Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/301

Rh self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. If he is not in gaol, his freedom is due to his own adroitness, not the justice of the "Authorities." The usurping Government strikes at those men because they love justice. Lawrence has been sacked; property destroyed, one states to the amount of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars; and I know not how many men have been murdered. I shall not speak of the violence to women. These are acts for which the General Government is responsible, committed by its creatures, who have been set upon the honest inhabitants of Kansas.

We also have a Despotic Power in the United States. There is a Russia in America, a privileged class of three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders, who own three million five hundred thousand slaves, and control four million poor whites in the South. This despotism is more barbarous than Russia; more insolent, more unscrupulous, more invasive. It has long controlled all the great offices in America. The President is only its tool. It directs the national policy, foreign and domestic; sympathizes with every foreign tyrant; and, at home, wages war on all the best institutions of the country. Impudent and consolidated, it governs the American Church and State. It says to the Tract Society, "Not a word against Slavery;" and the Tract Society bends its knees,—so limber to men, so stiff against God,—and answers, "Not a word against Slavery: we will take a South-side view of all popular wickedness. It is true, the North pays us the money; and so it is proper that the South should tell how it must be spent. Not a word against Slavery." It comes up to the Bible Society, and thunders forth, "Don't give the New Testament to the slaves!" And the Bible Society says, "Not a New Testament. Slavery is Christian. If Jesus of Nazareth were on earth, he would open a commissioner's office in Boston, and kidnap men. Judas is the beloved disciple. We never will disturb Slavery." It tells the Northern courts, legislatures, governors, "Steal men for us; kidnap your own fellow-citizens of New England, and deliver them up to be our bondsmen for ever, and then yourselves pay the costs!" And the Northern courts, legislatures, governors, citizen-soldiers, are ready: they volunteer to steal men, and then