It is this, the
decennium we are soon going to close, that has risen to that enviable
eminence whence slavery is declared a precious good of itself,
a hallowed agent of civilization, an indispensable element of
conservatism, and a foundation of true socialism. From this lofty
eminence the seer-statesman--rising far above the philosophical sagacity
displayed by Aristotle and Varro, when they discussed the sacred
topic--proclaims that Capital ought to own, and has a divine right to
own, and always more or less does own, Labor; and that, since Labor
constitutes the whole humanity of the laboring man, it clearly follows
that he himself must be owned, if his labor be owned. Would you own the
bird without its cage? Generous gospel of the rich! Blessed are the
wealthy!
It is the destiny of the middle of the nineteenth century--well may
we be forgiven, if we pronounce it with some pride--unhesitatingly
to defend the African slave-trade, and to smile at what sickly
philanthropists used to consider the unutterable woe, the unmeasured
crime, and the diabolical hard-heartedness of that traffic.
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