The Failure of Free Society [pp. 29-38]

THE FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY.
It is unnecessary here to animadvert on the disproportioned
expenditure of public treasure in improvements on, and protection given to, the northern and southern sections of our
Union. It would, indeed, swell this article to an unreasonable length. I will, therefore, refer my readers for information on this subject to the very able pamphlet published by
Mr. Garnett, of Virginia, in 1854, where full and certain
information will be found.
This digressive article is furnished for publication under a
conviction that each digression is entitled to separate discussion, and that by presenting them to public view abler pens
will be enlisted in their discussion than I affect to wield.
THE FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY,*
The failure of free society is an idea that will seem novel
and preposterous-something new under the sun-at first
blush, to almost every mind.
The reverse of the picture is but too familiar. We have
all heard of the abominations of slavery; every gale that
sweeps from the north brings to our ears harsh denunciations
of the peculiar institution of the south, and our auditory
nerves have become so attuned to the sound that we have
yielded a reluctant assent to its burthen, and, admitting
slavery to be an evil, have sought to justify our holding
negroes from the doctrine of expediency. Mr. Fitzhugh,
in his defence, assumes the higher and more tenable ground
of right and reason, and instituting a comparison between
the relations of capital and labor, as they exist in southern
slavery and in the free societies of Europe and the northern
States of the Union, endeavors to prove the vast superiority
of the southern system, in its principles, tendencies, and re sults, in its care for the combfort, protection, and happiness
of the laborer, over the glittering structure erected upon the
much vaunted liberty and freedom basis of northern society.
European and American abolitionists, who, without having
a single, social, or religious theory in common, have yet,
with marvellous. unanimity, banded to hurl foul scorn upon
the south, are told by our author to look at homne at their
own societies, and to see how the discontent, misery, yea,
even the starvation of the working classes, are gnawing at
* Sociology for the South; or the Failure of Free Society: By George Fitzhugh.
"The thing that has been, it is that which shall be; and that which is
done, is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun." Eccl. 1: 9.
Naturamn expelles furca, tamen usqute recurret.-HoRACE. Richmond, Virginia,
A. Morris, publisher, 1854: 1 vol., 12mo., p. 310.
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