Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/263

Rh See how the sons of the Puritans, as soon as they came to a consciousness of what the despotic idea was, took their charters and wiped slavery clean out, first from Massachusetts, and then from the other States, one after another. See how every Northern State, in revising its Constitution, or in making a new one, declares all men are created equal, that all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Then the religion of the North demands the same thing. Professors may try to prove that the Old Testament establishes slavery; that the New Testament justifies the existence of slavery; that Paul's epistle to Philemon was nothing more than another fugitive slave law, that Paul himself sent back a runaway; but it does not touch the religion of the North. We know better. We say if the Old Testament does that and the New Testament, so much the worse for them both. We say, "Let us look and see if Paul was so benighted/' and we can judge for ourselves that the professor was mistaken more than the apostle.

Again, the spirit of the age, which is the public opinion of the nations, is against slavery. It was broken down in England, France, Italy, and Spain ; it cannot stand long against civilization and good sense; against the political economy and the religious economy of the civilized world. The genius of freedom stands there, year out, year in, and hurls firebrands into the owl's nest of the prince of darkness, continually,—and is all this with no effect?

Besides that, it is against the law of God. That guides this universe, treating with even-handed justice the great geographical parties, Austrian, Poman, British, or American, with the same justice wherewith it dispenses its blessings to the little local factions that divide the village for a day, marshalling mankind forward in its mighty progress towards wisdom, freedom, goodness towards men, and piety towards God.

Of the final issue I have no doubt; but no man can tell what shall come to pass in the meantime. We see that political parties in the State are snapped asunder: whether the national party shall not be broken up, no man can say. In 1750, on the 28th day of November, no man in Old England or New England could tell what 1780 would bring forth. No man, North or South, can tell to-day