Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/283

Rh showing how they acquired the power, and how they administer it.

In the history of mankind, this is the first attempt to found a State on the natural rights of man. It is not to be supposed that there should be national unity of action on so high a platform as that which the genius of Adams and Jefferson presented for the people then militant against oppression. There is a contradiction in the consciousness of the nation. In our industrial civilization, under the stimulus of love of wealth, and its consequent social and political power, we have made such a rapid advance in population and riches as no nation ever made. The lower powers of the understanding have also had a great development. We can plan, organize, and administer material means for material ends, as no nation has ever done. But it is not to be supposed that any people could pass all at once from the military civilization, with its fourfold despotism, to an industrial civilization with Democracy in its Church, State, community, and family. How slowly we learn; with what mistakes do we come to the true idea, and how painfully enact it into a deed! But see what results have come to pass.

In 1776, there were about 784,093 miles of territory; now there are 3,347,451. Then there were about two and a half millions of people; now there are four and twenty. In 1790, the annual revenue of America was less than four millions of dollars. Last year it was more than sixty-one. Then we had less than 698,000 slaves; now we have more than 3,204,000. In 1776, slavery was exceptional; the nation was ashamed of it. In 1774, Mr Jefferson had more democratic and Christian ideas than all Virginia has now. He said, "The abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest desire of the American people." In the first draft of the Declaration of Independence, he condemned England for fastening slavery upon us, forbidding us to abolish the slave-trade. He trembled when he remembered that "God is just." The leading men of the nation disliked slavery on principle. Some excused themselves for it,—"England forced it on us;" some thought it "expedient as a measure;" all thought it wrong as a principle. During the Revolution, the white slaves who had been