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they "wiU laud the rule of thumb known as political economy they will glorify the law of " supply and demand , " which justifies the making men worse than beasts , by degrading them into mere money-making machines , to be set at work or stopped as the market rules , high or low ; they will talk of the bones of their ancestors—their devotion to " their faith the green hills and bright streams of the " gem of the sea "the bygone deeds of their race , —but they will i gnore the People . There will be enough of ponderous argument of * iiftv will laud the rule of thumb known as political ecnnnmv
paltry huckstering , oi fiery invective , of tierce opposition , and but little , if any , of true patriotism . In truth , our lcds * lature will he in the new parliament what it has been too lon « - —not a gathering of earnest , conscientious men , striving to elevate a nation by wise provisions and just laws—but an assemblage , for the most part , of political quacks , specious charlatans , pompous wiseacres , and self-seeking schemers who prostitute the pretence of representation by makino- it the instrument of party elevation , personal interest , or at best , the aggrandizement of a class already too powerful . '
This is a free country—the freest in all Europe . That is the nattering boast which the masses are forced to hear from platforms ticketed " liberal . " It is a traditional boast , too almost respectable from its antiquity . " Britons never ' shall be slaves " used to be chorused as heartily in the days of the third George , of " pious and blessed memory , " as it is now and with about as much reason . It is no new custom to " sing to slaves the songs of freemen , " but as old as the hills—as old , at least , as despotism . True , that we are not bound in
the same way as the people of other countries . Our land is not exactly a camp . Bayonets do not bristle nor sabres gleam as thickly here as elsewhere . Citizens are not lured into the streets to be massacred by the soldiery . Police spies do not sit by every other man ' s fire side . —We may meet and speak and write and think freely—except , indeed , at such times as " open and advised" expression is thought to be dangerous , and then the gag is ready . But , for all that , are we free ? Is it anything more than slavery in another and a subtler form?—the slavery of a manufacturing and commercial , instead of a military tyranny .
Our freedom , what there is of it , is apparent , rather than real . It is a negative freedom , permitting us to do what we are unable to effect . A personal freedom which docs not put fetters on the body , but paralyses the will and smothers up the mind . The Times has called it , and pretty truly , " material freedom , " which may be translated for the " benefit of the uniniated , as political atheism . Let any man , whose ability to work is his only inheritance , ask himself how free he is , " and he will become aware of chains around him which mock him
while they bind him . The ancient serf wore a collar round his neck , tho modern one carries it round his heart . A keen file could sever the one , but yet the instrument has not been used potent enough to cut . through the other . Our modern English freedom is a gaily dressed spectre , a skeleton in new clothes ; take off the cap of liberty which is stuck upon its head , and the skull of old serfdom grins at you from beneath it . A man without property is free to work if any one chooses to give him work to do ; he is free to earn money if anybody will let him , free to live in a palace if he can pay the Tent , free to eat dainties if he he can ^ et them , free to change
Ms master and take the chance of finding another , free to go to the gold diggings if he can muster up his passage money , free to many and have children and support them , if he is fortunate , free to go to the workhouse when all Ins other freedom vanishes . The honourable company of paupers is really the only one to whose livery he has any right . Hodden gray is his family color , and a porridge bowl and wooden spoon his crest . Even that is only a qualified freedom ; he must not choose his workhouse , for he belongs to his parish ; he must not see those he holds dear , who have twined
themselves Tound his affections , and become part of his heart , for poor law doctrine is of the Maltlvusian order , regarding wives as unnecessary luxuries , and children us expensive ones . He must work , too , not for himself , but for the parish which has become Ids owner , and which says the latest poor law ukase is to recompense him , not according to his labour or bis deserts , but according to his " wants '—' that is , give him just enough to keep life in him .
