the crime and the duty of the english government.

it remains to sum up the charges against the english oligarchy, and to point out the path which justice, humanity, and the age require the government to pursue. in so doing, we shall go no farther than the facts previously adduced will afford us sure ground, nor speak more harshly than our duty to our oppressed fellow-men will demand. we pity the criminal even while we pass sentence upon her.

a government originating in, and suited for, a barbarous age must necessarily be unfit for one enjoying the meridian of civilization. the arrangement of lord and serf was appropriate to the period when war was regarded as the chief employment of mankind, and when more respect was paid to the kind of blood flowing in a man's veins than to his greatness or generosity of soul. but, in the nineteenth century, war is regarded as an evil to be avoided as long as possible. peace is the rule, and conflict the exception. christianity has taught us, also, that the good and the great in heart and mind—wherever born, wherever bred—are the true nobility of our race. it is the sin of the english government that it [pg 490] works against the bright influence of the times and throws the gloomy shadow of feudalism over some of the fairest regions of the earth. it legislates for the age of william the conqueror instead of the reign of victoria.

the few for hereditary luxury and dominion, the many for hereditary misery and slavery, is the grand fundamental principle of the english system. for every gorgeous palace there are a thousand hovels, where even beasts should not be forced to dwell. for every lord who spends his days in drinking, gambling, hunting, horse-racing, and indulging himself in all the luxuries that money can purchase, a thousand persons, at least, must toil day and night to obtain the most wretched subsistence. in no country are the few richer than in england, and in no country are the masses more fearfully wretched. the great bulk of the property of england, both civil and ecclesiastical, is in the grasp of the aristocracy. all offices of church and state, yielding any considerable emolument, are monopolized by the lords and their nominees. the masses earn—the lords spend. the lords have all the property, but the masses pay all the taxes, and slave and starve that the taxes may be paid.

without such a system, is it possible that there could be millions of acres of good land lying waste, and millions of paupers who dare not cultivate it?—that the workhouses could be crowded—that men, women, and [pg 491] children could be driven to all kinds of work, and yet by the most exhausting toil not earn enough to enable them to live decently and comfortably—that honest and industrious people could starve by the wayside, or die of disease engendered in dirty hovels—that vice and crime could be practised to an appalling extent—that whole villages could be swept away and the poor labourers either driven into the crowded cities, or to a distant land, far from kindred and friends?

the aristocrats of england are the most extensive slaveholders in the world. in england, wales, scotland, and ireland, they have the entire labouring mass for their slaves—men, women, and children being doomed to the most grinding toil to enable their masters to live in luxurious ease. in india and the other colonies they have treated the natives as the conquered were treated in the middle ages. they have drained their resources, oppressed them in every way, and disposed of tribes and nations as if they had been dealing with cattle. add the slaves of india to the slaves of the united kingdom, and we may count them by tens of millions. these slaves are not naturally inferior to their masters. they belong to races fertile in great and good men and women. poets, artists, philosophers, historians, statesmen, and warriors of the first magnitude in genius have sprung from these down-trodden people. they have fully proved themselves capable of enjoying the sweets of freedom. they remain slaves because their masters [pg 492] find it profitable, and know how to cozen and bully them into submission.

the following description of france before the great revolution of 1789, by m. thiers, is strikingly applicable to the condition of great britain at the present day:—

"the condition of the country, both political and economical, was intolerable. there was nothing but privilege—privilege vested in individuals, in classes, in towns, in provinces, and even in trades and professions. every thing contributed to check industry and the natural genius of man. all the dignities of the state, civil, ecclesiastical, and military, were exclusively reserved to certain individuals. no man could take up a profession without certain titles and the compliance with certain pecuniary conditions. even the favours of the crown were converted into family property, so that the king could scarcely exercise his own judgment, or give any preference. almost the only liberty left to the sovereign was that of making pecuniary gifts, and he had been reduced to the necessity of disputing with the duke of coigny for the abolition of a useless place. every thing, then, was made immovable property in the hands of a few, and everywhere these few resisted the many who had been despoiled. the burdens of the state weighed on one class only. the noblesse and the clergy possessed about two-thirds of the landed property; the other third, possessed by the people, paid taxes to the king, a long list of feudal droits to the noblesse, tithes to the clergy, and had, moreover, to support the devastations committed by noble sportsmen and their game. the taxes upon consumption pressed upon the great multitude, and consequently on the people. the collection of these imposts was managed in an unfair and irritating manner; the lords of the soil left long arrears with impunity, but the people, upon any delay in payment, were harshly treated, arrested, and condemned to pay in their persons, in default of money to produce. the people, therefore, nourished with their labour and [pg 493] defended with their blood the higher classes of society, without being able to procure a comfortable subsistence for themselves. the townspeople, a body of citizens, industrious, educated, less miserable than the people, could nevertheless obtain none of the advantages to which they had a right to aspire, seeing that it was their industry that nourished and their talents that adorned the kingdom."

the elements of revolution are all to be found in great britain. a mirabeau, with dauntless will and stormy eloquence, could use them with tremendous effect. yet the giant of the people does not raise his voice to plead the cause of the oppressed, and to awaken that irresistible enthusiasm which would sweep away the pampered aristocracy.

the armorial escutcheons of the aristocracy are fearfully significant of its character. says john hampden, jun.: [116]—

"the whole emblazonment of aristocracy is one manifesto of savage barbarism, brute force, and propensity to robbery and plunder. what are these objects on their shields? daggers, swords, lions' heads, dogs' heads, arrow-heads, boars' heads, cannon balls, clubs, with a medley of stars, moons, and unmeaning figures. what are the crests of these arms? lascivious goats, rampant lions, fiery dragons, and griffins gone crazed: bulls' heads, block-heads, arms with uplifted daggers, beasts with daggers, and vultures tearing up helpless birds. what, again, are the supporters of these shields? what are the emblems of the powers by which they are maintained and upheld? the demonstration is deeply significant. they are the most singular assemblage of all that is fierce, savage, rampageous, villanous, lurking, treacherous, blood-thirsty, [pg 494] cruel, and bestial in bestial natures. they are infuriated lions, boars, and tigers; they are raging bulls, filthy goats, horrid hyenas, snarling dogs, drunken bears, and mad rams; they are foxes, wolves, panthers, every thing that is creeping, sneaking, thievish, and perfidious. nay, nature cannot furnish emblems extensive enough, and so start up to our astonished sight the most hideous shapes of fiendlike dragons and griffins, black, blasted as by infernal fires; the most fuliginous of monsters; and if the human shape is assumed for the guardians and supporters of aristocracy, they are wild and savage men, armed with clubs and grim with hair, scowling brute defiance, and seeming ready to knock down any man at the command of their lords. ay, the very birds of prey are called in; and eagles, vultures, cormorants, in most expressive attitudes, with most ludicrous embellishments of crowned heads, collared necks, escutcheoned sides, and with hoisted wings and beaks of open and devouring wrath, proclaim the same great truth, that aristocracy is of the class of what the germans call raub-thieren, or robber-beasts—in our vernacular, beasts of prey."

and the character thus published to the world has been acted out to the full from the days of the bastard duke of normandy and his horde of ruffians to the time of the "iron duke" and his associates in title and plunder. the hyenas and vultures have never been satisfied.

the crime of england lies in maintaining the slavery of a barbarous age in the middle of the nineteenth century; in keeping her slaves in physical misery, mental darkness, moral depravity, and heathenism; in carrying fire and sword into some of the loveliest regions of the earth, in order to gratify that thirst for wealth and dominion ever characteristic of an aristocracy; in [pg 495] forcing her slaves in india to cultivate poison, and her weak neighbours of china to buy it; in plundering and oppressing the people of all her colonies; in concentrating the wealth of the united kingdom and the dependencies in the purses of a few persons, and thus dooming all others beneath her iron rule to constant, exhausting, and unrewarded toil! we arraign her before the tribunal of justice and humanity, as the most powerful and destructive of tyrannies; as the author of ireland's miseries, and a course of action toward that island compared with which the dismemberment of poland was merciful; as the remorseless conqueror of the hindoos; as a government so oppressive that her people are flying by thousands to the shores of america to escape its inflictions! though most criminals plead "not guilty," she cannot have the front to do so! the general judgment of civilized mankind has long ago pronounced a verdict of conviction.

