The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1855-08-09

| discussion and defamation about the condition
of the working imam, than was published during
the twenty-eight years which elapsed between
| the Restoration and the Revolution; but ii
| would be great error to infer from the in.
crease OF complaint that there has been any in
crease of misery"
This remark is still nSore applicable to Sla-
very, as compared with Freedom, than to the
circumstances which gave rise to it. Slaves
| are not allowed to complain or to petition.
Their grievances and wrongs may cry to Heaven
for vengeance and for redress-to that tribu-
nal where the Higher Law is the standard
but in earthly courts they must not be so much
as named, much less Liz ened to, or removed.
| Hence it is that the Enquirer may quote whole
quartos of evidence from Parliamentary Com.
mittees' examinations and reports, showing the
sad condition of the English poor while there
is not a recorded sentence, in all the Legislative.
documents of all the slaveholding States, whic !
we can quote to show that the chains of tb
slave are worn uneasily. The Enquirer has q
sadly at a disadvantage in this respect; but Il
the editor is proud of it, he is welcome to it.
The Pictorial History of England, which, al
its titlepage indicates, is a history of the pee
pie as well as Of the Government, gives di4s.
ferent and more favorable view of villenage or
serfdom, as it existed in England and Germany,
than is presented in the works of Hume, Black.
stone, and other writer's. According to the
Pictorial History, the word VILLAIN, or villains
properly signifies nothing more than the inhab,
itants of the villa, THAT is, of the township
whether it was village or merely farm. The
word villagers would convey the nearest idea
of what was meant by VILLAIN to modern ear.
Another name for the ceorls, was bonds, or
bondsmen-thati is, occupants of the soil. Doors,
name by which they were also called, means
the same thing. This, therefore, was not sla-
very. The same work proceeds to define the
condition of the slaves, as follows:
"Not accounted as at all forming part of the
people, but deprived of all rights, both political
and personal, and classed rather with the cat
tie than among human beings, were the the
owes, in Latin, serUi, which may be translated
serls, or slaves, in modern language"
"The Saxon theowes spoke the same language,
and, according to every appearance, were, in
"The number of serui reckoned up
in Doomsday Book is only between twenty and
thirty thousand; and it may be fairly assumed
that they and their families did not amount to
a tenth part of the entire population. We find
no trace of any servile instruction in Anglo
Saxon History. The life of theowe, indeed,
was no further protected by law than that of
one of the inferior animals but he was, in gen.
eral, worth more to his master than q cow or
an OK, and nearly as much as horse; and,
therefore, we may suppose the slaves would be,
on the whole, at least as well taken care of as
the cattle"
This small class was the only one in Eng
land whose condition was similar to that of the
Virginia slaves. 1t seems to have been worse
in this, that there was no protection for life
against the brutality of the master. Yet this
is the condition which the democratic En-
quirer holds up for the admiration of the pres
ent agel The editor deplores the fanatical
blindness which induced the mawkish philAh-
thropists of modern times to abolish an institu-
ton which reduced the white men of Englsad
and Germany-his and our ancestors-to The
condition of cattle, subject to be bought O. I'D
sold, manned or murdered, at the pleasure of
the nobility The Enquirer has not yet pso-
posed to reduce the poor white men of Virgin
ia to this condition, but its arguments inevissa-
bly, lead to that result, whatever it may say to
the contrary.
Villenage was not slavery. 1t was thousand
times better than slavery-far better than the
condition of the free colored people of this coun-
try-and, as we shall proceed to show, better
in one respect than the present condition of
the poor in Europe. The same work from
which we have quoted proceeds to describe
the condition of the villain as follows:
"This, then, we repeat, was the obligation
lying on the villain: he was bound to pay GER
tain dues and to render certain services to his
lord, which there is no reason to suppose we're
payment of rent is felt to be by tenant of the
present day. But had he no rights as well as
obligations? The soil was, in truth, as much
his as he was the soils. If he could not leaye
it, so neither could he be driven from it. 1t
was his property to occupy, and cultivate, and
reap the produce Of as much as his services
and dues were the property of his lord. The
master could no more sell, or dispossess on in
any other way Except by divesting himself of
the land) get rid of his Villain than the villain
could get rid of his master. There can be 40
doubt that even those of this class of pers6as
who possessed the smallest tenements considr-
ed themselves better OF, with all the servit Is
they had to render, than if they had been wi d
out both services and the tenements."
The historian then proceeds to show, fri m
the barbarous state of the times, and the { b.
sence of industry, that the villain would haze
derived little advantage from the privilege of
roaming at large, from place to place. He in
sists that, although villenage partook of the ia
ture of both slavery and freedom, it had far
more of the latter than the former element in
it. 1t cannot be pretended that this system has
the remotest resemblance to American chattel
slavery; and if its abolition should be found 10
have injured, rather than benefited, the latfr-
ing classes, no rational man would claim it !.
an argument for Slavery. But we will sh W
that such was not the case.
In the days of villenage, the people We &c
subject to lawless and irregular exactions, as,d
to insult and injury in thousand ways, from
the nobility, just as the slaves and free negroes
of the South are now from the whites Every
one knows that such injuries cannot now be
inflicted with impunity upon the peasantry of
Europe, except in Russia, where serfdom pre-
walls. In confederation of this view, our ga
thor continues:
"Glanville, indeed, informs us, that whate-er
money or goods a villain possessed, were Ct D.
sidered by the law to belong to his lord, sid
therefore ne could not emancipate himself, Or
purchase his freedom with his own none 5: