A Thanksgiving Plea for Free Labor, North and South

by Alexander Stevenson Twombly

a

Thanksgiving Plea

for

Free Labor, North and South.

by

Rev. A. S. Twombly.

Albany:
J. Munsell, 78 State Street.
1864.

Discourse.^[1]

(Prov., xiv, 23.) “In all labour, there is profit.”

The institution of a Day of Thanksgiving was, at the first (as you are well aware), mainly in commemoration of the profit with which God had blessed the labor of New England colonists.

They gave thanks for their deliverance from the dangers of their new home; but chiefly did they praise the Lord, for the satisfactory harvest with which He had crowned the work they had endeavored to perform. Thus this Thanksgiving Day has been perpetuated, as a harvest-festival—as a day appropriately closing the productive year; a day on which the husbandman and his co-laborers, he taking rank as first, might thank the Lord in holiday attire, for all the profit granted to the labor of His hands. It was then the original purpose of this day, to make it the culmination of the year of toil, in its reward of cheerful relaxation and responsive gratitude.

"We hail it, therefore, as the workman's day;
Upon this day, he shares the bounteous meal with
those he loves.
With those he loves, he shares the heart-felt joy,
Of giving thanks to God;
With leave to meditate
On Him whose power yields joy for sweat,
And blessing for the primal curse."

In order then that we—released from toil, and called to cheerful praise on this glad day—may enter heartily into this jubilee occasion in the full spirit of its founders, let us consider what are the profits we have realized from labor for which we ought to thank the Lord. In other words, what profit is there in the labor we as American citizens, have taken under the sun during the past year.

This question, which King Solomon put so dubiously, I propose to answer at this time most joyously. There is a profit in this toil—there is a reward for all this worry and vexation of the spirit. It must be so, since:

I. Labor for all, with lawful wages for it all, is a law of nature with its intention, regulation and reward, as fixed and sure as any other law of God. It is decided in the everlasting counsels of Jehovah, that labor, properly adjusted and applied, shall be productive of real happiness to every member of the race; not material only, but mental and spiritual happiness; and consequently, that in the long run, unworkers shall not reap this profit. If unworkers, because of an abundance without toil, they shall be weakened, deprived of happiness, or destroyed by inactivity; if unworkers, because they are deprived of work, which is the inalienable right of all according to this law of nature, they must also lose the profit of their labor, and must starve and die; not in this case by God's decree, but by the perversion of a natural law to their destruction through the selfishness of their fellow-men.

Moreover, from this law of nature, which provides for all a right to labor in its profitable sense, it follows that the over-worked many lose this profit, if by their cupidity or the oppression of others, they become subjected to the suffering which follows labor when pressed beyond its proper sphere. We gather, then, from these examples of the violation of the law of labor, what it is and what it yields.

II. We find the object of this law, two-fold. It looks to the support and the development of all the human faculties; and men will be obedient to that law, when toil produces liberal subsistence for all, and affords them time, means and opportunity for the highest culture of the body and the soul. This is the providential object of all labor, and only in this sense is there a profit in it.^[2]

You see, then, how it is that labor is so often unproductive to the laborer, because another by injustice, enters into the rewards which he has earned; because the selfishness of men shuts out great multitudes from laboring or receiving profit from it, by greedily monopolizing an undue share of the return; or because the over-working of one class leads other classes to under-work and starve. Witness the selfish monopoly by men, of certain kinds of labor which belong of right to women; and note the consequent effeminacy resulting to the men who follow those pursuits, and the distress and sin resulting to the women, thus unlawfully deprived of work. Take from the woman (as society is apt to do) the work her nature fits her to perform; make her wages least, because her work is lightest, and her resisting point the weakest; let heavy labor control reward, in favor of the strongest; often to the exclusion of the woman from all fields of profitable work, and you have thrust her out to die upon the rich man‘s pavement, or to tread that pavement in her infamy.

Where is the manliness of men, and the respect for woman‘s honor, when they through deprivation of proper work and wages, are entailing suffering, disease and crime on her, only less miserable than those who, for the sake of over-profit, place her where they do!^[3]

The misplaced charities of men are likewise evidence, that only on the basis of this law, can gratuities be profitable. Give men work and lawful. wages, and let charity provide simply for misfortune, not for injury and injustice.

