Labor Day 2021

There is a still lively debate as to whether Peter McGuire or Matthew Maguire should be credited as the Founder of Labor Day. You can review the particulars of the debate on the Department of Labor's "History of Labor Day" page. What is not in dispute is that on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday. The origin of an annual holiday to honor working men and women was clearly rooted in the organized labor movement, and it is certainly appropriate, on Labor Day, to acknowledge the generally positive historical contributions of private sector (non-government) labor unions to the nation's economic progress.

But here I wish to draw attention to the relationship between the labor of individuals, the creation of private property by virtue of such labor, and freedom. To do so, below is material that I have largely published previously, including on previous Labor Days. To my mind, while I will happily credit either Peter McGuire or Matthew Maguire as a founder of Labor Day – by the way, they both attended the country’s Labor Day parade in New York City in 1894 – for my purposes, it is more important today to recall how Abraham Lincoln resorted to the Declaration of Independence and the nation's Founders in thinking about the connection between labor, property, and freedom. (My colleague, Seth Cooper, the Free State Foundation's Director of Policy Studies, deserves credit too for the research and writing that led to the previous publication of much of this material.) 

 

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Though Lincoln is not often associated with, or quoted on, Labor Day, a holiday first observed a quarter century after his assassination, there is good reason, on Labor Day and every day, to consider his views on what, before the Civil War, was called the "free labor" movement.

An integral part of the anti-slavery "Free Soil" movement was rooted in a "free labor" philosophy. Here is how prize-winning historian Eric Foner put it in Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War:

For the concept of ‘free labor’ lay at the heart of the Republican ideology, and expressed a coherent social outlook, a model of the good society. Political anti-slavery was not merely a negative doctrine, an attack on southern slavery and the society built upon it; it was an affirmation of the superiority of the social system of the North—a dynamic, expanding capitalist society, whose achievements and destiny were almost wholly the result of the dignity and opportunities which it offered the average laboring man.

In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln famously called for a "new birth of freedom." Given his background and his philosophical grounding in "free labor" antislavery principles, which he consistently related to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, it is not surprising that Lincoln often cojoined freedom to an individual's natural right to enjoy the fruits of his own labor. For Lincoln, this natural right was inherent in the Declaration's pronouncement of the self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the unalienable right to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

As far back as 1847 speaking at a Whig event, Lincoln said this:

I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole.

And Lincoln frequently reminded his audiences that, "I always thought the man that made the corn should eat the corn."

This colloquial Lincolnian expression is stated in a decidedly less philosophically formal fashion than John Locke's famous injunction contained in his Second Treatise of Government:

[E]very man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.

As President, Lincoln affirmed this Lockean view of labor in his Reply to the New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association in 1864:

Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself….

As Seth Cooper and I show in our book, The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property, Lincoln's views regarding free labor and property rights extended to protection of intellectual property as well. In Chapter 10, "Adding Fuel to the Fire of Genius: Abraham Lincoln, Free Labor, and the Logic of Intellectual Property," we discuss Lincoln's 1859 Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, where he said this:

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.

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 As we celebrate Labor Day in 2021, at a time when many in America seek, sometimes mightily, to divide us based on all manner of discrete "identities," including race, gender, religion, and class, it is worth taking more than a moment to reflect on Lincoln's understanding of the importance of the "free labor" concept, and especially its integral relationship to a proper understanding of private property rights – and then, to a proper understanding of freedom itself.

On Labor Day, and every day, we should never forget the dignity that is inherent in an individual's natural right to enjoy the fruits of his or her own labor, or as Eric Foner put it, free labor's central role in America's "dynamic, expanding capitalist society, whose achievements and destiny were almost wholly the result of the dignity and opportunities which it offered the average laboring man."

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 Best wishes to all for a happy and safe Labor Day!

Labor Day 2020

Abraham Lincoln is not often associated with, or quoted on, Labor Day, a holiday first observed a quarter century after his assassination. But there is good reason, especially now but for all seasons, to consider Lincoln's views on what, before the Civil War, was called the "free labor" movement.

