Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various
page 55 of 310 (17%)
page 55 of 310 (17%)
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is qualified.
The Northern party, or that of equal rights and free labor, like their predecessors, hold many ideas which coming years will see realized, for--as has always been the case in these contests--science and learning are always on the liberal side. By a strange accident, for the first time almost in history, the Republican party is for once in its constituted rights, on its own ground, while the feudal or conservative wing form the aggressors. As of old, too, the Southern conservatives are enforcing theories once the property of their foes, who have now advanced to broader, nobler, and more gloriously liberal views. For instance, the men of the South believe that labor and capital are still antagonisms. Now it is true enough that they _once_ were, and that when the _people_ in different ages first began to rebel against their hereditary tyrants, the workman was only a serf to his capitalist employer. That was the age when demagogues flourished by setting 'the poor' against 'the rich.' A painful, sickening series of wars it was, ending too often by labor's killing itself with its adversary. Then, a foul, false 'democracy' was evolved, which was virtually a rank aristocracy, not of nobility, but of those who could wheedle the poor into supporting them. Such was the history of nearly all 'radicalism' and 'democracy' from the days of Cleon and Alcibiades down to the present time. But the enormous developments of science and of industry have of late years opened newer and broader views to the world. As capital has progressed in its action it is seen that at every step labor is becoming--slowly, but surely, as Heaven's law--identified with it. The harmony of interests is now no longer a vague Fourieristic notion,--for |
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