The injustice of society to those who are able, and have a right to work, but who have been by selfish capital and social feeling crowded out, can never be made good by the most lavish alms-giving. The evil lies in disobedience of this law of labor, which if obeyed, provides for all but the diseased and imbecile. Not that we may remit these charities, as things now stand; but while we give, we are in duty bound to do all that we can for the removal of the false economy which makes such giving a necessity.

It is a false idea throughout, that Providence has quartered one-third of mankind upon the two-thirds who find profitable labor.

The theory of over-population, such as obtains in crowded cities, making an occasional pestilence and continuous beggary and crime, a part of God‘s design in the world‘s social structure, is all a libel on the Almighty‘s wisdom and benevolence; for it can be proved beyond a doubt, that labor, on land for example, assisted by a gradual improvement in implements of husbandry, such as always accompanies work done in unison with the natural law of labor, will surely keep production in advance of population, and give a surplus for the gradual development of mind and heart. And in like manner will all kinds of labor, thus applied, yield a return, sufficient for the maintenance and culture of the most prolific race, unless man interferes by social or political restrictions, and so thwarts that which God has naturally designed.^[4]

Were men to follow out this law, under which all would live by labor, and let others live by it, then on Thanksgiving days like ours, the profit of this universal labor would at least afford occasion for a world-wide offering of gratitude, in view of benefits received by all. At all events, few would be found as now, to say that labor yielded them but bare subsistence to be thankful for.

Were governmental policy dictated by a regard. for this established law of God, then might there be the truest liberty of individuals, combined with equal justice unto all.

There would be no necessary occasion for overworking, either of a voluntary or involuntary sort, which in both cases, is a denial of the rights of body, mind and soul. And there would be nothing of that underworking, through indolence or exclusion, by which the few that work are made to pay the way and suffer for the idle.

All natural science―the control man gets over the forces of nature―his constitutional structure ―tell him of this law, which to obey is profit, and to disobey, distress and death.

God means that all his children shall be well supported, by an easy, steady and exhilarating labor, with enough besides to give both time and means for the improvement of their intellectual and religious vigor.

It is man‘s own fault, and his alone, by which these grand, beneficent intentions of the Deity are turned away.

III. But to apply this subject to the present occasion (which will not allow us to discuss these interesting problems as they ought to be discussed), let us see how far we of this nation, have obeyed the law of labor, and have reaped the profit which it guaranties. Let us thus determine for what profit of our labor we are called to-day to render thanks.

No other nation under heaven has an equal opportunity with us, for realizing profit from its labor Into no other nation‘s lap has so much profit come; for (I may add), nowhere on earth, have men to such degree, obeyed this law, of which we have tried above to give an explanation. It would be strange indeed, if favored as we are with every help towards keeping it, we should so early in our national career repudiate its claims, and fling away the profits we have reaped beneath its guidance. Therefore, perhaps we need not boast ourselves of our most profitable obedience, especially as we find this land the workman‘s paradise, more from its circumstances, geographically and politically, than from any great control this people has obtained over their selfishness and passion. We have gained a profit from our labor such as no people ever gained. It is a profit more generally diffused among our families, and more equally distributed, than in any other realm or tribe. But we must thank our native soil, our holy ancestry, and our God, rather than ourselves, for all that thus distinguishes us; and see to it, that we forget not, in the pomp of our prosperity, those eternal principles of equal rights and justice unto all, which are the secret of our present fortune.

Our lands may seem unlimited, and their capacities inexhaustible, no matter how we trifle with the ordinary laws of labor; but be assured that continents far greater than our own, with equal happiness of soil and climate, may be made in time a wilderness, if the people give no heed to God‘s established laws.

Our present profit may be real, but it may lead into that wantonness of principle and practice, before which many nations have decayed and fallen.

Somehow or other, then, thanks to the spirit of our fathers and the providence of God, we have to some extent obeyed this law of labor, and have won its wages.