Examine our freedom minutely , and that is just the sum total of it . Freedom to live as prisoners , without social ties , comforts , or hope , to live in such a condition as few , even of the ultra-democrats , would endow with the rights of citizenship . That is , the glorious fate to which every labourer may look forward as the only one of which he is certain , that the magnificent inheritance which ages of labour and centuries of civilization have bequeathed to the producers of the world . And yet we have no tyrants . Henry the Eighth , the holy pillar upon which rests the established church , is a historical character only . A tender woman occupies the throne . We have no Wolsev ' s or Walpole ' s , nor Castlereagh ' s , now-a-cteys
"The . Iron Duke" has just been gathered to his fathers . Divine right is an exploded mockery . Our judges are of different stuff from those who were but minions of a court . The House of Commons is filled with men who , at certain times , at all events , bow respectfully before " a mob , " lay their hands
upon their hearts , or the places where hearts should be , and propitiate the " many-headed monster" with honeyed nothings . All is changed except our own condition ; we are still slaves , slaves not in word , perhaps , but in deed ; slaves of that potent despot " necessity" made for us by our rnlers , and which rides us worse than a nightmare , by day and night also . Xo matter how it may be glossed over by logic or sophism —no matter how many comforts we may have around us , the men are slaves , mere slaves who aie bound to obey laws which others make for them , without their consent . There aTe degrees of slavery as of everything else . They seem to range between the extremes represented by the American negro and the English labourer . We can mark every point between the two as upon a graduated scale . — Slaves who may be bought and sold unconditionally—slaves who are attached to the land as our forefathers were—slaves
who may not be bought and sold , but whose industry avowedly belongs to their masters—slaves who axe free to work for others or to starve for themselves . JThey are all children of the same stock— -cousins but a few degrees removed . " Nigger" feudal serf , wages paid labourer , pauper , may all shake Hands together , Under differsntconditions and circumstances
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tky all labour under the same defect which is the essence ot slavery , powerlessness over their own destiny . They may m under their burdens and know why the load is so heavy but they may not remove an atom of the weight , nor prevent the last straw from being piled upon the heap . Thev may mow where the shoe pinches as only those who wear it can , vt , V V . " < Ot 2 ltCr ifcThe ? inay Slfc ™ know Jv lience the suffering flows , but may not dam up the source . ino only privilege of all alike is obedience . The names of tnoir rulers change from Despotic Constitutional Monarch , from owner to master , from landlord to manufacturer , from aristocrat to money-monger ; but they remain in the same slough m wluch we now find ourselves . « ,.,.. in , , .. _
-Che usurped right of property to make laws is at the very bottom ot all serfdom , and taxation tests are among the worst of its features . Till there is a chance of thatbeing abolished , there is no hope for the progress of humanity . What chance is there of it now ? What are we doing to throw it down V Absolutely nothing . The power of property is rampant in parliament and out of it . It monopolizes the representation and holds in its hands commerce . It dictates terms to an ancient aristocracy and refuses to negotiate with the peasant . It measures everything by its own standard , and subordinates virtue , intelligence , industry , to possession . It has organization and money and it buys talent . It is our real , almost our only foe . While the Earl of Derby only talks of staying democracy property has built up its barriers against it , and we stand face to face with this power inactive ^ apathetic , unprepared . We see it ready not to strike one blow , but to follow stroke up with stroke , and do not even stir in our own defence . Now , at this moment , when a new policy must be inaugurated , and change present another phase , we forbear to play our part . Men of England , workers , slaves , have you made up your minds to hug your chains , are you resolved to submit to another century of degradation under your new masters ? We cannot believe that you are . If you are not , let us rise in earnest for another effort , taking for our rallying cry the right of all men to share in the government of thencommon country .
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SHALL BRITAIN BE CONQUERED ? The present position of Europe is a strange and unprecedented one ; one which all feel is but temporary , that it cannot long last , and that a change cannot peaceably take place , but proceed only from revolution or from Avar .
