions are derived from those who have been the most strenuous supporters of past social arrangements, and who, notwithstanding a great diversity of views, abilities, studies, and opportunities of knowledge, still represent the sober conservative sense of their respective communities. We regret that Mr. Fitzhugh should have extended so much countenance to the Socialists, and should have partially identified Socialism and Slavery, but the strongest part of his testimonies to the failure of free societies, is derived from other declarations than theirs, and we shall imitate his example.
We begin, however, with a Socialist, but almost the only one whom we shall summon to the stand:
”The French Revolution was an abortion. The trading cla.s.ses (_la bourgeoisie_) organized themselves in the name of capital, and, instead of becoming a man, the serf became a proletaire. What then was his situation? The most painful of all, the most intolerable which can be conceived. Like all the proletaires, the trading cla.s.ses had shouted: 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.' The result has been that every thing which was proletaire--that is to say, all those who have no capital, groan under the most cruel usage (_exploitation_.) They cannot be freemen, nor brothers, nor equals. Not free, because their daily bread depends on a thousand accidents produced and engendered by the compet.i.tion of capitalists among themselves; not brothers, because, with hearts crushed and lacerated by the evils which overwhelm them, they cannot love those whose creed is so fatal to them; not equals, because capital being the supreme law, it is only through it that any partic.i.p.ation or concurrence in social power is possible.”[9]
An apology is due for not attempting to translate the term proletaires in the above pa.s.sage, but every one familiar with the condition of modern free societies, is aware that it is absolutely untranslateable. It is an indispensable word in modern times, and the impossibility of avoiding its use is a stronger proof of the failure of free societies, than the invention of the phrase Sociology, which Mr. Fitzhugh regards in this light. It ought to be unhesitatingly introduced into the English language; it can boast of a very respectable Latin descent; it occurs in the XII Tables, and originally signified a person of the lowest cla.s.s, too poor to pay taxes, and unable to serve the State otherwise than by raising children and thus increasing the population[10]--a very doubtful service in modern Europe.
We return to Mr. Robert du Var:
”It must be remarked, that what is called pauperism, this sore, this ulcer, which infests, and more and more consumes the body social, could not exist in the same degree amongst the nations of antiquity. It is a phenomenon which could only arise as the consequence of the transformation of slavery into serfdom, and of serfdom into free labor (_proletariat_.) * * * In antiquity, every one, whether free or not, citizen or slave, was always connected with some centre which ensured at least his material support.”[11]
”As a result of the individual liberty, independent of any central power, proclaimed by Christianity, favored and developed by the instincts of the Northern barbarians, legitimated and transformed into a social doctrine by the inst.i.tution of Communes, was formed and agglomerated throughout Europe an innumerable population, having no material connection with the regular society, and having for itself nothing but the most naked liberty, that is to say, misery, poverty, isolation. Thence issued the poor, the beggars, the thieves--in one word, parias of every description, with whom society was compelled to compound, willingly or reluctantly, by the foundation of establishments intended to palliate the bleeding wound of the pauperism which had been engendered by liberty.”[12]
”From whatever point the modern system is regarded, it seems impossible not to recognize that the Politico-economical rule of free compet.i.tion is the negation, as its name indicates, of all ties and communion of interests between the members of society.
Free compet.i.tion is a free field open to every individual, provided or not with the elements necessary and indispensable to its manifestations; free compet.i.tion, in a word, is liberty, but liberty without other rule than the material and moral force, of which each one may be able to dispose in the presence of the thousand causes which produce a difference in the position of individuals.”[13]
”But, we say that a system which thus arms, morally, the poor against each other, is a barbarous system, and contrary to civilization: it is barbarous, inasmuch as it developes all the bad tendencies of the human heart: it is contrary to civilization, because, instead of facilitating harmonious relations among men, it inclines them to mutual repulsion and hostility.”[14]
This is a sufficient sample of M. Robert du Var's testimony. The greater part of his work is to the same effect: and there is a singular accordance between his censures of Political Economy,[15]
and those uttered by Mr. Fitzhugh. They merit especial attention.
We will cite another Socialist, M. Vidal:
”The ox, the horse, the hog eat according to their hunger: their desires are even antic.i.p.ated: they have their subsistence a.s.sured.
It is the same thing in the case of the slave. For the ox, the horse, the hog, the slave, belong to a master, and their loss is the loss of the owner: _res perit domino_, says the Digest. But with the hired laborer it is different! He belongs to himself.
His death is the loss of his family whom he maintained, and who will no longer find the means of living. What matter to an employer is the death of a hired laborer? Are there not every where millions of arms always ready to offer themselves at reduced wages?”[16]
Let us turn to evidence of a different character. Here is Sir Robert Peel's testimony to the condition of Ireland before 1844, previous to the potato-rot and the famine:
”It may be a.s.sured that the fourth cla.s.s of houses, (according to the census,) are generally unfit for human habitation; and yet it would appear that in the best circ.u.mstanced county, in this respect, the county of Down, 24.7 per cent., or one-fourth of the population, live in houses of this cla.s.s: while in Kerry, the population is 66.7 per cent., or about two-thirds of the whole; and, taking the average of the whole population of Ireland, as given by the census commissioner, we find that in the rural districts about 43 per cent. of the families, and in the civic districts, about 36 per cent. inhabit houses of the fourth cla.s.s. * * *
”The lowest, or fourth cla.s.s, remember, comprises all mud cabins, having but one room.”[17]
Mr. Kay, from whom the foregoing remarks of Sir Robert Peel are quoted, thus comments upon a murder committed in open day in Ireland. The two murderers had escaped:
”Why,” he asks, ”were not these men apprehended? Because of the rottenness that there is in the state of society in these districts; because of the sympathy which there is on the part of the great bulk of the population with those who, by these dreadful acts of vengeance, are supposed to be the conservators of the rights of the tenant, and supposed to give him that protection which imperial legislation has denied. The first thing that ever called my attention to the condition of Ireland, was the reading an account of one of these outrages. I thought of it for a moment, but the truth struck me at once: and all I have seen since confirms it. When law refuses its duty--when government denies the right of a people--when compet.i.tion is so fierce for the little land, which the monopolists grant to cultivation in Ireland--when, in fact, for a bare potato, millions are scrambling, these people are driven back from law and from the usages of civilization to that which is termed the law of nature, and, if not of the strongest, the law of the vindictive; and in this case the people of Ireland believe, to my certain knowledge, that it is only by these acts of vengeance, periodically committed, that they can hold in suspense the arm of the proprietor and the agent, who, in too many cases, if he dared, would exterminate them.”[18]