Hist signature assignment

Lincoln on Free Labor and the Mud-Sill Thesis

Abraham Lincoln emerged in the 1850s as a leading Republican critic of the slaveholding South
and the political power its representatives had achieved on the national level. Like other
Republicans, Lincoln emphasized the superiority of free labor—meaning that workers were not
bound to an employer and were free negotiate wages, go on strike, or just quit—over enslaved
labor. In the passage here, Lincoln took on the “mud-sill” theory advocated by people like
James Henry Hammond (see the Proslavery Documents). Why does he reject the “mud-sill”
argument? What problem does he see in the theory’s division of society into masters and
servants (whether slave or free)? What does the theory leave out, according to Lincoln? Keep in
mind two other questions as you read: What was the relationship between wage labor and
social mobility and what was the significance of education for Lincoln?

Excerpt of Lincoln’s Speech on Free Labor vs. Slave

Labor

From: Lincoln, Abraham. “Annual Address Before the Wisconsin State Agricultural

Society, at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, September 30, 1859.” The Complete Works of

Abraham Lincoln, vol. 5. Eds. John G. Nicolay and John Hay. New York: Francis D.

Tandy Company, 1894.

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 it,

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

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own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it, without their consent. Having proceeded

so far, they naturally conclude that all laborers are naturally 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; that there is no such thing as a free

man 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

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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 nor 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 free men 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

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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.

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