it would seem that , for the moment , any revolutionary movement on the part of the people is impossible . Throughout the continent of Europe , the people lie unarmed , exhausted , and powerless the bayonets of the soldiers of despotism pointed at their breasts , liable to be exterminated at any moment by the loaded cannon commanding every town and every street . In such circumstances it is physically impossible for them to move , any attempt to do so \ vould only be to provoke a renewal of the remorseless butchery by which has already been spilt the best blood of the European nations t
t Jno , we ear it 18 not by any popular movement that the immediate position is to be changed , but by a stru <* elo between the ruling powers themselves . But by which power is the war to be begun , and between what powers is it to be carried on ? To the first part of the question many will instantly answer Louis Bonapahte ; but to the latter portion it will not be so easy to find a reply . But however tho quarrel may begin , it is probable that all the great powers will ultimately be dragged into the war to which it will give rise . That this war will owe its origin to some aggression on the part of Louis Bonaparte is a question which admits of but . little doubt . An aggressive war is an absolute necessity of the position which he now occupies . A military despotism cannot continue without military glories , and there can be no military glory without war . War upon some one Bonaparte must make , either previously or subsequentl y to the proclamation of the Empire . His idea of flattering the pride of the French nation by restoring the Rhine frontier , is well known . But the determination of the great European powers to resist any attempt to do so has been too unecmivocably expressed to allow its existence to be doubted . Here is Bonaparte ' s dilemma . To invade and annex Belgium would be to bring at once upon him the groat powers of tho European continent , and the immense naval forces of England . To do so , with a population that , instead of supporting him ' would look upon his conquerors as deliverers , would be
madness . Bonaparte has too much cunning to " thus rush upon destruction . Yet war is mdispensible , and must be made . _ This fact , and tho pressing necessity of a solution of the difficulty in which ho is placed—standing as he does between the danger of being crushed by foreign foes , and that of being overwhelmed by a popular insurrection , makes far less impr obable than would otherwise be , an attempted Bonapartist invasion of England , the existence of a plan to effect which was spoken of in our Paris correspondence last week . Were such
an invasion to be successful , were London to be reached by a fetor second invading army , the governmental organization broken up , and England conquered , the successful bandit might then pour his armies into Belgium with hopes of success ; for , having destroyed the British power that threatened his rear , he might have some reason to calculate on his being abie to withstand the shock of the coalesed armies of the continent .
The question for tho consideration of the British nation is , would an invasion be successful ? It is this alone that is wqrthy of discussion , and not the improbability of the attempt in a time of profound peace and without the slightest warning , or the aggressor having received any provocation . It would most assuredly be a piratical expedition , but , with a man of Louis Bonaparte ' s stamp , is it not all the more likely for that ? Yet men in En * land have the stupidity or the rascality to talk of the toor ox ^ oxapaute as sufficient guarantee against any such attempt ! Inwlia ., has he evinced any honourable feclin ^ In destroying that liberty which he had sworn to reject and protect , or in butchering the people who had conferred lth
wea and dignity upon him , m order that he might affirm his usurpa ion And now he is evidently pursuing the same ? amc as he played previous to the coup cVeicd . Articles in the official journals , winch may do readily construed into threats , are put lortti as ieeloi-s of what would result from the . accomplishment oltiie deed , and when they have had the intended effect , they are denied , and protestations of intentions the verv opposite are maae to lull suspicions . But John Bull is not suspicious it is so much trouble to bo suspicious , he could not eat his ( inner comfortably , and be so ; oh , no ! John cannot be made the victim of distrust or anxiety now ! And a peace-at-aivy
pnee journalist ^ sings a song of triumph at the extinction of the " war spirit" amongst the mass of the people , evidenced by their small desire to go " soldiering , " and indignantly denies that we are really defenceless . We have 192 , 508 land forc 6 s at- home ; so our contemporary thinks that . we are fully entitled , to refuj& : to / , . become - men , to . spatamia our- present
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NEGRO SLAVERY IN AMERICA . Slavery still exists in England in many a terrible form . The modern Egypt of bondage in which labour is held subject to the Pharoah of capital , has its taskmasters and tortures , almost as inhuman as those of the most brutal barbarism . The slavery of labour in the aggregate , to capital , is almost as prolific of human misery as the bondage of the negro in the slave-states of America . The money despotism of England is as unscruplous , as inexorably selfish , and as utterly heedless of the death and desolation it creates , as the blood-hounds