The form of government, and the principles that have controlled it in the main, have favored this obedience. Our state and central governments have interfered with labor less in its legitimate outworking, and have assisted it more, than any other governments in existence- because, forsooth, our constitution was intended for the people, and was framed to elevate each one of them to independent thought and profitable action.

Our government therefore, has always favored every agricultural improvement, by which the profit of this sort of labor might perpetuate and augment itself. Settlers have been presented with new lands on the condition of its settlement. Security in property and person has always been afforded to laborers of every grade, against rapacity upon the one side, and aristocratic pride on the other. No burdensome taxes on improvements, such as England put on India, has ever laid our people under the necessity of doing just enough to get a living, designedly obtaining no surplus for the tax-man.

Home manufacture of the raw material has been fostered by our legislation, never yet, however, to the profitless exclusion of the fabrics we have needed from abroad. Not yet moreover, have we yielded to foreign nations, the bulk of the productions of our soil in their crude state, thus gleaning from our land its elements of nourishment for the enrichment of the effete soils of foreign fields. In this land, too, labor is dignified; and he who profits by his labor is a better man, has more authority, and commands respect, above the man who lives on profits other men obtain for him.

Here, each man working for himself, his toil is more productive; he is more happy in it, and is therefore higher in the scale of valuable life. He needs no bounties or gratuities, but simply asks that lawful competition be not hindered by oppressive laws.

He is the giver, not the acceptor of gratuities. And when, as in the case of Kansas, one section of our land is (by some unusual disturbance of the ordinary principles of emigration), over populated temporarily, and so in want of food, he can at once supply the lack, and feel no poorer for the charity.

Here also, men by very liberty to work and get its wages, become free-men in every other way; tenants, laborers, or land-owners, each being conscious of importance is performing well his part, in elasticity of body, and content of mind. This is a thanksgiving view I know, which for the time, ignores the evils that associate themselves with our prosperity. But as a proof that this is not a fancy picture, let us compare our northern reasons for thanksgiving, with the want of similar congratulations south—that by the contrast, less than some which might be instituted between ourselves and many European nations, we may be convinced that in a labor such as ours is profit—while in a labor, founded on a violation of the natural law, there is impoverishment at last.

Thanksgiving Day has never been a popular day at the south; partly because it had its origin among the Puritans, but mainly, because for the profit of their labor, a very small proportion of the people had reason to give thanks. Owing to their false system of labor, the profit came into the hands of the few, leaving the majority dissatisfied and anything but thankful.

I do not say that slavery, in its moral aspects, was the curse upon that section of our land in this regard; neither do I aver that the same results might not have followed, had there been no slave through all the southern states, for these results are seen among free peoples under a like injurious system of labor—but I do affirm that when ever a large portion of the people, being overworked (like the slaves), are injured mind and body by their suffering—and an equal portion, being under-worked (like the “poor whites”) are injured. soul and body by inaction, while the main pecuniary profit finds the pockets of the unworking capitalists, who make the local laws, and regulate political affairs; I do affirm that such a state of things, in violation of God's law of labor, will surely work the ruin of all parties in the end.

To keep this system operative for any length of time, the influential class must keep the rest in subjection, and consequently in poverty. This necessitates the export of the raw material in vast quantities,^[5] and the manufacture elsewhere of all fabrics, since the working classes are not to be encouraged in the arts, lest like the change of things in Richmond at the present time, mechanics come to be the profit-makers and the rulers in the land. Thus land is gradually impoverished, the raw material draining it of all the elements that enter into products, returning nothing for the fertilization of the soil, as would be the case were fabrics manufactured on the spot, with all the attendant activities and trades that cluster around a central factory or workshop; activities, all of which aid directly or indirectly, in the enrichment of the soil. Extracting, as the southern system does from the land, the properties that enter into and compose the raw material, and returning nothing to keep up the vigor of the soil, they export their capital—the very land they stand on—and plantations are pushed back from fertile to the sterile places; from the rich lowlands to the uplands, leaving the best parts a waste, and ultimately rendering a large portion of the land a wilderness. Witness the rich mansions of the planters on the coast of Carolina, left alone and tenantless, because their ability to cultivate the land had been exhausted; making that region so unhealthy and miasmatic that ‘tis death to try to live upon it for the purpose of restoring it to profitable increase.

