Eric Foner Quote

The assumption that the slave is in a better condition than the hired laborer, includes the further assumption that he who is once a hired laborer always remains a hired laborer; that there is a certain class of men who remain through life in a dependent condition…. In point of fact that is a false assumption. There is no such thing as a man who is a hired laborer, of a necessity, always remaining in his early condition. The general rule is otherwise. I know it is so, and I will tell you why. When at an early age, I was myself a hired laborer, at twelve dollars per month…. A young man…works industriously, he behaves soberly, and the result of a year or two’s labor is a surplus account. Now he buys land on his own hook…. There is no such thing as a man being bound down in a free country through his life as a laborer…. Improvement in condition…is the great principle