Page images
PDF
EPUB

Dutch colony, difficulties from language and institutions might have prevented a perfect union. Thus we see that the colonies were pointed toward confederation by their history, and were almost prevented from establishing any other kind of government throughout the course of centuries. One cluster of confederates, or more than one, seems to have been the only possible political alternative if they were ever to separate from the mother country. Two or more clusters, so far as we can interpret the probabilities of things, would have been most disastrous, as containing the seeds of strife, and sowing them for all the future.

BUT

SOCIALISM THE PATH TO A DESPOTIC GOVERNMENT.

[Communism and Socialism in their History and Theory. 1880.]

UT in such a thorough change of society as socialism contemplates there is no room for compromise. The plan is to take away all the means of production-all land, machinery, manufactories, all means of transport-from private persons, and transfer property in them to the state; to abolish all private trade, credit,, business relations, and the medium of circulation, without which these could not go on so that there is not a work in life, not an employment or pursuit, that would not be put on a wholly new basis What room for compromise is there here? There never was a revolution in history, since history told the story of the world, so complete as this. Nations have passed under the sway of conquerors; but an age or two brought back the rights of property and free management of their affairs to multitudes of the conquered. Nations have been deported to distant settlements; but multitudes throve in the land of exile, or their descendants were restored to their properties in the old home. Is it conceivable that, with all the personal evils which stand at the very door of such a change in view, multitudes would succumb and compromise rather than risk their lives for an essential good and a sacred right, as they regard it, of themselves and their posterity? As the issue in such a conflict is uncertain, so the form which the state, constructed on the ruins of private property, would assume would be uncertain, except so far as the industrial changes should require some special conformation of the government. We have, then, a problem to solve, when the social state is to be considered, which has to take some uncertain factors into account. But we have more right to speculate on this point than socialists themselves have; for our speculations can do little harm if they prove false, while theirs, if they prove false, may involve themselves and their countries in remediless ruin.

Properly speaking, we need to look at two points-the governments under which the socialists hope to carry out their industrial theory, and the form of state polity which the theory itself seems to render necessary. As for the inclinations and opinions of the socialists and communists, there is no question that, as a body, from the commencement of the French Revolution, both in France and elsewhere, they have leaned toward the principle of equality as the main foundation of a well-regulated state. But equality is a broad term, and the question at once arises how much must it include? Liberty and equality stand side by side in all the declarations of French political Utopias. But it is evident that, if personal liberty has the breadth of rights which is conceded to it even in some arbitrary governments, equality of condition and inequality of situation, or of amount of worldly advantages, may be found together; so that a conflict must necessarily arise between the two, which cannot easily be adjusted. Equality of condition, the absence of all ranks and orders, secured by constitutions, would be accepted by all socialists as a sine qua non, before the working class can be raised above the disadvantages which encounter them in modern society; but inequality of situation, some power by which the free action of an individual may enable him to rise above a general level, is clung to, in existing society, far more tenaciously than the proper democratic principle of equality in political rights and the sameness of condition throughout society.

The feeling of equality, then, is not confined to the equal diffusion of political rights; but it extends to material advantages. It is the feeling of one competitor toward another-the same feeling which has led and may again lead to the lot, as preventing a man of more influence and ability from gaining an office by his ability. The world is not full enough and never will be full enough of material goods to satisfy all; and if the struggle for them were not checked by the social system, one would secure for himself more than another, if the state did not interpose. It is not to be denied that evils attend on the present system of unlimited power to gain wealth; but the point which we now make is that, in seeking to prevent these evils, the social theorists find it necessary to restrict the freedom of individuals, especially the power of rising by enterprise, soundness of judgment, unbounded energy, and other qualities, which not only aid the individual in his advancement, but contribute to the improvement of general society.

When the individual is confined by law and public institutions in his sphere of operations, society loses a great part of its force; and the state must acquire an equal or greater amount of force, or all the hopes of a community will be shipwrecked. Thus, if private capital is to cease, the state must have the new function of general business director, or there will soon be no state at all. Is it not perfectly evident that the state

must become exceedingly strong to undertake such new duties, in addition to many of its old ones? And may we not argue with certainty, from the checks which society, as it now is, puts on the occasional violence and arbitrary power of the state, that, when society is stripped of its force in opinion and in action, a vast increase of independence, even a despotical sway, must be gained by the state from this source also?

The state, then, under socialism must become strong and uncontrollable, not only because new offices are committed to it, but also because these offices are taken away from society and from its individual members, who now will no longer be able to oppose, or correct, or enlighten the state in favor of the interests of general society. What the form of the state in its socialistic era would be is of little importance. The essential characteristic is that it must become all but unlimited; and our readers are well aware that all unlimited governments are more like one another, whether they be called monarchies or oligarchies or democracies, than they are each like to a limited government of their own name.

AS

Robert James Walker.

BORN in Northumberland, Penn., 1801. DIED in Washington, D. C., 1869.

THE AMERICAN HOMESTEAD PRIVILEGE.

[American Finances and Resources. Letter No. II. 1863.]

