Cannibals all! or, Slaves without masters

by George Fitzhugh

All writers agree there were no beggars or paupers in England until the liberation of the serfs; and moreover admit that slaves, in all ages and in all countries, have had all their physical wants sufficiently supplied. They also concur in stating, that crime was multiplied by turning loose on society a class of men who had been accustomed to and still needed the control of masters.

Until the liberation of the villeins, every man in England had his appropriate situation and duties, and a mutual and adequate interest in the soil. Practically the lands of England were the common property of the people of England. The old Barons were not the representatives of particular classes in Parliament, but the friends, and faithful and able representatives of all classes; for the interests of all classes were identified. Monteil, a recent French author, who has written the most accurate and graphic description of social conditions during the Feudal ages, describes the serfs as the especial pets and favorites of the Barons. They were the most dependent, obedient, and useful members of the feudal society, and like younger children, became favorites. The same class now constitute the Proletariat, the Lazzaroni, the Gypsies, the Parias, and the "pauper banditti" of Western Europe, and the Leperos of Mexico. As slaves, they were loved and protected; as pretended freemen, they were execrated and persecuted.

Mr. Lester, a New York abolitionist, after a long and careful observation and study of the present condition of the English laboring class, solemnly avers, in his "Glory and Shame of England," that he would sooner subject his child to Southern slavery, than have him to be a free laborer of England.

But it is the early history of the English Poor Laws, that proves most conclusively that the liberation of the villeins was a sham and a pretence, and that their situation has been worse, their rights fewer, and their liberties less, since emancipation than before. The Poor Laws, from the time of Edward the Third to that of Elizabeth, were laws to punish the poor, and to keep them at work for low wages. Not till late in the reign of Elizabeth, was any charitable provision made for them. Then, most of them would have starved, as the confiscation and sales of the church lands had deprived them of their only refuge, but for the new system of charity. The rich must have labor, and could not afford to let them all starve, although they were ready to attempt the most stringent means to prevent their increase.

In the Edinburgh Review, October, 1841, on Poor Law Reform, we find the following admirable history and synopsis of the English Poor Laws:

The great experiment of Poor Law amendment, which has now for seven years been in progress among our southern neighbors, appears to us to have been insufficiently attended to, and therefore to have been imperfectly understood in this part of the island. We do not believe that many of our Scottish readers are fully aware of the origin of the English Poor Laws, of the changes which they underwent, of the abuses which they created, of the remedy which has been applied; or of the obstacles which have diminished the success of that great measure, and now threaten its efficiency. And yet these are subjects of the deepest interest, even to those who study legislation merely as a science. A series of laws are exhibited, persevered in for centuries, by a nation always eminent for practical wisdom, of which the result has almost invariably been failure, or worse than failure; which in scarcely a single instance have attained their objects, and in most cases have produced effects precisely opposite to the intentions of their framers;—have aggravated whatever they were intended to diminish, and produced whatever they were intended to prevent. From us, as Scotchmen, they merit peculiar attention, not only from the resemblance of our poor laws to the earlier English statutes; but from the probability that, as the connection between the two countries becomes more intimate, we shall at no distant period follow the example, whatever it may be, of the larger country to which we are united; and participate in the evils and advantages of the system which she may finally adopt. This fate already threatens Ireland. It is scarcely probable that Scotland can avoid it.

Each of the subjects to which we have alluded, would require a volume for its complete development; but we are constrained to give to them such consideration as is admissible within the limits of an article of moderate length.

The Committee of the House of Commons which considered the Poor Laws in 1817, commence their able Report by stating, that "the principle of a compulsory provision for the impotent, and for setting to work the able-bodied, originated, without doubt, in motives of the purest humanity." From this statement, plausible as it is, we utterly dissent. We believe that the English poor laws originated in selfishness, ignorance, and pride. Better motives, without doubt, though misdirected by almost equal ignorance, dictated the changes which were made in those laws during the 18th century—the fourth which elapsed from their commencement; but we are convinced that their origin was an attempt substantially to restore the expiring system of slavery. The evils of slavery are now understood; it is admitted that it destroys all the nobler virtues, both moral and intellectual; that it leaves the slave without energy, without truth, without honesty, without industry, without providence; in short, without any of the qualities which fit men to be respected or even esteemed. But mischievous as slavery is, it has many plausible advantages, and freedom many apparent dangers. The subsistence of a slave is safe; he cannot suffer from insufficient wages, or from want of employment; he has not to save for sickness or old age; he has not to provide for his family; he cannot waste in drunkenness the wages by which they were to be supported; his idleness or dishonesty cannot reduce them to misery; they suffer neither from his faults nor his follies. We believe that there are few of our Highland parishes in which there is not more suffering from poverty than would be found in an equal Russian population. Again, the master thinks that he gains by being able to proportion the slave's subsistence to his wants. In a state of freedom, average wages are always enough to support, with more or less comfort, but still to support, an average family. The unmarried slave receives merely his own maintenance. A freeman makes a bargain; he asks whatever his master can afford to pay. The competition among employers forces them to submit to these terms; and the highly paid workman often wastes his extra wages in idleness and debauchery. And when employment is abundant; that is, when his services are most wanted, he often tries to better himself by quitting his master. All this is disagreeable to masters who have been accustomed to the apparent economy of servile labor, and to its lethargic obedience.

The great motive of the framers of the earlier English poor laws was to remedy the latter class of inconveniences; those which affect, or appear to affect the master. The motive of the framers of the later acts again, beginning with George I., was to remedy the first class of evils: those which affect the free laborer and his family.

The first set of laws were barbarous and unskillful, and their failure is evident from their constant re-enactment or amendment; with different provisions and severer penalties. The second set had a different fate—they ultimately succeeded, in many districts, in giving to the laborer and to his family the security of servitude. They succeeded in relieving him and those who, in a state of real freedom, would have been dependent on him, from many of the penalties imposed by nature on idleness, improvidence, and misconduct. And by doing this, they in a great measure effected, though certainly against the intentions of the legislature, the object which had been vainly attempted by the earlier laws. They confined the laborer to his parish; they dictated to him who should be his master; and they proportioned his wages, not to his services, but to his wants. Before the poor law amendment act, nothing but the power of arbitrary punishment was wanting in the pauperized parishes to a complete system of prædial slavery.