Notice also how, under this system, the want of scientific and mechanical improvements keeps the rightful profit of all labor down.^[6] It is not necessary to have elaborate machinery for the rough work which, under the southern system, is most profitable to the few; therefore it is not possible for the laboring classes, whether over-worked or under-worked, to get the upper hand of Nature and their Masters, by skill in the construction of machines. The cotton gin is all that such a system, in a country where cotton is the staple, needs for its protection; it does not dare to put a sawmill upon every stream, and workshops into every valley. To be sure, the blockade and the needs of war have worked a change to some extent, but is it not perceptible that the system itself begins to give way as the elevation of the laborer commences? This change of southern policy reminds one of the action of some bridge-burners, apprehended by our Gen. Halleck and promised hanging if another bridge were burned; they all at once issue from their jail, a protest against destroying railroad property, as among the barbarous and wicked customs of the past.

You see then, my hearers, the tendency of any system which over-works or under-works large classes, for the profit of the few. Their soils deteriorate-large tracts lie fallow. False relations rise up in society, and discontents accumulate. An influential aristocracy governs in the interest of their own false system; the whole culminating in a rebellion against whatever authority would guaranty to cach man labor and its lawful wages. This is the English of the insurrection or rebellion, for the putting down of which, the chief magistrate of this commonwealth urges us fervently to pray. This is the explanation of the irrepressible conflict between the so-called system of capital and the law of labor. Slavery is an aggravation of the struggle; it happens in this land to be the form^[7] this evil system has assumed, but of itself, it is no more the sole cause of trouble than any other more or less immoral agency by which false theories of labor are encouraged and perpetuated. Slavery (like the ape) may have laid the sticks together, but could never have lighted the fire of itself.

With the full of the false system slavery must perish, and God grant that in His own way this consummation come to pass! But to take slavery, and leave instead of it some patched-up system of apprenticeship—or anything whereby the right of labor and its lawful wages shall be denied to any class—would be but to change the name, not to eradicate the evil. May we behold no such poor compromise, on which extremists of both parties meet and fraternize, leaving those who love free labor for its own sake and for its wages, to mourn the violation of God's law. Let slavery in the grasp of Providence be throttled and destroyed; but let no brood of false, oppressive tyrannies of the greedy and the powerful, come from its corse! You might as profitably make a rattlesnake take oath to slough his slimy scales, leaving him free to use his fangs!

You see, then, why the north has cause for thankfulness, in which the southern section of our land, were we to-day at peace, could not participate. We may give thanks, each one of us, because our labor is our own; how many of the southern people have an equal cause for gratitude? We may be thankful that, with few exceptions, all may find some profitable labor; of what class in the gulf states can this be said?

We may utter praise that husbandry improves the soil, on which we live, and work, and manufacture, instead of draining it of life. We may rejoice in more permanent fertility—in handing down a place to sow and reap to children's children, instead of dreading exile for our offspring from their homesteads, made a sterile wilderness by the evils of an impoverishing system.

With the exception of some sandy places, like that region back of Albany, (where seed sown in one field is blown over, and comes up within the next inclosure), we may give New England farms (if we have them), or western clearings (if we can get them), to our sons and daughters, with the assurance that by thrift they all may be both wealthy and respected in the land; and the secret of it all, is not in our extensive northern land—land is as yet, as boundless, in proportion to the population, at the south—it is not alone because our states are free states, but in that we are allowed to obey and do obey, to some extent at least, the law of labor in its profitable and Christianlike outworking.

IV. And we have this lawful profit to be thankful for, just now in an enhanced degree, since we still reap this profit in the teeth of an expensive war.

