Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/257



next Sunday it will be nine years since I first spoke to you in this city, coming at your request. In the first discourse I spoke of the Necessity of Religion for the Conduct of the Individual and the State. Since that time several crises have occurred in our national affairs which have led me to endeavour to apply the great principles of Religion to the political measures of this nation. It is something more than a year since any such event has called forth such treatment in this place. But now another assault has been made upon the liberty of man, in America, and so to-day I ask your attention to some thoughts on the new assault upon freedom in America, and the general state of the country in relation thereunto.

To comprehend the matter clearly, and the cause and the consequences of this special iniquity now contemplated, we must begin far off and study the general course of human conduct in America,—the last new continent left as a stage for the development of mankind. The transfer of the Anglo-Saxon tribe to this Western