Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/79

Rh ravage, but you cannot conquer. If I were an American, while a foreign troop remained in my land, I would never lay down my arms; no, never, never, never!"

But I wander a little from my theme, the effect of the war on the morals of the nation. Here are 50,000 or 75,000 men trained to kill. Hereafter they will be of little service in any good work. Many of them were the off-scouring of the people at first. Now, these men have tasted the idleness, the intemperance, the debauchery of a camp; tasted of its riot, tasted of its blood ! They will come home before long, hirelings of murder. What will their influence be as fathers, husbands ? The nation taught them to fight and plunder the Mexicans for the nation's sake; the Governor of Massachusetts called on them in the name of "patriotism" and "humanity" to enlist for that work: but if, with no justice on our side, it is humane and patriotic to fight and plunder the Mexicans on the nation's account, why not for the soldier to fight and plunder an American on his own account? Ay, why not?—that is a distinction too nice for common minds; by far too nice for mine.

See the effect on the nation. "We have just plundered Mexico; taken a piece of her territory larger than the thirteen states which fought the Revolution, a hundred times as large as Massachusetts ; we have burnt her cities, have butchered her men, have been victorious in every contest. The Mexicans were as unprotected women; we, armed men. See how the lust of conquest will increase. Soon it will be the ambition of the next President to extend the "area of freedom" a little further south ; the lust of conquest will increase. Soon we must have Yucatan, Central America, all of Mexico, Cuba, Porto Rico, Hayti, Jamaica—all the islands of the Gulf. Many men would gladly, I doubt not, extend the "area of freedom" so as to include the free blacks of those islands. We have long looked with jealous eyes on West Indian emancipation—hoping the scheme would not succeed. How pleasant it would be to re-establish slavery in Hayti and Jamaica, in all the islands whence the gold of England or the ideas of France have driven it out. If the South wants this, would the North object? The possession of the West Indies would bring much money to New England, and what is