In spite of hostile prophecies that we could not hold out, we do hold out, and hope to do so till the prayers suggested by our governor are answered by the “putting down of this rebellion, the salvation of the Union, the preservation of our liberty, and the upholding of our government and constitution.” (See proclamation.) And all this so far, not only without the loss of aggregate abundance, but with an increase of it; without impoverishing any class of the community, but, on the contrary, setting millions of idle men and women to work on tempting wages, thus enlarging every avenue of wealth; also without indebtedness to any foreign power; without derangement of our finances or ruinous depreciation of our currency. Indeed, we could spare another million of men, and carry on the nation‘s work to a higher figure than it has ever yet reached.

Of course there are appearances which portend reaction; but at the worst, this change of capital will not leave the mass of people in a starving state, or anything approaching it; in proof of which we may state the fact, that in five manufacturing New England towns the increase of deposits in the savings banks in ‘62, was over a whole million dollars. Nor will a peace either weaken the real worth of the republic or permanently lessen its credit with the world. Our policy is too closely bound in with God‘s great law of profitable labor; our wealth too equally distributed, for these superficial convulsions to bring more than transient distress. With all the evils that remain in our as yet imperfect illustration of this law, there is at least enough obedience to it, to promise us salvation as a nation, even though our unproductive army win for us a larger debt which may secure and stimulate home industry.

Not in our financial skill then, nor in our shrewd manoeuvering, nor in the economy of our resources (for we are not over rigid here); but in the strength of our obedience to the law of universal labor and its lawful wages, lies our cause for gratitude to-day, that we are not prostrated by the demons, anarchy and famine, now so grimly standing over the still writhing south. Surely our live “doghood,” (as it has been vilely called), is better than their dying “lion-hood!”

Carlyle may sneer, and tell us not to vaunt our model institutions. He may tell us not to caucus and pass ballot-boxes over the graves of our heroic ancestors; but granting as he does our corn and bacon; though attributing abundance of these staples to street constables, and continents of fertile lands; we may accept with this “not very sublime boon” all the “new spiritual Pythons” which he conjures up—all the “enormous megatheriums” “looming huge and hideous (in his mind) out of the twilight future on America.” We will take the agony he prophesies, if he will also let us plow and hammer, with the “roast goose and apple sauce (at which he laughs) for the poorest working man”—if he will keep the policy of England far aloof from us, and let God summon us and help us, in this trial of the value of obedience to the laws of honest and productive toil.

We accept the baptism, even of fire and blood, through which we now are passing, if we may come forth, clothed with the garments of fidelity to liberty, and allegiance to the truth.

The tide, my hearers, is turning in our favor, and the result will be the highest cause for thankfulness in coming years, when our whole reunited land shall be upon this basis, of liberty to work, and to command work‘s lawful wages. To us the over-worked and under-worked of European craftsmen are now looking, for the establishment of this new order. Witness Lord Cobden‘s testimony, that the working men of England, usually in sympathy with the rebellious subject against his tyrannous master, are with the north in this great struggle, because, upon our final victory depends the elevation of the laboring classes of the world.^[8] They see in the defeat of northern arms, the fall of the only defenders of the principle, which gives free labor and its wages to the world. One great cause for thanksgiving therefore, is, that God is bringing us toward victory—with all these glorious consequences in it. This war may have been thus far prolonged, to show how on our system, states and nations may support an otherwise exhaustive drain on its resources; and God may have lengthened out this cruel strife, to prevent the southern slave (when freed), from being on a par with the ‘poor southern white,’ and to raise both black and white, up to the privilege and blessing of remunerative labor.

Thanks to His love and wisdom, that the signs are favorable to this end! that holders of the slaves themselves are having their eyes opened also to the true policy of well paid labor.

Thanks to His name, for showing selfish tyrants, north and south, that fetters of unprofitable labor which they bind on others, they are also fastening on themselves.

“The laws of changeless justice, bind
Oppressor and oppressed;
And close as sin and suffering joined,
They march to fate abreast.”

While then, my friends, we have these blessings to be thankful for to-day, let us not forget our duty to perpetuate and extend this power.

