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CHAPTER XXXIV.
NATIONAL WEALTH, INDIVIDUAL WEALTH, LUXURY AND ECONOMY

It is a common theory with political economists, that national wealth is but the sum of individual wealth, and that as individual wealth increases, national wealth increases, pari passu.

We think this theory false and pernicious, and the more so because it is plausible.

All profit-bearing possessions or capital, tend to exonerate their owners from labor, and to throw the labor that supports society on a part only of its members. Now, as almost all wealth is the product of labor, this diminution of labor diminishes wealth, or, at least, increases poverty, by placing heavier burdens on the laboring class.

This, however, is a very small part of the evil effects of individual wealth. Society requires it of the rich to live according to their income, to fare sumptuously, to have costly dress, furniture, equipage, houses, &c., and to keep many servants.

Their incomes are spent in luxuries, and thousands of laborers are taken off from the production of necessaries to produce those luxuries, or to wait on their owners. Thus, the burden of the support of society, so far as the ordinary comforts and necessaries of life are concerned, are thrown on fewer and fewer, as private wealth and luxury increase. It requires a thousand pauper laborers to sustain one millionaire, and without them his capital will produce no profit. This accounts for the great numbers and excessive poverty of the mass in England. Half the boasted capital of England, probably two-thirds of it, is but a mortgage of the bones and sinews of the laborers, now and forever, to the capitalists. The national debt, stocks of all kinds, money at interest, and indeed all debts, represent this sort of private wealth, which is national poverty.

Sumptuous houses, parks, and all establishments that are costly to sustain and keep up, and do not facilitate, but check the production of necessaries, are also part of private wealth, and of national poverty. Four-fifths of the private wealth of England, and half of that of our Northeast, is a severe tax on labor, and a constant preventive of the accumulation of national wealth.

Private wealth at the South consists chiefly in negro laborers, and improvements of land, that increase its productive capacities. Fine enclosures, improved stock, good granaries, and machines and implements for farming, comfortable negro cabins, good orchards, &c., are as strictly a part of national, as of individual wealth. Not so with the costly private dwellings in our Northern cities. The expense of building, of repairing, of furnishing, and of keeping servants for their owners or tenants, is a constant drawback from productive industry, increases the burdens of the laboring poor, and diminishes national wealth. The poverty-stricken fields of New England are the necessary consequence of the luxurious expenditure in her cities. Yet that luxury is no part of national wealth, but a constant tax on it, whilst unproved farms constitute almost three-fourths of all her real wealth, for they feed and clothe mankind.

This is a most interesting subject; one which we have not mastered, or, if we had, this work on which we are engaged is not the proper one for its full discussion and exposition. We merely throw out a few suggestions for the consideration of the thinking and ingenuous. If we are right, luxury is the greatest sin against society; economy and industry, the chiefest of social virtues.

CHAPTER XXXV.
GOVERNMENT A THING OF FORCE, NOT OF CONSENT

We do not agree with the authors of the Declaration of Independence, that governments "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The women, the children, the negroes, and but few of the non-property holders were consulted, or consented to the Revolution, or the governments that ensued from its success. As to these, the new governments were self-elected despotisms, and the governing class self-elected despots. Those governments originated in force, and have been continued by force. All governments must originate in force, and be continued by force. The very term, government, implies that it is carried on against the consent of the governed. Fathers do not derive their authority, as heads of families, from the consent of wife and children, nor do they govern their families by their consent. They never take the vote of the family as to the labors to be performed, the moneys to be expended, or as to anything else. Masters dare not take the vote of slaves, as to their government. If they did, constant holiday, dissipation and extravagance would be the result. Captains of ships are not appointed by the consent of the crew, and never take their vote, even in "doubling Cape Horn." If they did, the crew would generally vote to get drunk, and the ship would never weather the cape. Not even in the most democratic countries are soldiers governed by their consent, nor is their vote taken on the eve of battle. They have some how lost (or never had) the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;" and, whether Americans or Russians, are forced into battle, without and often against their consent. The ancient republics were governed by a small class of adult male citizens, who assumed and exercised the government, without the consent of the governed. The South is governed just as those ancient republics were. In the county in which we live, there are eighteen thousand souls, and only twelve hundred voters. But we twelve hundred, the governors, never asked and never intend to ask the consent of the sixteen thousand eight hundred whom we govern. Were we to do so, we should soon have an "organized anarchy." The governments of Europe could not exist a week without the positive force of standing armies.