S England (proper) contained, in 1861, 18,949,916 inhabitants, if our public domain were as densely settled, its population would exceed 606,000,000, and it would be 260,497,561, if numbering as many to the square mile as Massachusetts. Its average fertility far exceeds that of Europe, as does also the extent of its mines, especially gold, silver, coal, and iron, with every variety of soil, climate, mineral and agricultural products.

These lands are surveyed at the expense of the government into townships of six miles square, subdivided into sections, and these into quarter sections (160 acres), set apart for homesteads. Our system of public surveys into squares, by lines running due north and south, east and west, is so simple as to have precluded all disputes as to boundary or title. This domain reaches from the 24th to the 49th parallel, from the lakes to the gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Its isothermes (the lines of equal mean annual temperature) strike on the north the

coast of Norway midway, touch St. Petersburg in Russia, and pass through Manchooria to the coast of Asia, about three degrees south of the mouth of the Amoor river. On the south, these isothermes run through northern Africa, and nearly the centre of Egypt near Thebes, cross northern Arabia, Persia, northern Hindostan, and southern China near Canton.

Now, however, within our present vast domain, not only the poor, but our own industrious classes and those of Europe, may not only find a home, but a farm for each settler, substantially as a free gift by the government. Here all who would rather be owners than tenants, and wish to improve and cultivate their own soil, are invited. Here, too, all who would become equals among equals, citizens (not subjects) of a great and free country, enjoying the right of suffrage, and eligible to every office except the presidency, can come and occupy with us this great inheritance. Here liberty, equality, and fraternity reign supreme, not in theory or in name only, but in truth and reality. This is the brotherhood of man, secured and protected by our organic law. Here the Constitution and the people are the only sovereigns, and the government is administered by their elected agents, and for the benefit of the people. Those toiling elsewhere for wages that will scarcely support existence, for the education of whose children no provision is made by law, who are excluded from the right of suffrage, may come here and be voters and citizens, find a farm given as a homestead, free schools provided for their children at the public expense, and hold any office but the presidency, to which their children, born here, are eligible. What does Europe for any of its toiling millions who reject this munificent. offer? He is worked and taxed there to his utmost endurance. He has the right to work, and pay taxes, but not to vote. Unschooled ignorance is his lot and that of his descendants. If a farmer, he works and improves the land of others, in constant terror of rent day, the landlord, and eviction. Indeed the annual rent of a single acre in England exceeds the price-$10 (£2 2s. 8d.)-payable for the ownership in fee simple of the entire homestead of 160 acres, granted him here by the government. For centuries that are past, and for all time to come, there, severe toil, poverty, ignorance, the workhouse, or low wages, and disfranchisement, would seem to be his lot. Here, freedom, competence, the right of suffrage, the homestead farm, and free schools for his children.

In selecting these homestead farms the emigrant can have any tem. perature, from St. Petersburg to Canton. He can have a cold, a temperate, or a warm climate, and farming or gardening, grazing or vintage, varied by fishing or hunting. He can raise wheat, rye, Indian corn, oats, rice, indigo, cotton, tobacco, cane or maple sugar and molasses,

sorghum, wool, peas and beans, Irish or sweet potatoes, barley, buckwheat, wine, butter, cheese, hay, clover, and all the grasses, hemp, hops, flax and flaxseed, silk, beeswax and honey, and poultry, in uncounted abundance. If he prefers a stock farm, he can raise horses, asses and mules, camels, milch-cows, working-oxen and other cattle, goats, sheep. and swine. In most locations, these will require neither housing nor feeding throughout the year. He can have orchards, and all the fruits. and vegetables of Europe, and many in addition. He can have an Irish or German, Scotch, English, or Welch, French, Swiss, Norwegian, or American neighborhood. He can select the shores of oceans, lakes, or rivers; live on tide-water or higher lands, valleys or mountains. He can be near a church of his own denomination; the freedom of conscience is complete: he pays no tithes nor church tax, except voluntarily. His sons and daughters, on reaching twenty-one years of age, or sooner, if the head of a family, are each entitled to a homestead of 160 acres; if he dies, the title is secured to his widow, children, or heirs. Our flag is his, and covers him everywhere with its protection. He is our brother, and he and his children will enjoy with us the same heritage of competence and freedom. He comes where labor is king, and toil is respected and rewarded. If before, or instead of receiving his homestead, he chooses to pursue his profession or business, to work at his trade or for daily wages, he will find them double the European rate, and subsistence cheaper. From whatever part of Europe he may come, he will meet his countrymen here, and from them and us receive a cordial welcome. A government which gives him a farm, the right to vote, and free schools for his children, must desire his welfare.

IT

George Perkins Marsh.

BORN in Woodstock, Vt., 1801. DIED at Vallombrosa, Italy, 1882.

THE DRAMATIC DICTION OF SHAKESPEARE AND HIS TIME.

[The Origin and History of the English Language. 1862.]

T is a proof of the acuteness of the English dramatists who lived a little before, and with, Shakespeare, that they perceived the necessity of a style somewhat removed from the vernacular speech of their time; but it is also a proof of the weakness of their judgment, that, instead of adopting a phraseology which was natural, idiomatic, and permanent, without being local or vulgar, they invented a conventional style of ex

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »