Free labor

“ Free Labor.—The free laborer is not compelled by law to work. Then why should he work? Why does he work? The answer is found within himself. He wants something that he cannot get without working. Though this may seem a trifling question and a self-evident answer, the question and answer are the foundation of all questions of free institutions. For the non-working races and classes or the spasmodic and unreliable workers are the savages, paupers, criminals, idiots, lunatics, drunkards, and the great tribe of exploiters, “grafters,” despots, and “leisure classes,” who live on the work of others. ”

“ State-help no less than self-help is needed for securing to the worker the full, undiminished result of his industry, that is, an existence worthy of a man.
The State alone, and only a free State will help the workers!
Let us sum up briefly, the substance of the foregoing:
The system of wages-labor meets the demands of Justice and Humanity as little as did the slavery and servitude of former times. Like slavery and servitude, wages-labor was once a step forward in civilization from which undeniable advantages have accrued to society. ”

“ No man of common sense, who has observed this result, can doubt for a moment that the system of free labor promotes the growth and prosperity of states in a much higher degree than the system of slave labor. ”

“ This is the home policy of free labor society. Its policy in our Federal affairs must necessarily correspond. Deeming free and intelligent labor the only safe basis of society, it is our duty to expand its blessings over all the territory within our reach; seeing our own prosperity advanced by the prosperity of our neighbors, we must endeavor to plant upon our borders a system of labor which answers in that respect. So we recognize the right of the laboring man to the soil he cultivates, and shield him against oppressive speculation. ”

“ This is the labor question. Wealth is power; poverty is weakness.
If I had time I might stop here to answer some suggestions that probably arise in the minds of some persons, or perhaps of your honor, not being familiar with this question. I imagine I hear your honor say, "Why, labor is free. This a free country." Now, we had in the southern states for nearly a century a form of labor known as chattel slave labor. That has been abolished, and I hear you say that labor is free; that the war has resulted in establishing free labor all over America. ”

“ When you study the past system of slave labor with the present system of free labor, irrespective of all personal considerations, you will be mad down to the soles of your boots to think that you ever tolerated it ”

“ Every one would have felt it to be absurd, if the words had been, "the whole number of free persons, including farm-laborers." But why absurd? Because persons engaged in free labor are, beyond question, free persons. ”

“ And thus robbed of all the benefits of the increase in productive power, labor is exposed to certain effects of advancing civilization which, without the advantages that naturally accompany them, are positive evils, and of themselves tend to reduce the free laborer to the helpless and degraded condition of the slave. ”

“ The free-labor system educates all alike, and by opening all the fields of industrial employment and all the departments of authority, to the unchecked and equal rivalry of all classes of men, at once secures universal contentment, and brings into the highest possible activity all the physical, moral, and social energies of the whole state. ”

“ But it is to be kept constantly in mind, that there can be no such thing as free labor, unless there be freedom in money; that is, unless everybody, who can furnish money, shall be at liberty to do so. Plainly labor cannot be free, unless the laborers are free to hire all the money capital that is necessary for their industries. And they cannot be free to hire all this money capital, unless all who can lend it to them, shall be at liberty to do so. ”

“ In periods of commercial revulsion and distress, like the present, the distress, in countries of free labor, falls principally on the laborers. In those of slave labor, it falls almost exclusively on the employer. ”

“ But free labor says, "No." Free labor argues that as the Author of man makes every individual with one head and one pair of hands, it was probably intended that heads and hands should cooperate as friends, and that that particular head should direct and control that pair of hands. ”

“ The prudent, penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor -- the just and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all -- gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all. ”

“ In an economical point of view—which I will not omit—slavery presents some difficulties. As a general rule, I agree it must be admitted, that free labor is cheaper than slave labor. It is a fallacy to suppose that ours is unpaid labor. ”

“ The free workingman sold his labor-power for a price, therefore he was said to work for himself, and he took this price, or wage, and went into the open market where he bought food, clothing and shelter. In each event—whether as slave, serf or freeman—all the worker really got was food, clothing and shelter.
In truth, the freeman was not a free man. The lands and tools of production were still privately owned. The workman possessed no property on which he might employ himself—he had merely labor power and he must sell that power in order to live. ”

“ You may, at times, temporarily better your condition within certain limitations, but you will still remain wage-slaves, and why wage-slaves? For just one reason and no other—you have got to work. To work you have got to have tools, and if you have no tools you have to beg for work, and if you have got to beg for work the man who owns the tools you use will determine the conditions under which you shall work. As long as he owns your tools he owns your job, and if he owns your job he is the master of your fate. You are in no sense a free man. ”

“ When the country shall be filled with inhabitants, and the price of labor shall have reached a minimum, (a comparative minimum I suppose is meant,) free labor will be found cheaper than slave labor. Slaves will then be without employment, and, of course, without the means of comfortable subsistence, which will reduce their numbers, and finally extirpate them. ”

“ But the workers themselves, the mass of the people, had caught another ideal; they dreamed of a time when they should have no need of protection, but when each workman should stand by the side of his employer — the free citizen of a free state. ”