They are all governments of force, not of consent. Even in our North, the women, children, and free negroes, constitute four-fifths of the population; and they are all governed without their consent. But they mean to correct this gross and glaring iniquity at the North. They hold that all men, women, and negroes, and smart children, are equals, and entitled to equal rights. The widows and free negroes begin to vote in some of those States, and they will have to let all colors and sexes and ages vote soon, or give up the glorious principles of human equality and universal emancipation.

The experiment which they will make, we fear, is absurd in theory, and the symptoms of approaching anarchy and agrarianism among them, leave no doubt that its practical operation will be no better than its theory. Anti-rentism, "vote-myself-a-farm" ism, and all the other isms, are but the spattering drops that precede a social deluge.

Abolition ultimates in "Consent Government;" Consent Government in Anarchy, Free Love, Agrarianism, &c., &c., and "Self-elected despotism," winds up the play.

If the interests of the governors, or governing class, be not conservative, they certainly will not conserve institutions injurious to their interests. There never was and never can be an old society, in which the immediate interests of a majority of human souls do not conflict with all established order, all right of property, and all existing institutions. Immediate interest is all the mass look to; and they would be sure to revolutionize government, as often as the situation of the majority was worse than that of the minority. Divide all property to-day, and a year hence the inequalities of property would provoke a re-division.

In the South, the interest of the governing class is eminently conservative, and the South is fast becoming the most conservative of nations.

Already, at the North, government vibrates and oscillates between Radicalism and Conservatism; at present, Radicalism or Black Republicanism is in the ascendant.

The number of paupers is rapidly increasing; radical and agrarian doctrines are spreading; the women and the children, and the negroes, will soon be let in to vote; and then they will try the experiment of "Consent Government and Constituted Anarchy."

It is falsely said, that revolutions never go backwards. They always go backwards, and generally farther back than where they started. The Social Revolution now going on at the North, must some day go backwards. Shall it do so now, ere it has perpetrated an infinitude of mischief, shed oceans of blood, and occasioned endless human misery; or will the Conservatives of the North let it run the length of its leather, inflict all these evils, and then rectify itself by issuing into military despotism? We think that by a kind of alliance, offensive and defensive, with the South, Northern Conservatism may now arrest and turn back the tide of Radicalism and Agrarianism. We will not presume to point out the whole means and modus operandi. They on the field of action will best see what is necessary to be done.

Whilst we hold that all government is a matter of force, we yet think the governing class should be numerous enough to understand, and so situated as to represent fairly, all interests. The Greek and Roman masters were thus situated; so were the old Barons of England, and so are the white citizens of the South. If not all masters, like Greek and Roman citizens, they all belong to the master race, have exclusive rights and privileges of citizenship, and an interest not to see this right of citizenship extended, disturbed, and rendered worthless and contemptible.

Whilst the governments of Europe are more obviously kept alive and conducted by force than at any other period, yet are they all, from necessity, watchful and regardful of Public Opinion. Opinion now rules the world, but not as expressed through the ballot-box. Governments become more popular as they become more forcible. A large governing class is not apt to mistake or disregard opinion; and, therefore, Republican institutions are best adapted to the times. Under Monarchical forms, the governments of Europe are daily becoming more Republican. The fatal error committed in Western Europe is, the wielding of government by a class who govern, but do not represent, the masses. Their interests and those of the masses are antagonistic, whilst those of masters and slaves are identical.

Looking to theory, to the examples of the Ancient Republics, and to England under the Plantagenets, we shall find that Southern institutions are far the best now existing in the world.

We think speculations as to constructing governments are little worth; for all government is the gradual accretion of Nature, time and circumstances. Yet these theories have occurred to us, and, as they are conservative, we will suggest them. In slaveholding countries all freemen should vote and govern, because their interests are conservative. In free states, the government should be in the hands of the land-owners, who are also conservative. A system of primogeniture, and entails of small parcels of land, might, in a great measure, identify the interests of all; or, at least, those who held no lands would generally be the children and kinsmen of those who did, and be taken care of by them. The frequent accumulation of large fortunes, and consequent pauperism of the masses, is the greatest evil of modern society. Would not small entails prevent this? All cannot own lands, but as many should own them as is consistent with good farming and advanced civilization. The social institutions of the Jews, as established by Moses and Joshua, most nearly fulfill our ideas of perfect government.

