In more modern times there was the bond slave of Europe, the soil slave who could not leave his plot of ground. Yet he had certain rights. If he was bound to the soil, at least he was free to remain on it; the master could not drive him off, and even on sale or transfer of the ground the occupant's privilege was inviolable. He still retained his right to cultivate, and had to be cared for and protected in the event of war. That he could not go where he pleased seems an evil today, but the world was different then. Travel was a serious matter, involving expense and arms. The highways were dangerous. It is certain that in the social relaxations of those days inferiors had a share, and these entertainments were on a scale undreamed of now. Feasting, drinking and games went on for weeks, and the underling had his pleasure with the lord, and no bill to pay.

These facts have been lost sight of, on account of the merciless propaganda of the French revolutionists, who desired to blacken as much as they could the system they were bent on destroying. But no intelligent man now can see anything more in that period of philosophical madness than the summit of a movement that finally broke down feudalism, not to liberate man, but to force him into the arms of a rising factory system. He became free—but only to sell his toil at a sacrifice of privilege, and for a bare subsistence wage. It is notorious that at the time the factory system arose, when France and England were warring for commercial supremacy, wages were lower than they had been for centuries, considering their purchasing power. It was only after prolonged labour conflicts that conditions again approximated ancient levels. The story of the state of English labour at the close of the eighteenth century is almost incredible, and yet the ancestors of this wretched class had been the yeomanry of Merrie England. In more recent days slavery became a burning issue in America. The propaganda against the southern slave owner was charged with misrepresentation, wilful and otherwise. No tale of cruelty was too wild to find avid believers. Yet these stories were, in the main, quite untrue. Cruelty existed, to be sure, for there were cruel men in the South, as there were in the North, but they were looked down upon by all decent men. The most cruel class was that of the overseers, and they were often slaves themselves. The destruction of the slave system in the South was not, however, due to the propaganda mentioned. That was only an instrument used after the thing had been decided on. An economic antagonism had developed between the sections, and it was not altogether simple in character. Its dominant factors were, first, friction over the tariff system of the North, which taxed the planter, whose relations were almost altogether with Europe, since it was there he disposed of his cotton, and secondly, the belief in the North that free coloured labor could be used there to compete with the white European.

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The book has many interesting comments on general issues.

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The Free Lance Books series from Alfred A. Knopf:

1. Youth and Egolatry
Pío Baroja

2. Ventures in Common Sense
E. W. Howe

3. The Antichrist
F. W. Nietzsche

4. We Moderns
Edwin Muir

5. Democracy and the Will to Power
James N. Wood

6. In Defence of Women
H. L. Mencken

All six have been edited, and have an introduction, by H. L. Mencken. “Other volumes in preparation.”