CHAPTER XXIV.
GERRIT SMITH ON LAND REFORM, AND WILLIAM LOYD GARRISON ON NO-GOVERNMENT.
Within the last week, we have received the Land Reformer, an agrarian paper, just started in New York, in which we are sure we recognize the pen of Gerrit Smith, the leader of the New York abolitionists; and also a No. of the Liberator, in which Mr. Garrison, the leader of the New England abolitionists, defines his No-Government doctrines.
In calling attention, North and South, to opinions openly and actively promulgated by such distinguished men, which opinions are at war with all existing institutions, we are rendering equal service to all sections of our common country.
Mr. Smith says:
"Why should not this monopoly be broken up? Because, says the objector, vested rights forbid it. But there can be no vested rights against original and natural rights. No claim of a part of the human family to the while earth can be valid against the claim of the whole human family to it. No passing of papers or parchments in former generations can foreclose the rights of the present generation. No bargains and no conventional titles can avail in justice against the great title-deeds, by which Nature grants and conveys herself to each generation, as it comes upon the earth; and by which she makes the living (simply because they are the living, and not at all because of their relation to the dead) the equal owners of her soil and seas, her light and air. No arrangements, by which the six thousand, who have monopolized the lands of Ireland, should be allowed to overcome the title of the six millions to it. If the natural and inherent right of the whole is not paramount to that, which the fractions claim to have acquired, then are the six millions born into the world trespassers; and then is the Creator chargeable with a lack of wisdom and goodness. If it is right that the mass of men should hold their standing-place on the earth by mere sufferance, or upon terms dictated by their fellows, then is it not true that God is an Impartial Father—for then it is not true that he has given the earth to all his children, but only to a select."
We, too, think Free Society a very bad thing, and a decided failure, but not half so bad as Mr. Smith paints it. There is a poor-house system in Ireland, which, to some extent, recognizes the doctrine that all men are entitled to live on the earth, and be supported from it. In practice, the system does not always work well; yet we are confident it works much better for all parties, than would Mr. Smith's plan of agrarianism.
But slavery does, in practice as well as in theory, acknowledge and enforce the right of all to be comfortably supported from the soil. There was, we repeat, no pauperism in Europe till feudal slavery was abolished.
It will be strange, indeed, if the voters in New York, a majority of whom own no land, do not take Mr. Smith at his word, and assert their superior claim, under his Higher Law and "Fundamental Principles," to all the land. 'Tis a concise and ingenious syllogism, to this effect: "The earth belongs equally to all mankind, under the Higher Law, or Law of God, which is superior to all human laws; therefore, the lackland majority have a better right to the soil than the present proprietors, whose title is derived from mere human law."