 

An integral part of the anti-slavery "Free Soil" movement was rooted in a "free labor" philosophy. Here is how prize-winning historian Eric Foner put it in Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War:

 

For the concept of ‘free labor’ lay at the heart of the Republican ideology, and expressed a coherent social outlook, a model of the good society. Political anti-slavery was not merely a negative doctrine, an attack on southern slavery and the society built upon it; it was an affirmation of the superiority of the social system of the North—a dynamic, expanding capitalist society, whose achievements and destiny were almost wholly the result of the dignity and opportunities which it offered the average laboring man.

 

In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln famously called for a "new birth of freedom." Given his background and his philosophical grounding in "free labor," anti-slavery principles, which he consistently related to the Declaration of Independence's ideals, it is not surprising that Lincoln often joined freedom to an individual's natural right to enjoy the fruits of his own labor. For Lincoln, such right was inherent in the Declaration's self-evident truth that all men are endowed with the unalienable right to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

 

In many of his addresses, including as far back as 1847 speaking at a Whig event, Lincoln said this, usually in more or less the same words:

 

I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole.

As often, Lincoln reminded his audiences that, "I always thought the man that made the corn should eat the corn."

 

This colloquial Lincolnian expression is stated in a decidedly less philosophically formal fashion than John Locke's famous injunction contained in his Second Treatise of Government:

 

[E]very man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.

 

As President, Lincoln affirmed this Lockean view of labor in his Reply to the New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association in 1864:

Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself….

 

As my Free State Foundation colleague Seth Cooper and I show in our book, The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property, Lincoln's views regarding free labor and property rights extended to protection of intellectual property as well. In Chapter 10, "Adding Fuel to the Fire of Genius: Abraham Lincoln, Free Labor, and the Logic of Intellectual Property," from which much of this special message is drawn, we discuss Lincoln's 1859 Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, where he said this:

 

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.

 

As we celebrate Labor Day in 2020, at a time when many in America seek to divide us based on all manner of discrete "identities," including race, gender, religion, and class, it is worth taking more than a moment to reflect on Lincoln's understanding of the importance of the "free labor" concept, and especially its integral relationship to a proper understanding of property rights, and of freedom itself.

 

On Labor Day, and every day, we should never forget the dignity that is inherent in an individual's natural right to enjoy the fruits of his or her own labor – and as Eric Foner put it, free labor's central role in America's "dynamic, expanding capitalist society, whose achievements and destiny were almost wholly the result of the dignity and opportunities which it offered the average laboring man."

 

And an important postscript: It is especially important – you could say essential – to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of so many "essential workers" who, in so many ways, have provided and maintained many crucial services during the pandemic. Thanks to these special individuals who have labored for the benefit of us all.

Labor Day 2016

I have not been nearly as regular in writing Labor Day messages as I have with my Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving Day messages. I make no apologies for that, except perhaps to offer only the weak, and not entirely true, excuse that I’ve avoided overly laboring on Labor Day weekend.

But in this roiled – and still roiling – election year, with what I consider to be the flawed nominees of our two major parties, I find myself thinking about some of our past presidents, especially those who demonstrated strength of character, intelligence, thoughtfulness, and principled leadership.

As many regular readers of this space know, I often turn to Abraham Lincoln. And so it is on this Labor Day, for Lincoln had much to say that is worth contemplating concerning “labor” and its relationship to individual freedom and the American free enterprise system.

Lincoln, of course, was America’s first Republican president. I fear that far too few today know – or appreciate – that the party of Lincoln grew out of the antebellum “Free Soil, Free Labor” movement, itself grounded, of course, in the growing antislavery agitation leading up to Lincoln’s election in 1860.

As Seth Cooper, my Free State Foundation colleague, and I showed in our recent book, The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property, Lincoln’s thought concerning “free labor” was grounded largely in his understanding of the meaning of the Declaration of Independence, most particularly the Declaration’s proclamation that all persons are endowed with certain inalienable rights, including “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” For Lincoln, this meant, consistent with the Lockean view, that every person enjoys a natural right to enjoy the fruits of his or her own labor. As Lincoln put it as early as 1847, “each person is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor.”

Or, as Lincoln put it more colorfully: “I always thought the man that made the corn should eat the corn.”

And here is Lincoln, in his 1859 Address to the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, eloquently connecting his understanding of “free labor” to the opportunity for individual advancement in the American free enterprise system:

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.