A word, at parting, to Northern Conservatives. A like danger threatens North and South, proceeding from the same source. Abolitionism is maturing what Political Economy began. With inexorable sequence "Let Alone" is made to usher in No-Government. North and South our danger is the same, and our remedies, though differing in degree, must in character be the same. "Let Alone" must be repudiated, if we would have any Government. We must, in all sections, act upon the principle that the world is "too little governed," You of the North need not institute negro slavery; far less reduce white men to the state of negro slavery. But the masses require more of protection, and the masses and philosophers equally require more of control. Leave it to time and circumstances to suggest the necessary legislation; but, rely upon it, "Anarchy, plus the street constable," wont answer any longer. The Vigilance Committee of California is but a mob, rendered necessary by the inadequacy of the regular government. It is the "vis medicatrix naturæ," vainly attempting to discharge the office of physician. That country is "too little governed," where the best and most conservative citizens have to resolve themselves into mobs and vigilance committees to protect rights which government should, but dues not, protect.

The element of force exists probably in too small a degree in our Federal Government. It has neither territory nor subjects. Kansas is better off; for she has a few citizens and a large and fertile territory. She is backing the Government out, if not whipping her. Massachusetts, too, has nullified her laws. Utah contemns her authority, and the Vigilance Committee of California sets her at successful defiance. She is an attempt at a paper consent government, without territory or citizens. Considered and treated as a league or treaty between separate States or Nations, she may yet have a long and useful existence; for then those Nations or States, seeing that she has no means of self-enforcement, self-support, or self-conservation, may, for their mutual interests, combine to sustain and defend her. Heretofore, domestic weakness and danger from foreign foes has combined the States in sustaining the Union. Hereafter, the great advantages of friendly and mutual intercourse, trade and exchanges, may continue to produce a like result. But the prospects are alarming, and it is well that all patriots should know that the Union has little power to sustain and perpetuate itself.

There are three kinds of force that occur to us will sustain a government. First, "inside necessity," such as slavery, that occasions a few to usurp power, and to hold it forcibly, without consulting the many; secondly, the force of foreign pressure or aggression, which combines men and States together for common defence; and thirdly, the inherent force of a prescriptive or usurpative government, which sustains itself by standing armies. Such are all the governments of Western Europe. Not one of them could exist forty-eight hours, but for the standing armies. These standing armies became necessary and grew up as slavery disappeared. The old Barons kept the Canaille, the Proletariat, the Sans Culottes, the Nomadic Beggars, in order, by lashing their backs and supplying their wants. They must be fed and kept at work. Modern society tries to effect this (but in vain) by moral suasion and standing armies. Riots, mobs, strikes and revolutions are daily occurring. The mass of mankind cannot be governed by Law. More of despotic discretion, and less of Law, is what the world wants. We take our leave by saying, "There is too much of Law and too little of Government in this world."

Physical force, not moral suasion, governs the world. The negro sees the driver's lash, becomes accustomed to obedient, cheerful industry, and is not aware that the lash is the force that impels him. The free citizen fulfills, "con amore," his round of social, political and domestic duties, and never dreams that the Law, with its fines and jails, penitentiaries and halters, or Public Opinion, with its ostracism, its mobs, and its tar and feathers, help to keep him revolving in his orbit. Yet, remove these physical forces, and how many good citizens would shoot, like fiery comets, from their spheres, and disturb society with their eccentricities and their crimes.

Government is the life of a nation, and as no one can foresee the various future circumstances of social, any more than of individual life, it is absurd to define on paper, at the birth of either the nation or individual, what they shall do and what not do. Broad construction of constitutions is as good as no constitution, for it leaves the nation to adapt itself to circumstances; but strict construction will destroy any nation, for action is necessary to national conservation, and constitution-makers cannot foresee what action will be necessary. If individual or social life were passed in mere passivity, constitutions might answer. Not in a changing and active world. Louisiana, Florida and Texas would have been denied to the South under strict construction, and she would have been ruined. A constitution, strictly construed, is absolutely inconsistent with permanent national existence.

CHAPTER XXXVI.
WARNING TO THE NORTH

 
Banquo– But 'tis strange:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths;
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequences.
 

Macbeth.

