And the world, as it has reflected
that labor has flourished among barren rocks, covering them with smiling
villages, under the fostering care of capital, when fertile Southern
lands are a wilderness for want of this harmony between it and capital,
has concluded that the old battle between rich and poor was a folly. The
obscure hamlets of New England, which have within thirty years become
beautiful towns, with lyceums, libraries, and schools, are the most
striking examples on earth of the arrant folly of this gabble of
'capital as opposed to labor.' In the South, however, the old theory is
held as firmly as in the days when John Randolph prophesied Northern
insurrections of starving factory-slaves against manufacturing lords,
and--as President Lincoln recently intimated in his Message--the effort
is there being made to formally enslave labor to capital. That is to
say, the South not only adheres to the obsolete theory that labor is a
foe to capital, but proposes to subdue it to the latter. The progress of
free labor in the North is, however, a constantly increasing proof that
labor _is_ capital.
Let the reader carefully digest this statement, and regard it not as an
abstraction of political economy, but as setting forth a vital truth
intimately allied to our closest interests, and to a future involving
the most serious emergencies.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84