The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-05-19


performing all the services of agriculture for
him. it is obvious that his interest was to main
tain Just so many of these a. his estate re-
quired for its cultivation. Land the cheapest
of articles, was the price of their labor and,
though the law did not compel him to pay
this, or any other price, yet necessity, repairing
in some degree the laws injustice, made those
pretty secure of food and dwellings who were
TO give the strength of their arms for his ad-
vantage. But in course of time, as alterations
of small parcels Of manors to free tenants came
10 prevail, the proprietors Of land were placed
in a new situation relatively to it's cultivators.
The tenements in yillanage, whether by law or
usage, were never separated from the lordship,
while its domain was reduced to a smaller ex-
tent through sub-infeudations, sales, OF demises
for valuable rent The purchasers under these
alterations had occasion for laborers; and
these would be free servants in respect to such
employers, though in vllanage to their original
lord. AS he demanded less Of their labor,
through the dminution of his domain, they had
more to spare for other masters and, retaining
the character of villeins, and the lands they
held by that tenure, became hired labOrers in
husbandry for the greater part Of the year. 1t
is true that all their earnings were at the lord Is
disposal, and that he might have made profit
of their labor when he ceased to require it for
his own land. But this, which the rapacity of
more commercial times would have instantly
suggested, might escape feudal superior who,
wealthy beyond his wants, and guarded by the
haughtiness of ancestry against the love OF
such pititul gains, was better pleased to win
the affections of his dependents than to i'm
prove his fortune at their expense"
L. coI l..
many sheer assumptions, how many improba-
bilities, are here borrowed for the necessity,
and how illogically imaginary facts are put for
motives, and effects for causes Nothing is &C
counted for, but by things which cannot be the
causes of them and which are, besides, them
selves unaccounted for.
The efficient cause lies beyond those senti-
ments of religion and morality to which it has
been ascribed and certainly deeper than the
process by which it is carried into effective ope-
ration. The sentiments of religion and justice,
which command equity among men, are as
active where Slavery exists now, and have been
in time past, as in the ireest countries of the
globe. Abraham was the spiritual father of
many nations, and the United States of America
have both the New Testament and the Decla-
ration of Independence as their standards of
faith and duty Nor is it to the reformed re-
ligion that the historical change from william
age to freedom must be ascribed. Serfdom
gave way US early in Italy as in Germany, and
in both it was fairly abolished before the Luz
theran reformation, Q5O0) and before the
preaching of Wicklitie, (136O) or of John Huss
and Jerome of Prague The clergy and several
of the Popes enforced the duty of emancipation
upon laymen, and inveighed strongly against
the scandal of keeping Christians in bondage
AS early as 1924, the clerical order, or commu-
nifty, styled the Chapter Of Orleans, manumit-
ted all their slaves, under certain conditions of
service. The evil, the wrong the mischief, of
chattel Slavery are not so obscure as to be hid
den from the perceptions Of a Catholic monk,
or even of a Mahomedan priest and neither
Democracy nor Professionalism can rightfully
claim to have made the earliest discovery of
the truth and the right of personal liberty
just as well, and respected it as much, to say
the least, as does the Parliament of England.
But this is not denying, nor intending to deny,
the concurrence and collateral aid which the
Protestant doctrine Of civil and religious liberty
afford to the uprising manhood of the oppressed
masses, wherever it has the vgor to assert
itself.
In 1860, WickliGe began the reformation in
England; in I4l5 and l4l6, Husa and Jerome
gave their bodies to be burned for the enght-
eminent of Germany; concurrently, we had the
insurrection of the Jacqucrie (rustics) in France
1858; that of Wat Tyler in England in 1882,
the Gospel of religious liberty found people
already in civil freedom TO work upon. Before
the middle of the fourteenth century, the
largest proportion of the peasantry of England
had become hired laborers, instead of villeins
In 1850, Edward Ill made an ordinance limit
ing and reducing tho rate Of wages demanded
by the free laborers, "not living Of their own
nor by any trade" as they are therein described.
This was just after the terrible pestilcnce of
l348, and it rcctes that the number of servants
and workmen had been greatly reduced by
that calamity, whereupon the remainder de-
manded excessive wages from the employers.
Two years afterwards, q statute was made in
Parliament, fixing tho rate of wages of all art-
fcers and husbandmon. From this time for
ward, the Commons frequently complained that
the statute of laborers was not observed. Du-
ring the reign of this King, from 1927 to 1877
such an alteration had been wrought in the
condition of the lower classes, that the whole
force of law, capital, and contempt, could not
rcpress or restrain their rising fortunes 1t
was during this century that the sense Of politi-
cal debasement began to be most kecnly felt
throughout many countries of Europe, as the
instructions already cited evince and histor-
ans have not failed to remark the democratic
tone of feeling manifested in several of the
French and Flemish cities, and the prevalence
of spirit Of liberty in Germany and Switzer-
land. The Swiss Republics were founded in
1907.
This was the age of Wicklifie and the TO-
formatory freedom of religious ideas, indeed
but both the civil and religious liberty of the
times had their spring in conditions of the
people which prepared for their outbirth The
dislike of ecclesiastical power, which spread so
rapidly among the people, connected itself, very
naturally, with spirit Of INSTRUMENTATION and
intolerance of political subsection. The lower
order of secular clergy preached the doctrine
Of religious equality, the fraternity of men,
their common origin and destiny and the re-
Gently but generally emancipated populace
were ready enough to give the new notions
every possible application.
My own view of the causes which abolished
vi!lanage of the native European people, can