In the second College Advantage assignment, one of the document links is not working. That document is located below.
Excerpt from Abraham
Lincoln, “Address Before the Wisconsin State
Agricultural Society”
(1859):
http://www.nal.usda.gov/speccoll/exhibits/lincoln/lincoln_wisconsin.html
The world is
agreed that labor is the source from which human wants are mainly supplied.
There is no dispute upon this point. From this point, however, men immediately
diverge. Much disputation is maintained as to the best way of applying and
controlling the labor element. By some it is assumed that labor is available
only in connection with capital--that nobody labors, unless somebody else,
owning capital, somehow, by the use of that capital, induces him to do it.
Having assumed this, they proceed to consider whether it is best that capital
shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent; or buy
them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far they
naturally conclude that all laborers are necessarily either hired laborers, or
slaves. They further assume that whoever is once a hired laborer, is fatally
fixed in that condition for life; and thence again that his condition is as bad
as, or worse than that of a slave. This is the “mud-sill” theory.
But another
class of reasoners hold the opinion that there is no such relation between
capital and labor, as assumed; and that there is no such thing as a freeman
being fatally fixed for life, in the condition of a hired laborer, that both
these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them groundless. They hold
that labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is
the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first
existed--that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never
have existed without labor. Hence they hold that labor is the superior--greatly
the superior--of capital.
They do not deny
that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and
capital. The error, as they hold, is in assuming that the whole labor of the
world exists within that relation. A few men own capital; and that few avoid
labor themselves, and with their capital, hire, or buy, another few to labor
for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others,
nor have others working for them. Even in all our slave States, except South
Carolina, a majority of the whole people of all colors, are neither slaves nor
masters. In these Free States, a large majority are neither hirers or hired.
Men, with their families--wives, sons and daughters--work for themselves, on
their farms, in their houses and in their shops, taking the whole product to
themselves, and asking no favors of capital on the one hand, nor of hirelings
or slaves on the other. It is not forgotten that a considerable number of
persons mingle their own labor with capital; that is, labor with their own
hands, and also buy slaves or hire freemen to labor for them; but this is only
a mixed, and not a distinct class. No principle stated is disturbed by the
existence of this mixed class. Again, as has already been said, the opponents
of the “mud-sill” theory insist that there is not, of necessity, any such thing
as the free hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life. There is
demonstration for saying this. Many independent men, in this assembly,
doubtless a few years ago were hired laborers. And their case is almost if not
quite the general rule.
The prudent,
penniless beginner in the world, labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with
which to buy tools or land, for himself; then labors on his own account another
while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This, say its
advocates, is free labor--the just and generous, and prosperous system, which
opens the way for all--gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and
improvement of condition to all. If any continue through life in the condition
of the hired laborer, it is not the fault of the system, but because of either
a dependent nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or singular
misfortune. I have said this much about the elements of labor generally, as
introductory to the consideration of a new phase which that element is in
process of assuming. The old general rule was that educated people did not
perform manual labor. They managed to eat their bread, leaving the toil of
producing it to the uneducated. This was not an insupportable evil to the
working bees, so long as the class of drones remained very small. But now,
especially in these free States, nearly all are educated--quite too nearly all,
to leave the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of
the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must labor.
Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and intolerable evil. No
country can sustain, in idleness, more than a small percentage of its numbers.
The great majority must labor at something productive. From these premises the
problem springs, “How can labor and education be the most satisfactory
combined?”