Wages Slavery and Chattel Slavery

April 23, 1847

Here William West, writing for Boston, April 5, addressed to WLG, calling for greater attention to the evils of wages slavery.  The root of the problem is claimed to be in Land.  That traffic must be destroyed, that monopoly must be abolished, before slavery can be exterminated…… Do you ask how the traffic in land may be destroyed: how the monopoly of land may be abolished?  How?  Make the public domain free to actual settlers in limited quantities. Regulate the acquisition of land in such a way, that as landlords die, their landless children and their children’s landless neighbors may inherit their estates (in limited quantities)., Render the homestead inalienable. Do this, and the work is done. The bells may be rung, and LIBERTY proclaimed ‘throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof'”

Comments are closed.