When we contemplate the actual results of the change in question, and compare the state of the working classes in countries where they are free, with the state of a slave class, we find that the only benefits of freedom, which have been fully enjoyed by the laboring classes, are the _negative_ ones, (such as exemption from bodily inflictions, and other ill treatment;) but that the _positive_ benefits which they have hitherto derived from the social independence, have been less prominent. The _positive_ benefits--which are economical and domestic--which consist in the acquisition, enjoyment and transmission of wealth, and in the development of the family affections--are more remote, and depend on numerous preliminary conditions which hitherto have rarely co-existed in any community. The entire harvest of the change will not be reaped until civilization has made further progress--until the providence, industry, intelligence, and peaceableness of the working man are such as to render him altogether fit for self-support, and to protect society against the shocks arising from his delusions and violence.
But, in proportion as the positive advantages are distant, the disadvantages of the change make themselves sensibly felt. As soon as slavery has ceased to exist, the freedom of action for the working classes is complete; they are masters of their own conduct, and their conduct determines the condition of the great mass of the community. If, then, their moral state is low, and they are exempt from all legal compulsion, they are likely to make a bad use of their liberty. Whenever the moral restraints are weak, and the rights of the freeman are exercised without limitation, and with an inward consciousness of power, political or social dangers cannot be far off. A slave-class, emancipated at once, affords the strongest example of the evils arising under this influence. Their moral condition is, at the best, like that of children; they have had no experience of self-management; and the rights of freedom are, from their novelty, prized most highly. Some countries, however, from which slavery has long been banished, exhibit a nearly similar state of things. Thus, in Ireland, the freedom of the working classes has produced the smallest amount of positive advantages, combined with the largest amount of disadvantages. The peasantry are in the lowest physical degradation; they derive the smallest possible quantum of happiness from their power of disposing of themselves and their families, and of acquiring property; while their rights of citizenship are too frequently perverted to purposes detrimental to themselves, and dangerous to the public peace.