“ Such help being possible only on the part of a free State, it follows that all workers, and all friends of the workers, must aim primarily at establishing true freedom within the State. Political and social freedom, freedom of the citizen without the sacrifice of the majority of mankind as wage-slaves ”

“ This is the old principle that governed industrial relations until governmental legislation and trade-union activity compelled a recognition of the worker's rights. By that principle the capitalist and the laborer are free to work together or to fight each other, to make what arrangements they can about wages, hours, and health conditions, to share in profits if the employer is kindly disposed, but always with labor in a position of subordination and without recognized rights, as in the old political despotisms, which were sometimes benevolent but more often ruthless. ”

“ It is necessarily improvident and ruinous, because, as a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity. The free-labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, which is written in the hearts and consciences of man, and therefore is always and everywhere beneficent.
The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. ”

“ Whereas formerly, productive labor was chiefly performed by slaves, serfs or bondsmen, all rights of ownership in human beings ceased at the French Revolution. Rightfully, legally, every worker is free and his own master. But as a matter of fact he is anything else rather than free. Cut off from the means and conditions of employment, with no other possession than his labor power, he is forced to work for wages in the employ of others, and for wages which suffice at the utmost for the bare necessities of life. ”

“ Political economists found their systems on those broad and general principles, the application of which has been proved by reason and experience to produce the greatest possible happiness to the greatest number of people. All writers of this class, I believe without exception, prefer free labor to slave labor. ”

“ There has never been a free people, a civilized nation, a real republic on this earth. Human society has always consisted of masters and slaves, and the slaves have always been and are today, the foundation stones of the social fabric.
Wage-labor is but a name; wage-slavery is the fact. ”

“ The facts enumerated in this report, as well as the news we receive from the South from day to day, must make it evident to every unbiased observer that unadulterated free labor cannot be had at present, unless the National Government holds its protective and controlling hand over it. It appears, also, that the more efficient this protection of free labor against all disturbing and reactionary influences, the sooner may such a satisfactory result be looked for. ”

“ Free labor has the inspiration of hope; pure slavery has no hope. The power of hope upon human exertion and happiness is wonderful. The slave-master himself has a conception of it, and hence the system of tasks among slaves. The slave whom you cannot drive with the lash to break seventy-five pounds of hemp in a day, if you will task him to break a hundred, and promise him pay for all he does over, he will break you a hundred and fifty. You have substituted hope for the rod. ”

“ But I re-assert that there are some things which are worse than strikes, and among them I include a degraded, a debased, or a demoralized manhood.
Labor insists upon and will never surrender the right to free locomotion, the right to move at will, the right to go from Philadelphia to Camden or California, or vice versa, at will. To achieve that right it has cost centuries of struggles and sacrifices and burdens. Laborers, moreover, will insist upon the right freely to change their employment, a right which they have secured through centuries of travail and sacrifices. ”

“ The free day-laborer is, in prospect, reduced to the political, if not moral condition of the slave; an ideal line is to divide them in their labor; yes, the same principle is to govern on both sides. ”

“ As long as the universal wage is determined by the above-considered law, the small associations will not be able to escape the prevailing influence of it; and what does the working class as a whole gain, or the workingman as such, whether he works for workingmen employers or for capitalist employers? Nothing! You have only scattered the employers to whose profit the result of your labor falls. But labor and the working class are not set free. ”

“ In this connection, we would direct the special attention [Pg 87] of the reader to the following eloquent passage, exhibiting the philosophy of free and slave labor, from the facile pen of the editor of the North American and United States Gazette:
“In the very nature of things, the freeman must produce more than the slave. There is no conclusion of science more certain. Under a system which gives to a laboring man the fruit of his toil, there is every motive to render him diligent and assiduous. ”

“ Or, they do not recognize that every man, to be free, must dispose of the tools and materials of labor, and then I will ask them what becomes of the liberty of the man to whom the employer can say: if you do such or such a thing, if you do not accept such or such a thing, you shall have no work, that is to say, it shall be impossible for you to eat. ”

“ Both of these assumptions he assails. Labor is not a "subject state;" nor is capital in any sense its master. There is "no such thing as a free man's being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer." ”

“ The broad distinction and irreconcilable conflict between wage-laborers & capitalists, between those who buy labor and sell its products, & the wage-worker who sells his labor (himself) in order to live, arises from the social institution called government & statute law. On the other hand, the reconciliation of conflicting interests, the total abolition of warring classes, and the end of domination and exploitation of man by man is to be found only in a free society where all & each are equally free to unite or disunite, as interest or inclination may incline. ”

“ And if I grant, also, that the slave is happier than the free laborer, does it follow that his master may lawfully hold him as such? Does the question of right depend simply, or at all, upon the degree of happiness which the laborer enjoys? And have I, then, a right to make any man work for me, according to my will and pleasure, provided I take care to feed and clothe him well, and make him as happy as any laborer can expect to be? ”