These are "two radically different political systems; the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor, the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen."
1.
“ . . . a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the state. It will prescribe for every one where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance."
2.
"Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, later remarked that the Kansas-Nebraska Act created more abolitionists in two months than William Lloyd Garrison had in twenty years. Anti-Nebraska political organizations spontaneously emerged all over the North. Eventually picking the label 'Republican Party,' the new antislavery coalition dwarfed from the outset its two precursors, the Free Soil and Liberty Parties.
Some Republican leaders, like William Seward, were former Whigs. Others, like [Salmon P.] Chase, had been Democrats or Libertymen. When the 1854 congressional elections returned to office only seven of the fifty-four northern Democrats who had voted for Douglas's [Nebraska-Kansas] act, the overwhelming Democratic control of the House was overthrown. It was one of the most astonishing political turnabouts in American history." [page 107]
Some Republican leaders, like William Seward, were former Whigs. Others, like [Salmon P.] Chase, had been Democrats or Libertymen. When the 1854 congressional elections returned to office only seven of the fifty-four northern Democrats who had voted for Douglas's [Nebraska-Kansas] act, the overwhelming Democratic control of the House was overthrown. It was one of the most astonishing political turnabouts in American history." [page 107]
"One year prior to [John] Brown's raid, Seward had delivered a speech in upstate New York spelling out the Republican Party's ideology, with its veneration of free labor and denigration of slave labor. 'Our country is a theater, which exhibits, in full operation, two radically different political systems; the one resting on the basis of servile or slave labor, the other on the basis of voluntary labor of freemen. . . Hitherto, the two systems have existed in different states, but side by side within the American Union."
The Union was moving, however, from a loose confederation of states to a consolidated nation. "Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results.'
The Union was moving, however, from a loose confederation of states to a consolidated nation. "Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results.'
"This speech branded the phrase 'irrepressible conflict' onto the public consciousness, as the widening sectional estrangement now imparted a chillingly literal interpretation to the New York Senator [William Seward]'s words. 'Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation.'" [page 122]
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War
by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel (1996)
3.
Socialism In socialism, Max Weber saw acceleration of the rationalisation started in capitalism. As a critic of socialism, he warned that placing the economy entirely in the state's bureaucratic control would result in an "iron cage of future bondage".
4.
"It may also be difficult for our own age to appreciate the degree to which dynastic rulers in earlier times [and the collectivist-minded rulers for our own time] acted in accordance with the belief that their sovereign authority, which might well be exercised without much in the way of modification through processes of popular representation, was actually divinely ordained and hence of unquestionable legitimacy." [The European Revolution of 1848]5.
"THERE is nothing new in planned and controlled economy. Human beings have lived under various forms of that social security for six thousand years. The new thing is the anarchy of individualism, which has been operating freely only in this country for a century and a half."Give Me Liberty
by Rose Wilder Lane (1954)
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