Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/88

76 us perish; let the Union perish! No; let that stand firm, and let the Northern men themselves he slaves ; and let us go to our masters and say, "You are very few, we are very many; we have the wealth, the numbers, the intelligence, the religion of the land, but you have the power; do not be hard upon us; pray give us a little something, some humble offices; or if not these, at least a tariff, and we will be content."

Slavery has already been the blight of this nation, the curse of the North and the curse of the South. It has hindered commerce, manufactures, agriculture. It con- founds your politics. It has silenced your ablest men. It has muzzled the pulpit, and stifled the better life out of the press. It has robbed three million men of what is dearer than life; it has kept back the welfare of seventeen millions more. You ask, Americans, where is the harmony of the Union? It was broken by slavery. Where is the treasure we have wasted? It was squandered by slavery. Where are the men we sent to Mexico? They were murdered by slavery ; and now the slave power comes forward to put her new minions, her thirteenth President, upon the nation's neck! Will the North say "Yes?" But there is a Providence which rules the world—a plan in His affairs. Shall all this war, this aggression of the slave power, be for nothing? Surely not. Let it teach us two things Everlasting hostility to slavery; everlasting love of Justice and of its Eternal Right. Then, dear as we may pay for it, it may be worth what it has cost—the money and the men. I call on you, ye men—fathers, brothers, husbands, sons—to learn this lesson, and, when duty calls, to show that you know it—know it by heart and at your fingers' ends! And you, ye women—mothers, sisters, daughters, wives—I call on you to teach this lesson to your children, and let them know that such a war is sin, and slavery sin, and, while you teach them to hate both, teach them to be men, and do the duties of noble, Christian, and manly men! Behind injustice there is ruin, and above man there is the everlasting God.