It, nevertheless, but ill becomes the home British to say much about
the United States’ slavery, or, indeed, about any slavery. The causes
which operate to promote or prevent direct slavery, have never, that
I am aware of, been clearly pointed out. Slaves (direct) are found
only where land is cheap. When the land, from its redundancy in
proportion to population, as in America, is of little or no value,
the whole property consists of labour, or the produce of labour; and
the covetous man not being able to satisfy his lust for riches by the
produce of his own labour, has no other way of gratifying it but by
obtaining possession of the persons of his fellow-men, and compelling
them to labour the otherwise unprofitable ground for his emolument;
and this he finds profitable, because the produce of labour, even of
slave-labour, in this favourable field for production, is more than
sufficient to support his slaves as reproductive labouring-stock, or
to purchase new ones should they wear out. On the reverse, slaves
(direct) are not found when the land has been all occupied, and has
reached any considerable value or rental. Wherever this has taken
place, and population has become dense, hired or piece-labour becomes
more profitable than slave-labour, and drives it from the field. The
reason of this is obvious: man, in a state of comparative liberty
of action, has more of mental energy to stimulate and carry on his
corporeal exertions, and to direct them to more profitable effect,
than when under direct slavery, while at the same time he can be
maintained at less cost as a reproductive animal when in semblance
free. Besides, when the land has been all taken up, and has come
into the hands of a small number of the community, these, from being
the possessors of property, generally obtain the governing power,
and form a land-aristocracy class. They proceed to legislate and
levy taxation in the most partial and unjust manner to forward their
own selfish interests, they secure the land-property to themselves
and their posterity, and, by taking advantage of the poverty and
necessity for food of the labouring population, make out to obtain
a more complete command over their labour, and more power to render
them subservient to their pleasure and luxury, than if the working
population were slaves direct.
In this way, by means of a food-monopoly for the emolument of the
heir or eldest male of the family, and excessive taxation upon the
necessaries of the working people for the support of the younger
branches, our governing land-aristocracy have done every thing in
their power to bring the working population to a complete state
of _indirect_ slavery, the only slavery which, from the nature of
things in Britain, is profitable or practicable, and they have
succeeded,--the destitution and hollow cheek of wife and children
being a more powerful incentive to severe toil than the whip of the
hippopotamus hide. A sufficient emigration would help to reform
this. The purpose of the “sufficient price” (a high price upon fresh
land in colonies) to compress population together, will be seen by
the reader at a glance. It will, as Mr Wakefield naively tells us,
“render slave-labour a loss.” The _indirect_ slavery, as in Britain,
will be more profitable!!