yet, guilty as is the english oligarchy, certain of its members have taken to lecturing the world about the duties of christians and philanthropists. this, we suppose, in charity, is done upon the principle given by hamlet to his mother—

"assume a virtue if you have it not."

but a loftier authority than shakspeare tells us to remove the beam from our own eye before we point to the mote that is in the eye of a brother. example, [pg 496] also, is more powerful than precept. pious exhortations from a villain are usually disregarded. a preacher should never have the blood of slaughtered victims on his hands.

we think it not difficult to show that england is the best friend of slavery, while professing an aversion to it, and dictating to other governments to strive for its abolition. at an enormous expense, she maintains men-of-war upon the coast of africa, with the object of suppressing the trade in negro slaves. this expense her white slaves are taxed to pay; while the men-of-war have not only not suppressed the slave-trade, but have doubled its horrors, by compelling the slave-traders to inflict new tortures upon the negroes they capture and conceal. in the mean time, the government is doing all in its power to impoverish and enslave (for the slavery of a people follows its poverty) the more intelligent races of the world. england prides herself upon her efforts to destroy the trade in african savages and chattel slavery. her philanthropy is all black; miserable wretches with pale faces have no claims upon her assisting hand; and she refuses to recognise the only kind of slavery by which masters are necessitated to provide well for their slaves, while she enforces that system which starves them! england is the best friend of the most destructive species of slavery, and has extended it over tens of millions of human beings.

[pg 497]

justice, humanity, and the age demand the abolition of this exhausting, famine-breeding, and murderous system. it is hostile to every principle of right—to civilization, and to the loving spirit of christianity. starving millions groan beneath the yoke. from the crowded factories and workshops—from the pestilential hovels—from the dark and slave-filled coal-pits—from the populous workhouses—from the vast army of wandering beggars in england and scotland—from the perishing peasantry of ireland—from the wretched hindoos upon the ganges and the indus—from the betrayed coolies in the west-india islands—arises the cry for relief from the plunderers and the oppressors. "how long, o lord, how long!"

a few thousand persons own the united kingdom. they have robbed and reduced to slavery not only their own countrymen, but millions in other lands. they continue to rob wherever they find an opportunity. they spend what their crime has accumulated in all kinds of vice and dissipation, and rear their children to the same courses. money raised for religious purposes they waste in luxurious living. they trade in all the offices of church and state. they persecute, by exclusion, all who do not subscribe to "thirty-nine articles" which they wish to force upon mankind. in brief, the oligarchy lies like an incubus upon the empire, and the people cannot call themselves either free or happy until the aristocrats be driven from their high [pg 498] places. burst, then, the chains, ye countrymen of hampden and vane! show to the world that the old fire is not yet quenched! that the spirits of your martyrs to liberty are yet among you, and their lessons in your hearts! obtain your freedom—peaceably, if you can—but obtain it, for it expands and ennobles the life of a nation! in the air of liberty alone can a people enjoy a healthy existence. a day of real freedom is worth more than years in a dungeon. what have you to dread? do you not know your strength? be assured, this aristocracy could not stand an hour, were you resolved against its existence! it would be swept away as a feather before a hurricane. do you fear that much blood would flow in the struggle? consider the hundreds of thousands who are crushed out of existence every year by this aristocracy, and ask yourselves if it is not better that the system should be over-thrown, even at the expense of blood, than that it should continue its destructive career? had not men better make an effort to secure freedom and plenty for their posterity, than starve quietly by the wayside? these are the questions you should take home to your hearts. one grand, determined, glorious effort, and you are free.

"hereditary bondsmen, know ye not

who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?"