and there is no reason to believe he will not be led to exert himself with equal energy.*

"To

A circumstance more influential in determining the history of slavery in America than either origin or climate is pointed at by De Tocqueville in his remark, that the soil of New England" was entirely opposed to a territorial aristocracy." bring that refractory land into cultivation, the constant and interested exertions of the owner himself were necessary; and, when the ground was prepared, its produce was found to be insufficient to enrich a master and a farmer at the same time. The land was then naturally broken up into small portions which the proprietor cultivated for himself." Such a country, for reasons which will presently be more fully indicated, was entirely unsuited to cultivation by slave labour; but what I wish here to remark is, that this fact, important as it is with reference to our subject, is yet insufficient in itself to afford the solution which we seek; for, though it would account for the disappearance of slavery from the New England States, it fails entirely when applied to the country west and south of the Hudson, which is for the most part exceedingly fertile, but in which, nevertheless, slavery, though extensively introduced, has not been able to maintain itself. To understand, therefore, the conditions on which the success of a slave régime depends, we must advert to other considerations than any which have yet been adduced.

The true causes of the phenomenon will appear if we reflect on the characteristic advantages and disadvantages which attach respectively to slavery and free labour, as productive instruments, in connexion with the external conditions under which these forms of industry came into competition in North America.

The economic advantages of slavery are easily stated: they are all comprised in the fact that the employer of slaves has absolute power over his workmen, and enjoys the disposal of

* "Considérons," says M. De Gasparin, "ces jolies chaumières, ces mobiliers propres et presque élégants, ces jardins, cet air général de bien-être et de civilisation; interrogeons ces noirs dont l'aspect physique s'est déjà modifié sous l'influence de la liberté, ces noirs dont le nombre décroissait rapidement à l'époque de l'esclavage et commence au contraire à s'accroître depuis l'affranchissement; ils nous parleront de leur bonheur. Les uns sont devenus propriétaires et travaillent pour leur propre compte (ce n'est pas un crime, j'imagine), les autres s'associent pour affermer de grandes plantations ou portent peut-être aux usines des riches planteurs les cannes récoltées chez eux; ceux-ci sont marchands, beaucoup louent leurs bras comme cultivateurs. Quels que soient les torts d'un certain nombre d'individus, l'ensemble des nègres libres a mérité ce témoignage rendu en 1857 par le governeur de Tabago: 'Je nie que nos noirs de la campagne aient des habitudes de paresse. Il n'existe pas dans le monde une classo aussi industrieuse."-Un Grand Peuple, p. 312.

MERITS AND DEFECTS OF SLAVE LABOUR.

39

the whole fruit of their labours. Slave labour, therefore, admits of the most complete organization, that is to say, it may be combined on an extensive scale, and directed by a controlling mind to a single end, and its cost can never rise above that which is necessary to maintain the slave in health and strength.

On the other hand, the economical defects of slave labour are very serious. They may be summed up under the three following heads:—it is given reluctantly; it is unskilful; it is wanting in versatility.

It is given reluctantly, and consequently the industry of the slave can only be depended on so long as he is watched. The moment the master's eye is withdrawn, the slave relaxes his efforts. The cost of slave labour will therefore, in great measure, depend on the degree in which the work to be performed admits of the workmen being employed in close proximity to each other. If the work be such that a large gang can be employed with efficiency within a small space, and be thus brought under the eye of a single overseer, the expense of superintendence will be slight; if, on the other hand, the nature of the work requires that the workmen should be dispersed over an extended area, the number of overseers, and therefore, the cost of the labour which requires this supervision, will be proportionately increased. The cost of slave-labour thus varies directly with the degree in which the work to be done requires dispersion of the labourers, and inversely as it admits of their concentration. Further, the work being performed reluctantly, fear is substituted for hope, as the stimulus to exertion. But fear is ill calculated to draw from a labourer all the industry of which he is capable. "Fear," says Bentham, "leads the labourer to hide his powers, rather than to show them ; to remain below, rather than to surpass himself." "By

displaying superior capacity, the slave would only raise the measure of his ordinary duties; by a work of supererogation he would only prepare punishment for himself." He therefore seeks, by concealing his powers, to reduce to the lowest the standard of requisition. "His ambition is the reverse of that of the freeman; he seeks to descend in the scale of industry, rather than to ascend."

Secondly, slave labour is unskilful, and this, not only because the slave, having no interest in his work, has no inducement to exert his higher faculties, but because, from the ignorance to which he is of necessity condemned, he is incapable of doing so. In the Slave States of North America, the education of slaves, even in the most rudimentary form, is proscribed by law, and consequently their intelligence is kept uniformly and

40

MERITS AND DEFECTS OF FREE LABOUR.

constantly at the very lowest point. "You can make a nigger work," said an interlocutor in one of Mr. Olmsted's dialogues, "but you cannot make him think." He is therefore unsuited for all branches of industry which require the slightest care, forethought, or dexterity. He cannot be made to co-operate with machinery; he can only be trusted with the coarsest implements; he is incapable of all but the rudest forms of labour.*

But further, slave labour is eminently defective in point of versatility. The difficulty of teaching the slave anything is so great, that the only chance of turning his labour to profit is, when he has once learned a lesson, to keep him to that lesson for life. Where slaves, therefore, are employed there can be no variety of production. If tobacco be cultivated, tobacco becomes the sole staple, and tobacco is produced whatever be the state of the market, and whatever be the condition of the soil. This peculiarity of slave-labour, as we shall see, involves some very important consequences.