Much still remains to be accomplished, before the statutes, even of this favored land, shall provide all citizens with profitable labor. There is emancipation at the north, as well as at the south, which must be won. While our first duty is to rally for the preservation of our lawful government, in whose downfall the right to profitable labor is involved, we have no less responsibility, in the preservation of the rightful equilibrium between work and wages, when the country shall regain its unity.^[9]

There are signs among us, that already has the wealthy capitalist begun to grind the poor, by a monopoly of useful toil; already are great cities striving by seeking the control of legislative bodies, to impoverish the country, for the benefit of their vast unproducing multitudes. Already are the men who will not work, becoming politicians, rioters or contract-seekers for a living, while those who cannot work, for the very want of wages to provide them skill and strength, alternate between crime and famine, infamy and woe. Let us then be ready when the reaction of this war shall come. When the evils it shall remove are forgotten, and the evils it occasions shall be felt more strongly, let us be ready to uphold at any cost, the principle of work for all and lawful wages, for which to-day we render thanks.

Let it be our effort, in all governmental policies which we support, and in all plans for national advancement, to make each workman worthy of his hire, and to protect him in demanding it. Let it be a part of our religion, to assist in forming such a public sentiment as shall prevent this glorious republic from ever falling into the hands of base aristocrats or selfish capitalists, who for the love of wealth and power, would fain make merchandise of all we hold most dear.

As it is cause for gratitude with us to-day, that we have not the poor-laws, burial-clubs and poverty, so baneful in their influence upon the English peasantry, as we rejoice in the facilities denied to Irish citizens, for winning freehold-farms, and in the glorious privilege denied to all the world beside, of framing our own laws, and choosing our own magistrates, so may we soon have reason to give thanks for the victorious progress of the true idea of work and its reward.

Carried on the glad acclaim of our emancipated millions, to other nations yet enslaved—protected by a constitution which can recognize no other guaranty for its stability; and proved the power designed of God for our enlargement—this grand principle now working out, amid the heavings and convulsions of this nation—lifting up its voice above the tumult which man's selfishness and greed of gain are here exciting, and making known its nobleness and authorship, in spite of crafty or imperfect systems still unchanged—must in the end prevail.

Then shall there come a day of praise, when in the consummation of God's purpose, our army shall once more be clothed as weavers, smiths and husbandmen, with the plow, the loom, anvil, joint-stock operators for cultivating our land, including that which has been made so rich with patriotic blood; and with all powers of nature, put to work still more gratuitously for man's subsistence and development, there shall come a day of thanks to God for labor and its profit, in which both high and low, the richer and the poorer shall unite with jubilant delight and loud applause. The Red sea of our present trials past; this people gathered into families, like the seed of Abraham for multitude, shall shout high praises to Jehovah, who has brought them in and planted them upon the mountain of inheritance which His hand establishes, “in the place where thou wilt make of them a people strong unto thyself, and where Thou, Lord, shalt reign forevermore.”

1. Delivered in the State street Presbyterian Church, Albany, N. Y., November 26, 1863. This discourse is worth printing, solely as it presents the application of a political economy, somewhat undervalued because misunderstood, at the present time. It is simply in hopes of stimulating thoughtful patriots to investigate this subject, that the author has consented to this publication.
2. See Gen. iii, 16–19, and Matt. vi, 18, 19–34, which, compared with things as they are, go far to take the question of work and wages out of mere political economy, and to insert it at the very root of the problem of man‘s creation, history and destiny. Malthus has fairly deduced from existing social institutions, the following thesis, viz: “Moral restraint, vice and misery are the checks which repress the superior power of population, and keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence.” Unless, then, the comments of Christ on the sources of temptation (Matt. vi, 19–34) be disbelieved, it is evident that man has in some way wasted the subsistence provided for him by Divine Benevolence.
3. See Kay‘s work on The Social Condition of the People of England, for examples of the effect of small wages and no wages, upon the material and moral condition of women; and of the hopelessness of remedy without such commercial revolution as shall increase rewards of labor. A comparison of the horrible revelations of this work, with those of Fanny Kemble Butler and others who have exposed the consequences of slavery, will show that in a state of freedom, men can become far more degraded than our slaves; and may lead us to demand guaranties for our American future, greater than the strongest proclamation or the best amendment of the constitution against slavery. It is a question of actual condition, and no legislative or constitutional fiat can speak with Divine authority and supply the just demands of a numerous population for houses, food, clothing and education. These can only come through properly rewarded labor, the real problem of the hour.
4. The selfish element displays itself in crimes against society mainly in proportion to actual or threatened deprivation and misery. Hence the abundance to which full work and wages are necessary tends at least to aid the moral forces which are striving to make all men neighbors in the Christian sense.
5. The value and necessity of retaining raw products as a basis of skilled, intelligent labor, may be judged by considering the effects of the opposite policy at the south. By the census of 1860, the cotton production of the year was five millions of bales. Nearly four millions of these were sent abroad, and the remainder chiefly used at the north. The four million bales exported were worth, in round numbers, two hundred million dollars. Cotton increases in value threefold in the process of manufacture; therefore two hundred million dollars‘ worth would become six hundred millions, four hundred millions of which represent foreign labor, capital, machinery, &c.

