Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/270

258 Church State, or community; so the accident of superior power gives no man a right in the family to hold others in bondage and subordination, for his advantage and against theirs. It is only to admit that all are Men, for manhood carries all human rights with it, as land the crops, and the substance its primary qualities. It seems a small thing to do;—especially for men able to dispense and make way with the other mediaeval forms of vicarious rule—theocracy, monarchy, and aristocracy. How easy it seemed to inaugurate personality and individualism in the family! But as matters were, this was the most difficult thing of all. For the priests, the kings, the nobles did not come over—only the tradition thereof, and the habit of subordination thereto, with a few feeble scions of the sacerdotal, royal, and noble stocks—and preaching against these always was popular,—while the masters came over in large numbers, bringing their slaves. They brought the substance of Despotocracy along with them, not merely its tradition. To preach against that was always a "sin" to the American Church. But man wants unity of consciousness. Accordingly, in New England good men began early to feel that absolute and perpetual slavery was a wicked thing. Had not the letter of the Old Testament and of certain passages in the New blinded their eyes, I think the Puritan would have seen more clearly than he did see. Still, with so much of the spirit of the Old Testament in him, he could not but see it was wrong to steal men for the purpose of making them slaves and their children after them. So slavery was always a contradiction in the consciousness of New England. The white slaves became free on expiration of their term of service, or were set free before. There were many such. The red men would not work-and were let alone, or quietly shot down. The Indians killed the white man and scalped him; the Puritan omitted the scalping—it was not worth his while; the scalp was of no use.

The slavery of the blacks never prevailed extensively in New England. It was not found very profitable. True it prevailed: it had the laws and the tradition of the elders on its side. But it was yet felt, known, and confessed to be at variance with the ecclesiastical, political, and social ideas of the people. There was always a good deal of conscience in New England. The religious origin of the