he part of the slaves, or even any
express desire on their part that they should be free. It was put down
entirely through the grossly illegal conduct of certain agitators in
Boston and elsewhere, who were not slaves themselves, nor owners of
slaves, nor had anything to do with the question really. It was,
undoubtedly, the Abolitionists who set the torch alight, who began the
whole thing. And it is curious to note that from the slaves themselves
they received, not merely very little assistance, but hardly any
sympathy even; and when at the close of the war the slaves found
themselves free, found themselves indeed so absolutely free that they
were free to starve, many of them bitterly regretted the new state of
things. To the thinker, the most tragic fact in the whole of the French
Revolution is not that Marie Antoinette was killed for being a queen,
but that the starved peasant of the Vendee voluntarily went out to die
for the hideous cause of feudalism.

It is clear, then, that no Authoritarian Socialism will do. For while
under the present system a very large number of people can lead lives of
a certain amount of freedom and expression and happiness, under an
industrial-barrack system, or a system of economic tyranny, nobody would
be able to have any such freedom at all. It is to be regretted that a
portion of our community should be practically in slavery, but to
propose to solve the problem by enslaving the entire community is
childish. Every man must be left quite free to choose his own work. No
form of compulsion must be exercised over him. If there is, his work
will not be good for him, will riot be good in itself, and will not be
good for others. And by work I simply mean activity of any kind.

I hardly think that any Socialist, nowadays, would seriously propose
that an inspector should call every morning at each house to see that
each citizen rose up and did manual labour for eight hours. Humanity has
got beyond that stage, and reserves such a form of life for the people
whom, in a very arbitrary manner, it chooses to call criminals. But I
confess that many of the socialistic views that I have come across seem
to me to be tainted with ideas of authority, if not of actual
compulsion. Of course, authority and compulsion are out of the question.
All association must be quite voluntary. It is only in voluntary
associations that man is fine.

But it may be asked how Individualism, which is now more or less
depend