   This is an annual sum, as long as the above amount of value in cotton is exported. The principal—in foreign labor, capital, &c.—which it represents, is (computing at 5 per centum), eight thousand million dollars—and we loan it abroad without interest!

   This principal is one member of the equation; the degradation, poverty, ignorance and slavery of the blacks and the poor whites, are the other member; these persons having been deprived of the wages derivable from working on materials placed in their hands for this purpose, by a bountiful Creator.

   Our Constitution gives no power to check this outflow. It was chiefly drafted by C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina, and no export duty can be levied under it, whereby at least interest on the loan might be exacted from foreign nations, to be used in charity among those injured by this impoverishing transfer of materials to other hands. Our only present resource is an import duty, which cannot by its nature, restore relations established by God, but disturbed by a short-sighted policy, although it may ameliorate the consequences of that disturbance Under Providence, the Confederacy has inserted in its Constitution the export-duty power, and thus ensures in time, should the Confederacy survive, the destruction of slavery and the entire false system with which it is united; their debt compelling the use of this power.

6. The antagonisms between labor and capital, and labor and improved machinery, are illustrated by the history of slavery and the cotton gin. The policy of exporting raw material, the basis of skilled labor, necessarily limits the work to be done in preparing it for export. Introduce a machine to cheapen and hasten that preparation, and the laboring class must suffer corresponding deprivation of wages.

   But introduce machinery for finishing the raw material at home, and you disturb the law of work and wages only for a time, ultimately to bring labor, and a greater profit in it, to the very class so clamorous against all innovation.

   Sewing machines may now diminish the amount to be distributed among sewing women, but it is because importations from abroad affect the amount and cheapness of domestic work; but if we should supply and work up our own goods, under a perfect commercial policy, this evil would correct itself, sufficiently at least to show the value (under the true system of work and wages), to rich and poor alike, of every real improvement in machines.

   For further development of this subject, see Manual of Political Economy, by E. Peshine Smith, article Wages.

7. And we might even say result; since, introduced with hesitation, it obtained a permanent foothold, simply through the demand for it, made by the growth of this false system.
8. “The power of steam employed in Great Britain is estimated as being equal to the united forces of 600,000,000 of men; adding together the miners and engine makers, we obtain less than 100,000 as the total human force given to the development of a natural one equal to 600,000,000, the physical force of each being thus multiplied no less than six thousand times.”—Carey‘s Principles of Social Science, vol. 2, p. 207.

   How comes it then that these men, each of whom creates 6,000 slaves, requiring no pay, no food, clothing nor whips, are compelled somehow, by the English policy of work and wages, to live, with families of six to twelve of both sexes, in one small room, or two rooms at the best, according to Kay‘s testimony concerning English poor? Remember it is the poor in manufacturing districts—poor actually employed—whom he describes. If we would exchange our 4,000,000 slaves for 600,000,000, we have only to find work for them to call them into existence.

9. Our greater freedom at the north comes partly from the fact that the heavier and bulkier productions of our climate are more apt to be retained, as the basis of labor and wages. How the lighter products of the south may be retained, is therefore one problem to be solved before free labor at the south is permanently and profitably established. What sort of tariff then will be the best for north and south?