Chapter 710 Lincoln, your "color" is a bit wrong!

"Advanced?" Davis almost made him amused, "Why did the Russians abolish the serfdom? The advanced should be preserved!"

Xianfeng smiled and waved his hand: "President, what you said is wrong! Russia's abolition of serfdom shows its progress, which shows that Russian peasants have grown up and progressed under the serfdom and have the conditions to gain greater freedom. Otherwise, the Tsar would not have taken the initiative to start the reform of serfdom! In fact, the serfdom in European countries was voluntarily abolished by serf owners. It seems that no country abolished serfdom because of the serf uprising, right?"

Davis, Hammond, Breckenridge and others thought hard, it seemed to be true! I have never heard of any country's serfs rebelling in order to become tenants.

Xianfeng smiled and said, "What does this mean? It shows the superiority of serfdom! Serfdom can develop itself to the tenant rent system, and serfs will gradually evolve into tenant farmers or workers. Of course, this evolutionary process is not a matter of one or two generations. In addition, do you know what system did this serfdom develop from?"

"This." Davis tilted his head and thought, "It should be slavery, right?"

Hammond said: "It must be slavery! I know that ancient Rome and ancient Greece had slaves, but they disappeared in the Middle Ages. They must have turned slaves into serfs!"

"Yes!" Xianfeng clapped his hands, "Slaves evolved into serfs. This is the progress of society! And social progress must be gradual. Isn't this what the advanced countries in Europe are like? First, it is slavery, then it is serfs, and then it is liberating serfs and let them be tenants and workers. So now, if the United States wants to abolish slavery, should it turn slaves into serfs? Otherwise, what can they become? It can't become workers and go to factories in the north to compete with white workers for jobs, right?"

"It makes sense!" Davis slapped the table. "If Lincoln wanted the black slaves to work as workers in the factory, the white workers in the north would not support him!"

Breckenridge smiled and said, "Those poor white people in the north should know that they will fight to death. In the end, they will only fight millions of cheap black people to compete for their jobs. The Northern Army will definitely collapse!"

Raymond frowned and asked, "What is the difference between this serf and a slave?"

This has asked Davis and Breckenridge, the white American masters in the southern United States! Their ancestors were all middle and lower-class liberals from the Old Continent. They didn't know the superiority of serfdom, and they couldn't tell the difference between this serf and slave?

Fortunately, they also have senior White House adviser Zhao Si - Xianfeng.

Xianfeng not only worked as a slave owner, but also a serf owner, and a large landlord. Of course, he knew how to distinguish between slaves, serfs and tenants.

Xianfeng immediately explained: "Slaves are the owner's property. Like livestock and tools, they can be bought, sold, given, or even executed at will! Although the personal freedom of serfs is restricted, the owner cannot kill them at will. They can only be transferred with the land, and cannot be sold separately. In addition, the slaves do not have any means of production, and the results of their labor are controlled by the owner. The serfs can keep the remaining products after paying rent to the lord, or rent a "place" and bear labor as physical rent."

Xianfeng smiled coldly: "That is to say, if you turn black slaves into serfs, you cannot kill them at will, nor can you buy and sell them separately from the land. You will also give them a small piece of land as a share of land, and exchange them for them as coolies to help you grow cotton and pick cotton."

Having said this, Xianfeng paused again, his eyes swept over the faces of white slave masters, and his ugly faces were all taken into consideration. Then he smiled faintly and said: "Slavery has appeared in most countries in the old continent, but after long-term evolution and development, they have gradually been replaced by serfdom. This is not because slaves are good, nor because the resistance of the slaves is so fierce. What I know is that no slaves have resisted to become serfs. All slaves who have successfully rebelled have become slave owners! Therefore, there is only one reason why slaves were replaced by serfdom, which is that serfdom is more economical than slavery, and can allow the owners of the land to obtain more benefits."

The Oval Office was silent.

President Davis's cigar smoke slowly hovered in the room, like a thin layer of gauze, covering the worry-filled faces of the white men.

"But can black people be good serfs?" Davis finally spoke with a little sarcastic tone. "They often slack off even as slaves. If they become serfs, wouldn't they be even more lawless?"

Xianfeng smiled slightly, picked up the teacup and took a sip, and then said slowly: "President, what you said is wrong. Slaves are lazy because they know that no matter how much they do, their destiny will not change. But serfs are different. In the fields they plant, some of the harvest is theirs. You masters can also give them a reward mechanism, so that the more they do, the more they get."

