Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/31

Rh are pledged to this, or their silence practically purchased. Seven Presidents of your Christian Democracy have been holders of slaves; three only free from that taint. You will soon be called on to elect another slave-holder to sit in the presidential chair, and rule over a republic containing twenty millions of men.

In all the Union there is no legal asylum for the fugitive slave; no soil emancipates his hurrying feet. The States which allow no slavery within their limits legally defend the slave-holder: catch and retain the man fleeing for his manhood and his life.

I cannot call upon the political leaders of the nation. You know what they look for, and how they would treat a letter exposing a national evil, and talking of truth and justice. I do not address you as members of the political parties; they have their great or petty matters to deal with, differing in regard to free trade or protection, but are united in one policy as it respects slavery. Demagogues of both parties will play their little game, and on your shoulders ride into fame, and ease, and wealth, and power, and noise. The sects also have their special work, and need not be addressed on the subject of slavery—of human wrong.

I speak to the people, not as sectarians, Protestant or Catholic—not as Democrats or Whigs, but as Americans and as men. I solemnly believe if you all knew the facts of American slavery and its effects, as I know them, that you would end the evil before a twelvemonth had passed by. I take it for granted that you love justice and truth. I write to you, having confidence in your integrity and love of men, having confidence also in the democratic ideas on which a government should rest. In what I write you will doubtless find mistakes—errors of fact or of reasoning. I do not ask to be screened from censure even for what no diligence could wholly escape, only that you will not reject nor refuse to consider the truth of fact and of reasoning which is presented to you. A few mistakes in figures or in reasoning will not affect the general argument of this letter. Read with what prejudice you may, but decide and act according to reason and conscience.