The reader must have remarked our propensity of putting scraps of poetry at the head of our chapters, or of interweaving them with the text. It answers as a sort of chorus or refrain, and, when skillfully handled, has as fine an effect as the fiddle at a feast, or the brass band on the eve of an engagement. It nerves the author for greater effort, and inspires the reader with resolution to follow him in his most profound ratiocinations and airiest speculations. We learnt it from "our Masters in the art of war" when we carried their camp and their whole park of artillery, (which we are now using with such murderous effect against their own ranks.) We also captured their camp equipage, books of military strategy, &c. In them we found rules laid down for the famous songs, which are so harmoniously blended with the speeches at all Infidel and Abolition conventions, and Women's Rights and Free Love assemblages. They are intended to inspire enthusiasm, confirm conviction, and to "screw the courage to the sticking point." Besides, sometimes they answer admirably the opposite purpose of a sedative. Often, when Sister This One has, by her imprudent speech, outraged decency, propriety, religion and morality, and drawn down upon her head hisses and cries of "Turn her out! Turn her out!" Brother That One bursts forth in "strains of sweetest melody," and like another Orpheus quells and quiets another hell. Not that we intend by any means to intimate that this musical brother would play Orpheus throughout, and take as long and perilous a trip to rescue his sister as Orpheus did for Eurydice. On the contrary, we suspect in such contingency he would pray to Pluto to double bar the gates, and bribe Cerberus to keep closer watch. We derive this impression from the triangular correspondence of Greeley, Andrews and James, entitled "Love, Marriage and Divorce;" and from the actings and doings of the courts and legislature of Massachusetts – who, from the number of the divorces they grant, we should think could hardly find time to send Hiss on a visit of purification to the Convents.

Now it may be, that sometimes, when we "have gone it rather strong" (as we are very apt to do,) and offended the reader, our scraps of poetry may answer the purpose of the Abolition songs, and soothe and propitiate him. Besides, they afford a sort of interlude or by-play, like that of Sancho where he slipped off from the flying horse, Clavileno, just as he and the Don had reached the constellation of the Goat, and went to playing with the little goats to relieve the giddiness of his head. I am sure, when we have, as we often do, mounted with our reader into the highest regions of metaphysics, that his head becomes a little giddy, (at least ours does,) and that he is thankful for a little poetry or a turn at play with our Abolition Goats. "Goats, indeed!" quoth Mr. G – , "Lions, you had better say." Well, be it lions! We are no more afraid of you than if you were lambs; and you will no sooner dare to attack us than you did the Knight of La Mancha when he vainly challenged you to mortal combat.

Let not the reader suppose that we either emulate the chivalry of the Don or the wisdom of his Squire. A Northern clime has congealed the courage of our lions and they are afraid of the "paper bullets of the brain;" yet they are vastly fond of shooting them at others, provided they are sure the shot will not be returned.

As for Sancho, we think him the wisest man we ever read after, except Solomon. Indeed, in the world of Fiction, all the wisdom issues from the mouths of fools – as witness Shakspeare's Falstaff and his fools. There is at least vraisemblance in all this; for, as in the Real world, the philosophers (e. g. our Masters in the art of war) have monopolized all the folly, – where so likely to find the wisdom as among the fools?

We fear our "Little Cannibals" are growing impatient, and may be, a little jealous of our seeming preference for our goats. They are young yet and require nursing. But they are young Herculeses, born with teeth, and if any Abolition serpents attempt to strangle them in the cradle, they'll be apt to get the worst of it. The danger is, however, that the Abolitionists will steal and adopt them – for they are vastly fond of young cannibals, and employ much of their time in sewing and knitting and getting up subscriptions, to send shirts and trowsers to the little fellows away over in Africa, who as indignantly repel them as old King Lear did when he stripped in the storm and resolved to be his "unsophisticated self."

Now, seeing that the Abolitionists are so devoted to the uncouth, dirty, naked little cannibals of Africa, haven't we good reason to fear that they will run away with and adopt ours, when they come forth neatly dressed in black muslin and all shining with gold from the master hands of Morris and Wynne? They will be sure at least to captivate the hearts of the strong-minded ladies, and if they will treat them well in infancy, we don't know but what, if they will wait till they grow up, we may spare them a husband or two from the number.

Mr. Morris has promised they shall be black as Erebus without, and white as "driven snow" within.

If they can get over the trying time of infancy – if the critics don't smother them in the cradle, the boys will make their own way in the world, and get a name famous as Toussaint or Dessalines.

To be candid with the reader, we have learned lately that the physique of a book is quite as important as its metaphysique – the outside as the inside. Figure, size, proportion, are all to be consulted: for books are now used quite as much for centre table ornaments as for reading. We have a marble one on our centre table that answers the former purpose admirably, because nobody can put puzzling questions about its contents. Now, we must write the exact amount, and no more, to enable Mr. Morris and Mr. Wynne to make our book appear externally "comme il faut." We write this chapter in part for that purpose. The reader would not object to a page, or so, more or less of it, and Mr. Morris and Mr. Wynne will know how to curtail or omit, for they are not only masters of their own trades, but can render us valuable assistance in ours.

We return to our Cannibals, with this single remark to that morose and demure reader who is snarling at our occasional levity – "You, sir, never throw off your dignity; because you would be sure to uncover your folly."

We warn the North, that every one of the leading Abolitionists is agitating the negro slavery question merely as a means to attain ulterior ends, and those ends nearer home. They would not spend so much time and money for the mere sake of the negro or his master, about whom they care little. But they know that men once fairly committed to negro slavery agitation – once committed to the sweeping principle, "that man being a moral agent, accountable to God for his actions, should not have those actions controlled and directed by the will of another," are, in effect, committed to Socialism and Communism, to the most ultra doctrines of Garrison, Goodell, Smith and Andrews – to no private property, no church, no law, no government, – to free love, free lands, free women and free churches.

There is no middle ground – not an inch of ground of any sort, between the doctrines which we hold and those which Mr. Garrison holds. If slavery, either white or black, be wrong in principle or practice, then is Mr. Garrison right – then is all human government wrong.

Socialism, not Abolition, is the real object of Black Republicanism. The North, not the South, the true battle-ground. Like Fanny Wright, the author of American Socialism, the agitators of the North look upon free society as a mere transition state to a better, but untried, form of society. The reader will not fully comprehend the ideas we would convey, without reading "England the Civilizer," by Miss Fanny Wright. It is worth reading, not only as far the best history of the British constitution, but as the most correct and perfect analysis and delineation of free society – of that form of society which all Socialists and all thinking men agree cannot stand as it is. The Abolition school of Socialists like it because it is intolerable – because they consider it a transition state to a form of society without law or government. Miss Wright has the honesty to admit, that a transition has never taken place. No; and never will take place: because the expulsion of human nature is a pre-requisite to its occurrence.

But we solemnly warn the North, that what she calls a transition, is what every leading Abolitionist is moving heaven and earth to attain. This is their real object – negro emancipation a mere gull-trap.

In the attempt to attain "transition" seas of gore may be shed, until military despotism comes in to restore peace and security.

We (for we are a Socialist) agree with Mr. Carlyle, that the action of free society must be reversed. That, instead of relaxing more and more the bonds that bind man to man, you must screw them up more closely. That, instead of no government, you must have more government. And this is eminently true in America, where from the nature of things, as society becomes older and population more dense, more of government will be required. To prevent the attempt at transition, which would only usher in revolution, you must begin to govern more vigorously.

But we will be asked, How is this to be effected? The answer is easy. The means are at hand, and the work is begun.

The Democratic party, purged of its radicalism and largely recruited from the ranks of the old line Whigs, has become eminently and actively conservative. It is the antipodes of the Democratic party of the days of Jefferson, in the grounds which it occupies and the opinions which it holds, (what it professes to hold is another thing.) Yet it has been a consistent party throughout. Consistent, in wisely and boldly adapting its action to the emergencies of the occasion. It is pathological, and practices according to prevailing symptoms. 'Tis true, it has a mighty Nosology in its Declaration of Independence, Bills of Rights, Constitutions, Platforms, and Preambles and Resolutions; but, like a good physician, it watches the state of the patient, and casts Nosology to the dogs when the symptoms require it. When we entered the party we were radicals, and half Abolitionists, and found inscribed on its banner, "The world is too much governed!" Now, we are sure the conviction has fastened itself on the heart of every good citizen, that "the world is too little governed."

The true and honorable distinction of the Democratic party is, that it has but one unbending principle – "The safety of the people is the supreme law." To this party we think the Nation and the North may confidently look for a happy exodus from our difficulties. It is pure, honest, active and patriotic now, and will continue so as long as the dark cloud of Abolition and Socialism lowers and threatens at the North. Long and quiet possession of power will be sure to corrupt it. It will be then time to cast it aside. It is now able, and it alone is able, to grapple with and strangle the treasons of the North.

"Times change, and men change with them."

Good and brave men are proud, not ashamed, of such changes. Let no false pride of seeming consistency deter us from an avowal, which omitted, may trammel and impede our action.

Our old Nosology is an effective arsenal and armory for the most ultra Abolitionists, and the more effective, because we have not formally repudiated it. Let "The world is too little governed" be adopted as our motto, inscribed upon our flag and run up to the mast-head.

Note. – We learn that many of the old Federalists of the North, and some of the South, are joining our ranks. We welcome them. Their principles were wrong when they adopted them, but (barring their consolidation doctrines) will answer pretty well now. It was ever the misfortune of the old Federal party and the lately deceased Whig party, to be right at the wrong time. They were, as the doctors say, nosological and not pathological in practice. The Whig party of England, like the Democratic party of America, is eminently pathological, active, observant and impressible.