Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/305

Rh retail the agony of women? Even the mediaeval Pope, the slave of stronger despots, who appropriately sends us his red-handed Bedini, to be lauded by aspirants for the Presidency—would shrink from this. No Russian despot has his sons as slaves to wait on him at table. You must come to America to find a Cossack President who could boast that honour! Do you believe this wickedness is always to continue? Can the Anglo-Saxon become Spanish? New England like Bolivia, Peru, Laguira, Mexico? The wheels of time turn not back. We cannot break the continuity of human history. See how mankind marches towards freedom, each step a revolution. See what has been done in four hundred years, for the freedom of man in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, or even in Spain! Lay down your ear to the great deep of humanity, and hearken to the ground-swell which goes on therein. That roar of mighty waters, does it whisper security to the tyrant? The next four hundred years what shall it do against Theocracy, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Despotocracy? See what the Anglo-Saxon in Europe has done for freedom since the first James! Compare the England of 1854 with the England of 1604. What a growth of liberal institutions; of freedom in the people! England loving liberty, loving law, goes on still building up the Cyclopaean walls of humanity, the bulwark of freedom for mankind. See what the same Anglo-Saxon has done in America. Compare the colonies of 1754 with the States of 1854. What a progress! Are we to stop here?

See what Massachusetts has done. Slavery was always a contradiction in the consciousness of New England. So in 1641, Massachusetts enacted that "there shall never be any bond-slavery, villanage, or captivity amongst us, unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars," &c. In 1646, the colony bore " witness against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing," and restored to Guinea some captives wickedly taken thence. But yet slavery existed, and cruel laws afflicted its victims. Listen to the following. In 1636, "it is ordered that no servant shall be set free—until he have served out the time covenanted:" that "when any servants shall run away from their masters… it shall be lawful for the next magistrate^ or the con-