Such being the character of slave-labour, as an industrial instrument, let us now consider the qualities of the agency with which, in the colonization of North America, it was brought into competition. This was the labour of peasant proprietors, a productive instrument, in its merits and defects, the exact reverse of that with which it was called upon to compete. Thus, the great and almost the sole excellence of slave-labour is, as we have seen, its capacity for organization; and this is precisely the circumstance with respect to which the labour of peasant proprietors is especially defective. In a community of peasant proprietors, each workman labours on his own account, without much reference to what his fellow-workmen are doing. There is no commanding mind to whose guidance the whole labour force will yield obedience, and under whose control it may be directed by skilful combinations to the result which is desired. Nor does this system afford room for classification and econo

* "The reason was, that the negro could never be trained to exercise judgment; he cannot be made to use his mind; he always depends on machinery doing its own work, and cannot be made to watch it. He neglects it until something is broken or there is great waste. We have tried rewards and punishments, but it makes no difference. It's his nature, and you cannot change it. All men are indolent and have a disinclination to labour, but this is a great deal stronger in the African race than in any other. In working niggers, we must always calculate that they will not labour at all except to avoid punishment, and they will never do more than just enough to save themselves from being punished, and no amount of punishment will prevent their working carelessly and indifferently. It always seems on the plantation as if they took pains to break all the tools and spoil all the cattle that they possibly can, even when they know they'll be punished for it."-Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 104, 105.

t Olmsted's Seaboard Slave States, pp. 337 to 339.

SLAVE AND FREE LABOUR COMPARED.

41

mical distribution of a labour force in the same degree as the system of slavery. Under the latter, for example, occupation may be found for a whole family of slaves, according to the capacity of each member, in performing the different operations connected with certain branches of industry-say, the culture of tobacco, in which the women and children may be employed in picking the worms off the plants, or gathering the leaves as they become ripe, while the men are engaged in the more laborious tasks; but a small proprietor, whose children are at school, and whose wife finds enough to occupy her in her domestic duties, can command for all operations, however important or however insignificant, no other labour than his own, or that of his grown-up sons-labour which would be greatly misapplied in performing such manual operations as I have described. His team of horses might be standing idle in the stable, while he was gathering tobacco leaves or picking worms, an arrangement which would render his work exceedingly costly. The system of peasant proprietorship, therefore, does not admit of combination and classification of labour in the same degree as that of slavery. But if in this respect it lies under a disadvantage as compared with its rival, in every other respect it enjoys an immense superiority. The peasant proprietor, appropriating the whole produce of his toil, needs no other stimulus to exertion. Superintendence is here completely dispensed with. The labourer is under the strongest conceivable inducement to put forth, in the furtherance of his task, the full powers of his mind and body; and his mind, instead of being purposely stinted and stupified, is enlightened by education, and aroused by the prospect of reward.*

Such are the two productive agencies which came into competition on the soil of North America. If we now turn to the external conditions under which the competition took place, we shall, I think, have no difficulty in understanding the success of each respectively in that portion of the Continent in which it did in fact succeed.

The line dividing the Slave from the Free States marks also an important division in the agricultural capabilities of North America. North of this line, the products for which the soil and climate are best adapted are cereal crops, while south of it the prevailing crops are tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar; and these two classes of crops are broadly distinguished in the methods of culture suitable to each. The cultivation of the one class, of which cotton may be taken as the type, requires for its efficient conduct that labour should be combined and organized

*See North America, its Agriculture and Climate, by Robert Russell, chap. viii.

42 AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES OF NORTH AND SOUTII.

on an extensive scale.* On the other hand, for the raising of cereal crops this condition is not so essential. Even where labour is abundant and that labour free, the large capitalist does not in this mode of farming appear on the whole to have any preponderating advantage over the small proprietor, who, with his family, cultivates his own farm, as the example of the best cultivated states in Europe proves. Whatever superiority he may have in the power of combining and directing labour seems to be compensated by the greater energy and spirit which the sense of property gives to the exertions of the small proprietor. But there is another essential circumstance in which these two classes of crops differ. A single labourer, Mr. Russell tells us,† can cultivate twenty acres of wheat or Indian corn, while he cannot manage more than two of tobacco, or three of cotton. It appears from this that tobacco and cotton fulfil that condition which we saw was essential to the economical employment of slaves-the possibility of working large numbers within a limited space; while wheat and Indian corn, in the cultivation of which the labourers are dispersed over a wide surface, fail in this respect. We thus find that cotton, and the class of crops of which cotton may be taken as the type, favour the employment of slaves in the competition with peasant proprietors in two leading ways: first, they need extensive combination and organization of labour-requirements which slavery is eminently calculated to supply, but in respect to which the labour of peasant proprietors is defective; and secondly, they allow of labour being concentrated, and thus minimize the cardinal evil of slave-labour-the reluctance with which it is yielded. On the other hand, the cultivation of cereal crops, in which extensive combination of labour is not important, and in which the operations of industry are widely diffused, offers none of these advantages for the employment of slaves, while it is remarkably fitted to bring out in Ibid., pp. 141, 164.

*Russell's North America, p. 141.

The same observation had been made by De Tocqueville, who in the following passage has suggested a further reason for the unsuitableness of slave-labour for raising cereal crops :- "It has been observed that slave-labour is a very expensive method of cultivating corn. The farmer of cornland in a country where slavery is unknown, habitually retains a small number of labourers in his service, and at seedtime and harvest he hires several additional hands, who only live at his cost for a short period. But the agriculturist in a slave state is obliged to keep a large number of slaves the whole year round, in order to sow his fields and to gather in his crops, although their services are only required for a few weeks; but slaves are unable to wait till they are hired, and to subsist by their own labour in the mean time like free labourers: in order to have their services, they must be bought. Slavery, independently of its general disadvantages, is therefore still more inapplicable to countries in which corn is cultivated than to those which produce crops of a different kind."-Democracy in America vol. ii. p. 233.