Of course, when Abraham Lincoln uttered all these words, the evil of slavery had yet to be eradicated. And more needed to be accomplished in the decades after the Civil War to protect the rights of those who had been enslaved to make meaningful the opportunity to reap the benefits of “free labor.”

That said, on this Labor Day 2016, I submit that it’s certainly worth taking at least a little time to consider what Lincoln had to say about free labor, freedom, and free enterprise. Like much of what Lincoln said, his words still resonate – and have meaning – today.

PS –  If you are interested in learning more about Lincoln and the Free Labor movement, especially including what Lincoln said about protecting intellectual property rights in the context of a person’s natural right to enjoy the fruits of his or her labor, see Chapter 10 of our book, The Constitutional Foundations ofIntellectual Property – A Natural Rights Perspective.  

  

Labor Day 2013: Lincoln, Labor, and Liberty

I've just finished reading Rich Lowry's new book, Lincoln Unbound, and as someone who has read a lot of books on Lincoln, I happily commend it to you. 

The book's rather long subtitle is "How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream – and How We Can Do It Again." As the dust jacket puts it: 

Lincoln lived the American Dream and succeeded in opening a way to it for others. He saw in the nation's founding documents the unchanging foundation of an endlessly dynamic society. He embraced the market and the amazing transportation and communications revolutions beginning to take hold.

 

At the end of his enjoyable book, Mr. Lowry takes what he understands to be Lincoln's philosophical dispositions and policy perspectives and suggests how they might be applied to address today's problems. This is an interesting, thought-provoking exercise, but you'll have to get the book to see whether or not you agree. 

For today, I just want to comment on how Lincoln's thoughts concerning what he called "free labor" relate closely – indeed, are integral – to a proper understanding of our free enterprise system and property rights and to what the Declaration of Independence refers to as the "unalienable Rights" to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While Lincoln could not have anticipated Labor Day as it has evolved today, I want to suggest that his own understanding of "labor" ought to have a special resonance as we think about the meaning of this Labor Day. 

As Lincoln's thinking evolved, and especially by the time of the Lincoln - Douglas debates, Lincoln increasingly based his argument against the abomination of slavery on his understanding of the meaning of the natural rights secured, in his view, by the Declaration of Independence. But long before rising to national prominence for his stand against human bondage, Lincoln had espoused, over and over again, his belief that an individual should reap the reward of his own labor. 

As Mr. Lowry points out, in 1847 Lincoln wrote that "each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor." Or, as he put it in a more colloquial Lincolnism: "I always thought the man that made the corn should eat the corn." 

Lincoln's views concerning free labor – and the Declaration's affirmation of the natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – were grounded in the Founders' understanding and acceptance of John Locke's work, with which they were intimately familiar and often relied upon. In his famous Second Treatise of Government, Locke put it this way: 

[E]very man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.

Note the explicit way that Locke linked an individual's own labor to his property interest.

Following Locke, James Madison, the principal drafter of our Constitution, declared that individuals possess property rights "in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their Fatigues and soothe their cares."

In his opposition to slavery, but also in a more universal sense, Lincoln repeatedly articulated the Lockean view that all individuals, of whatever race or creed, possess a natural right to enjoy the fruits of their own labor, to make those fruits their own property.

Moreover, Lincoln understood that the intertwining of free labor and property rights was essential to securing and maintaining the liberty espoused by the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Constitution – and that free labor, individual initiative, and property rights are essential elements of the American free enterprise system.

Finally, in extolling the virtue of labor and property, Lincoln frequently admonished those who would set one man or class against another. As he put it in 1864 in his reply to the New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association:

Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself….

As early as 1847 Lincoln had expressed the same thought this way:

[I]t has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have without labour, enjoyed  a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong and should not continue. To [secure] each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.

To my mind, it is always timely to consider Lincoln. And as Labor Day approaches, it is especially timely – and useful – to consider Lincoln's views on free labor, and to contemplate the inextricably intertwined nature of labor, property rights, individual freedom, and the American free enterprise system which Lincoln championed.

Whether you are working this Labor Day, or merely contemplating Lincoln's thoughts on labor, my best wishes for an enjoyable Labor Day weekend.