Some denounced the entire proceeding as unwarranted, as contrary to reason and justice. These insisted that the five hundred people had a right to live in their own way provided they did not interfere with others; that they had the right to go through the world with little food and with poor clothes, and to live in huts, if such was their choice. But Mr. A. had no trouble in answering these objectors. He insisted that well-being is the only good, and that every human being is under obligation, not only to take care of himself, but to do what little he can towards taking care of others; that where five hundred people neglect to take care of themselves, it is the duty of somebody else, who has more intelligence and more means, to take care of them; that the man who takes five hundred people and improves their condition, gives them on the average better food, better clothes, and keeps them out of mischief, is a benefactor.
"These people," said Mr. A., "were tried. They were found incapable of taking care of themselves. They lacked intelligence or will or honesty or industry or ambition or something, so that in the struggle for existence they fell behind, became stragglers, dropped by the wayside, died in gutters; while many were destined to end their days either in dungeons or on scaffolds. Besides all this, they were a nuisance to their prosperous fellow-citizens, a perpetual menace to the peace of society. They increased the burden of taxation; they filled the ranks of the criminal classes, they made it necessary to build more jails, to employ more policemen and judges; so that I, by enslaving them, not only assisted them, not only protected them against themselves, not only bettered their condition, not only added to the well-being of-society at large, but greatly increased my own fortune."
Mr. A. also took the ground that Providence, by giving him superior intelligence, the genius of command, the aptitude for taking charge of others, had made it his duty to exercise these faculties for the well-being of the people and for the glory of God. Mr. A. frequently declared that he was God's steward. He often said he thanked God that he was not governed by a sickly sentiment, but that he was a man of sense, of judgment, of force of character, and that the means employeed by him were in accordance with the logic of facts.
Some of the people thus enslaved objected, saying that they had the same right to control themselves that Mr. A. had to control himself. But it only required a little discipline to satisfy them that they were wrong. Some of the people were quite happy, and declared that nothing gave them such perfect contentment as the absence of all responsibility. Mr. A. insisted that all men had not been endowed with the same capacity; that the weak ought to be cared for by the strong; that such was evidently the design of the Creator, and that he intended to do what little he could to carry that design into effect.
Mr. A. was very successful. In a few years he had several thousands of men, women, and children working for him. He amassed a large fortune. He felt that he had been intrusted with this money by Providence. He therefore built several churches, and once in a while gave large sums to societies for the spread of civilization. He passed away regretted by a great many people—not including those who had lived under his immediate administration. He was buried with great pomp, the king being one of the pall-bearers, and on his tomb was this:
HE WAS THE PROVIDENCE OF THE POOR. II.
"And, being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice but beggary."
Mr. B. did not believe in slavery. He despised the institution with every drop of his blood, and was an advocate of universal freedom. He held all the ideas of Mr. A. in supreme contempt, and frequently spent whole evenings in denouncing the inhumanity and injustice of the whole business. He even went so far as to contend that many of A.'s slaves had more intelligence than A. himself, and that, whether they had intelligence or not, they had the right to be free. He insisted that Mr. A.'s philanthropy was a sham; that he never bought a human being for the purpose of bettering that being's condition; that he went into the business simply to make money for himself; and that his talk about his slaves committing less crime than when they were free was simply to justify the crime committed by himself in enslaving his fellow-men.
Mr. B. was a manufacturer, and he employeed some five or six thousand men. He used to say that these men were not forced to work for him; that they were at perfect liberty to accept or reject the terms; that, so far as he was concerned, he would just as soon commit larceny or robbery as to force a man to work for him. "Every laborer under my roof," he used to say, "is as free to choose as I am."
Mr B. believed in absolutely free trade; thought it an outrage to interfere with the free interplay of forces; said that every man should buy, or at least have the privilege of buying, where he could buy cheapest, and should have the privilege of selling where he could get the most. He insisted that a man who has labor to sell has the right to sell it to the best advantage, and that the purchaser has the right to buy it at the lowest price. He did not enslave men—he hired them. Some said that he took advantage of their necessities; but he answered that he created no necessities, that he was not responsible for their condition, that he did not make them poor, that he found them poor and gave them work, and gave them the same wages that he could employ others for. He insisted that he was absolutely just to all; he did not give one man more than another, and he never refused to employ a man on account of the man's religion or politics; all that he did was simply to employ that man if the man wished to be employed, and give him the wages, no more and no less, that some other man of like capacity was willing to work for.