Breckenridge frowned: "But they still want to be lazy?"

"I'm still lazy? Then punish me!" Xianfeng put down his coffee cup and gently tapped the table with his fingertips. "Serfdom is not to let go. The lord has the right to punish disobedient serfs, but he can't be executed at will. Besides, slaves are a bachelor, and even their lives are not their own. In the end, punishment is nothing more than to be beaten to death. But if the slave is beaten to death, the slave owner will lose his own property? Serfs are not bachelors. Serfs can have a family, have wives and children. They have to work hard to support their families! If they are lazy every day, their wives and children will starve to death! And slaves have no wives, even if they have children, it is the property of your slave owner. No one will destroy another property because one property is not easy to use, right?"

Raymond nodded thoughtfully: "So... serfdom is actually to give black slaves some hope and let them work hard?"

"Yes." Xianfeng smiled, "make them feel that as long as they farm honestly, they can support their families, even save some money to redeem themselves, and then buy a small piece of land as a self-cultivated farmer. In this way, they will not always think about running away or being lazy."

Davis snatched out the cigar in his hand and coughed, "Maybe we can try to pass a "Serfs Act" first, allowing and encouraging slave owners to transform black slaves into serfs. If the effect is good, then spread it all over."

"We can also announce that," Xianfeng smiled slightly, "Any black man who becomes a serf, who works diligently for ten years and proves that they can really be independent, can apply to become free tenants, and can contract the next piece of land from their masters to plant it themselves."

Davis widened his eyes: "Isn't this encouraging black people to rebel? They will feel free in ten years!"

"But ten years later..." Xianfeng said softly, "The war will be over long ago. At that time, should they be tenant farmers or find reasons to extend the contract? We have the final say? The law can be modified! In addition, I can guarantee you that the tenant-rental system is definitely more profitable than the serf system! Otherwise, the serf system in the old continent would not have become tenant-rental system one by one!"

The room was quiet for a moment, and then Breckenridge laughed: "It's amazing! In this way, the blacks will feel hopeful and will not rush to rebel. And the north will lose the excuse to attack them! As for us... nothing is lost!"

Xianfeng nodded and smiled, "I have to ask the north again, what do they want the black slaves to become? Are they going to let the black slaves go to factories in the north to be workers?"

Davis slowly exhaled a smoke ring and narrowed his eyes: "That's it."

Meanwhile, in the interim presidential palace in New York, Lincoln was staring at the southern states on the map, frowning.

"If the South really engages in serfdom..." he murmured in a low voice, "Will our slogan of 'liberation of black slaves' become a joke?"

Secretary of State Seward sneered: "They are just changing their names to continue enslaving black people."

"But ordinary northerners don't understand these." Finance Minister Chase was worried. "They would think that since the South 'abolition of slavery', why do we still have to fight?"

Lincoln was silent for a moment, then suddenly looked up and asked, "Where is Senator O'Connor? Hasn't he always advocated full abolition?"

O'Connor stood up from the corner, his blue eyes flashing with the light of justice: "Mr. President, the South is playing a word game! Serfdom is a variant of slavery. As for the free tenant farmers in ten years, they are variants of serfdom, and we must expose them!"

"How to expose it?" General Sherman sneered, "Do we want to tell the workers in the north: 'Hey, don't believe in the southern style, they just turn black people from slaves to serfs'? But workers will ask what we want to turn black slaves into? If black slaves don't grow cotton in the field, what else can they do? Do they really let them go to the factory to be workers?"

The room was silent for a moment.

Lincoln rubbed his temples and said slowly: "The workers actually don't care what the black slaves will become? What they care about is actually what they will become?"

"President, what do you want workers to become?" New York Governor Morgan looked at Lincoln with a little vigilant.

Could you, Lincoln, want the workers to become the owner of the factory? Why did your face turn red?

Lincoln pondered for a while, then looked at the "representatives of capital" in front of him and frowned: "I mean, learn from the Chinese people in the western coast of California, Oregon, and Washington Territory, and take out the land belonging to the federal state of the Midwest to American citizens or foreign immigrants who are willing to fight for the United States! Give the white proletariat the opportunity to become small farmers by fighting for the United States, owning one or two hundred acres of land!"

Most of the people in the room frowned - learn from the Chinese on the West Coast? Isn’t it… the way for European “ghosts”?
Chapter completed!