The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-08-09
"THK FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY"

conceit of a Mr.. Fitzhugh, of Virginia, and DIES
cants on it as follows:
owe will explore the history of the English
Poor Laws, and show that the millions were
emancipated in order to get their labor cheap
and that they became at once "sturdy rogues
robbers, and beggars," and as such were
treated by Parliament, who, for three hundred
years, made no provision for them except stripes
branding, and the gallows, and who, in the
language of an English writer of distinction
punished them in every way except by scalping
We will further show that these Poor Laws
fixed and reduced their wages to very low
standard, until increase of numbers and free
competition suficed to reduce those wages
lower than even an unprincipled Parliament
dared to do And that now. by numbers and
competition, the poor of England are reduced
to a condition compared with which, whipping
branding, hanging, and scalping, would be
cOups de grace.
1--WE will cross the channel, and exhibit the
mutitudinous sans cntOttes, Proletariats OF
France, the successors of happy serfs, the
hideous out-growth of Liberty, Equality, and
Fraternity We will depict the Irish and Scotch
famines, and France always starving We will
prove that the hundred revolutions in the last
seventy years, in Western Europe, were mere
servile MISUNDERSTANDING aborers making
war against greedy, unfeeling, exacting CAPT.
talists. We will show that the history of free
society, for seventy years, has been but the
horrid alienation of famine and revolution.
This is but part of our programme we
mean to show up free society-to show that the
little experiment made in corner of Western
Europe has signally failed. Then we will invade
our North, where similar experiment is ma
NJ 10
premonitory symptoms Of ultimate failure, and
always adduce the Abolitionists themselves as
our witnesses. In fine, we intend, from time to
time, to institute searching comparison be-
tween slave society and free society, and to
prove that the former is the old, almost univer-
sal normal and natural condition of civilized
society. All this we can do with propriety,
because the Democratic party has always been
directly hostile to Abolition. But you are neu-
trails; you must not attack them, though they
will be sure to assail you. You must sit still
on your platform, and fend and ward off their
blows, in the best way you can. But they will
not permit you to be neutrals long, and, sooner
or later, you will kick down your platform and
join us. Do it at once!"
There are several reasons why we so often
feel called on to controvert the views of the
Richmond Enquirer. In the first place, we re-
gard it among journals as altogether the high
est pro-slavery authority, being the organ OF
the Virginia Democracy, and Virginia being
the largest and most influential Southern State,
whose politicians have controlled the Union
during the greatest part of its existence. South
Carolina, by her eccentricities, has placed her.
self " outside of any healthy political organiza.
tion," and her talented Mercury cannot claim
to represent the public opinion of the Slave Oil.
garchy, which still looks to Virginia for gui
dance. The politics of Virginia are the poll
tics of the sham National Democracy-and
hence the Importance we attach to the opinions
of her leading journal, which is the organ OF
her slaveholding interest. 1t is the climax of
Southern political orthodoxy.
But, there is another reason why we resort
to the Enquirer for texts, viz: because its ed
itorial columns furnish specimens of the great
est monstrosities in the way of political opin-
ions and sentiments of any journal which falls
under our observation. That paper habitually
derides, denounces, and repudiates every prin-
ciple of liberty, for which our fathers of the
Revolution shed their blood, and holds up to
the contempt and adherence of its aristocratic
readers the axioms of the Declaration of hide
pendence, which constitute the very basis of our
institutions. Addressing ourselves to republi.
can freemen, to men who believe in the uni
versal equality of men, it is of course the strong
est possible argument against the sham Democ-
racy now in power, to exhibit their principles,
as set forth by the Virginia organ. That pa
per is, therefore, one of the greatest advocates
of Freedom-of Abolition-in the country, by
the hideous exhibition it makes of its despotic
principles. 1t is as if the editor were endeavor-
ing to make Slavery odious by the red,tctio aid
abswaum method of argument.
Such is the character of the above extract. If
we addressed ourselves exclusively to the friends
of Freedom, it would be sufficient to quote it
without comment. But the Era has several
thousand-readers in the
States; and since the Enquirer
makes show of argument, or rather prom
Use Of argument, we think proper to take up the
gauntlet at once, before the arguments are pro-
duced; for the reader will observe that the ed
itor only promises to demonstrate "the failure
of free society,"" but is careful not to offer any
facts in support of his assumption. Having
waited some ten days or fortnight for him to
fulfil his promise, we have grown impatient,
and have anticipated his thrust.
We must premise that it is hardly fair to 20
to oppressed and enslaved Europe for an Illus
tration of the effects of free society, since there
is no real freedom even in Great Britain, much
less in the Despotisms of the continent In all
of them, the masses have, within three or four
centuries, emerged from serfdom and slavery
into mere peasantry, without political priv.
the condition of chattelhood into
that of an inferior caste, similar to that of our
free people of color. In every country of Eu-
rope, the poor-the laboring classes-are SUBJ
ject to game laws, to tythes, to parish regula-
tions, which restrict locomotion, or removal
from place to place in search of employment.
They are deprived of all political privileges,
and consequently have an essential stimulant
to enterprise taken from them. They cannot
carry firearms, are regarded and treated as
interiors by the privileged classes, and in every
particular but in color their condition is SINH
lar to that of the free colored people in the
South.
Still, we shall proceed to show that their con-
dition is improving from age to age, and that
it is infinitely superior to that of their barba-
rous ancestors. We will show that wages have
doubled, while necessaries have become cheap
er-and that luxuries are now within reach of
the laborer, of which kings would have been
proud two or three centuries ago.