Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/303

Rh watches in the Senate Chamber till his enemy is alone, then steals up behind him as he sits writing, when his arms are pinioned in his heavy chair and his other limbs are under the desk, and on his naked head strikes him with a club loaded with lead, until he falls, stunned and bleeding, to the floor, and then continues his coward blows. South Carolina is very chivalrous! If an Irishman in Cove Place should strike another Irishman after he was down, it would be thought a very heinous offence amongst Irishmen. If Patrick had Michael down, and then beat him, (pardon me, forty thousand Irishmen in Boston, that I suppose it possible!) it would be thought a great outrage. Cove Place would hoot him forth with a shout of contemptuous rage. But when a son of South Carolina beats a defenceless man over the head, after he has stunned him and brought him to the ground, it is very chivalrous ! South Carolina applauds it, and gets up a testimonial to do it honour. All the South will commend the mode as well as the matter of the deed.

This American oligarchy means to destroy all our democratic institutions. Russian despotism is not more hostile to liberty in Europe than the Slave Power to freedom here. But the slaveholders are not alone. American and Russian despotism have the same allies,—the corruption of many controlling men, such as direct the politics of the North, and to a great extent also its large commerce. Since the settlement of the country, the great mass of Northern men have never been so well educated and so moral. But the controlling class of men, who manage the high commerce and fill the political offices, have never been so corrupt, so unpatriotic, so mean and selfish. Will you say I am mistaken? Then the error is of long standing; a judgment formed after careful study of the past, and a wide knowledge of the present. Look at Massachusetts, the State officials, the United States officials, the United States Court in New England: can the past furnish a parallel since Andros was Commissioner, and Papal James II. was King? The Hutchinsons and the Olivers of revolutionary times would blush to be named with men whose brow no wickedness can shame. It would be cruel to Benedict Arnold to compare him with certain other sons of New England now in high official place.