But does the impending revolution imply a peaceful change or a bloody struggle?
No person who will take the trouble to carefully observe the conditions of the various departments of society can fail to discern the terrible earthquakes just ready to burst out upon every side, and which are only now restrained by the thick incrustations with which customs, prejudices and authorities have incased humanity. Indeed, the whole surface of humanity is surging like the billows of the stormy ocean, and it only escapes general and destructive rupture because its composition, like the consciences of its constituent members, is so elastic. But, anon, the restrained furies will overcome the temper of their fastenings, and, rending them asunder, will sweep over the people, submerging them or cleansing them of their gathered debris, as they shall have located themselves, with regard to its coming.
All the struggles of humanity in the centuries which have come and gone have been for freedom—for freedom to think and for freedom to act, as against authority and despotic law, without regard to what should come of that thought and action. But we are now entering upon a struggle for something quite different from this. Having obtained freedom from the despotism of rulers and governments, the rule and despotism of individuals began to usurp the places made vacant by them. Where once the king or the emperor reigned, capital, reinforced by the power of public opinion and religious authorities, now sits and forges chains with which to fetter and bind the people. Where, by divine right, men once demanded the results of the labors of their people, the privileged few, by the means of an ingenious system, facetiously called popular laws, now make the same demand, and with equally decisive results. The demand is answered by the return of the entire proceeds of each year’s surplus productions into their coffers. And this is no more true of the pauper laborers of Europe and the slave laborers of Asia than it is of the free labor of America. Six hundred millions people constantly toil all their lives long, while about ten millions sit quietly by gathering and luxuriating in their results.
Simple freedom, then, is not enough. It has not accomplished the redemption of the people. It has only relieved them from one form of slavery to leave them at the mercy of another still more insidious in its character, because more plausible; since, if penury and want exist, accompanied by suffering and privation, under the rule of a monarch, he may justly be held responsible. But when it exists under the reign of freedom, there is no responsibility anywhere, unless it may be said to be in the people themselves, which is equivalent to saying responsibility without application.