who subjugate and murder the blacks . It is as deaf to hear the groans of little children whose tender lives are used up in pestilent factories , and sutfocating mines , as are the slavedealers and slave-holders . It is as reckless of human life , and
suffering , as the fiendish slave-driver " Legrec , " in Uncle Tom ' s Cabin . But there is one essential- difference between Negro slavery , and slavery in England ; although our system of tyranny is as powerful and crushes us as certainly , " in its warfare with the creators of wealth , it is only as a system , and conquers only in the gross mass . The tyranny is not so personal , and the slavery is not so individual . In England there is not that free scope for the passions of the master class , for , after all , the capitalist is not the personal proprietor of his slaves , and although society
permits him to use their labour , and pit bones and sinews against iron shaft and wheels , set father sgainst son , and children against their parents , in unlimited competition , he cannot use the whip , the branding-iron , and the blood-hound , with none to say to him nay . He cannot tear the mother from husband and family , and send her a thousand miles away to end her dark destiny in the fatal swamps , nor say to the father " I want four of your children to make up a lot which I have just sold to go ' down south . ' Other terrible distinctions might be drawn , sadly and grimly reflecting upon Republican America , with its boasted freedom and superior institutions . Ah , America is not all we have been led to think she is ! Fast
and fatally arc the roots of old world evils ramnifying her young soil . That apportioning of the land , the common inheritance of humanity , as private property , that lust of gain , and greed of gold , and worship of the almighty dollar , that setting up of shams and hypocricies , in the place of simple , noble manhood—that perpetuation of the proletariat or speculation in man by man , the wages-slavery—these are evils to be denounced , and things to mourn over . But of all the foul sores and deadly diseases that afflict her , that
Negro slavery is the most deplorable ; and , as we are democrats naturally , and not merely by profession , as our sympathies are universal , we cry shame on the pretended democracy that tolerates a cause like slavery . Wherever Humanity is yearning to cast off the execrable tyranny that crushes it—wherever there is a people groaning beneath the lash of despotism—wherever there is a wrong crying for redress—there is our cause : and whether they be white or black slaves ifc matters not , the colour of our Democracy is not that of skin-distinction , it is that of the warm .
rich , human heart . Shame , burning shame , say wo , on the democracy or Democratic ' Convention" which , like that at Baltimore , would make the bondage of the Negro its steppingstone to power , and seek the suffrages of a nation by pandering to the slave-holders and defending a fatal iniquity . What ! shall America be looked to as the land of liberty andrcfugcoi the world , and shall she make the banner of freedom symbolize to a mocking world of tyrants , and a groaning world of slaves ,
nothing save bloody stripes and bitter tears ? Shall this dark and deadly curse be still permitted toblight American and Republican life ? Shall Democracy and Christianity countenance the tearing asunder of nature ' s divinest ties ? Shall these look calmly on the blood that runs beneath the lash .
and sprinkles that sod on which the stern old fore-fathers of the Republic poured out their life-blood to render tree V Out upon such " Democracy" as would sell the image of God , though in ebony , in the market-place , and permit humanity to be trampled upon at the will , of soulless and tearless tyrants . A pretty crew , you heroes of whip and chain , to talk of setting the old " world free .-from- the tlira $ on } . of king-craft . and
priestcraft , and of aiding Europe to burst the bonds of Kaiser , Pope , and Czar , while you revel in the price of human blood , and drive that horrible traffic in human flesh ! Down to tho dust ot repentance , or talk no more of Democracy and Liberty , for ye take their holy names in vain . America loung Republic of the West ! Child of our own mother-land , winch was rocked in the brave hearts and nursed in the sturdy arms of our common fathers ! Arouse thec , and wipe W ™ P from tu . Y scutcheon . Let thy manhood
rnnll the glorious promise of thy infancy . ' No longer perpetuate this dark and terrible wron
honour to the men of noble heart and lofty mind , who are carrying on the good fight against the atrocious system , and who scatter their words of name , which are more fatal than tho old Greek fire in the camp of the slave-holders . We are with you in your proud struggle , and though we cannot lift the arm of strength in your cause , yet our hearts do battle with you , and all our sympathies fight for you , and the Emancipation of the Negro Slave .
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September 25 , 1852 . THE gM QF MEElm —————^ — ¦ " * - "" ' .... ^ - . JLV / xj l ' ~ " : = = "" ¦
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Northern Star (1837-1852), Sept. 25, 1852, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1697/page/9/
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