There are some who employ singular tactics against you. They begin by admitting the superiority of freedom over the prohibitive system, doubtless in order that they may not have to defend themselves on that ground.
Next they remark that in going from one system to another there will be some displacement of labor.
Then they dilate upon the sufferings which, according to themselves, this displacement must cause. They exaggerate and amplify them; they make of them the principal subject of discussion; they present them as the exclusive and definite result of reform, and thus try to enlist you under the standard of monopoly.
These tactics have been employed in the service of all abuses, and I must frankly admit one thing, that it always embarrasses even the friends of those reforms which are most useful to the people. You will understand why.
When an abuse exists, everything arranges itself upon it.
Human existences connect themselves with it, others with these, then still others, and this forms a great edifice.
Do you raise your hand against it? Each one protests; and notice this particularly, those persons who protest always seem at the first glance to be right, because it is easier to show the disorder which must accompany the reform than the order which will follow it.
The friends of the abuse cite particular instances; they name the persons and their workmen who will be disturbed, while the poor devil of a reformer can only refer to the general good, which must insensibly diffuse itself among the masses. This does not have the effect which the other has.
Thus, supposing it is a question of abolishing slavery. "Unhappy people," they say to the colored men, "who will feed you? The master distributes floggings, but he also distributes rations."
It is not seen that it is not the master who feeds the slave, but his own labor which feeds both himself and master.