Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/73

Rh conqueror, is wholly lost. Had Mexico been a strong nation, we should never have had this conflict. A few years ago, when General Cass wanted a war with England, "an old-fashioned war," and declared it "unavoidable," all the men of property trembled. The Northern men thought of their mills and their ships ; they thought how Boston and New York would look after a war with our sturdy old father over the sea ; they thought we should lose many millions of dollars and gain nothing. The men of the South, who have no mills and no ships, and no large cities to be destroyed, thought of their "peculiar institution;" they thought of a servile war; they thought what might become of their slaves, if a nation which gave $100,000,000 to emancipate her bondmen should send a large army with a few black soldiers from Jamaica; should offer money, arms, and freedom to all who would leave their masters and claim their unalienable rights. They knew the southern towns would be burnt to ashes, and the whole South, from Virginia to the Gulf, would be swept with fire; and they said, "Don't." The North said so, and the South; they feared such a war with such a foe. Everybody knows the effect which this fear had on southern politicians in the beginning of this century, and how gladly they made peace with England soon as she was at liberty to turn her fleet and her army against the most vulnerable part of the nation. I am not blind to the wickedness of England more than ignorant of the good things she has done and is doing ; a Paradise for the rich and strong, she is still a Purgatory for the wise and the good, and the Hell of the poor and the weak. I have no fondness for war anywhere, and believe it needless and wanton in this age of the world—surely needless and wicked between Father England and Daughter America; but I do solemnly believe that the moral effect of such an old-fashioned war as Mr. Cass in 1845 thought unavoidable, would have been better than that of this Mexican war. It would have ended slavery ; ended it in blood, no doubt, the worst thing to blot out an evil with ; but ended it, and for ever. God grant it may yet have a more peaceful termination. We should have lost millions of property and thousands of men, and then, when peace came, we should know what it was worth ; and as the burnt child