Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/329

Rh how costly was the chateau of the noble. Monopoly was bad for the people; profitable for the rich men. How poor are the peasants in Italy; how wealthy the Cardinals and the Pope. Oppression enriches the oppressor; it makes poorer the down-trodden. Piracy is very costly to the merchant and to mankind; but it feeds the pirate. Slavery impoverishes Virginia, but it enriches the master. It gives him money—commercial power,—office—political power. The slave-holder is drawn in his triumphal chariot by two chattels; one, the poor black man, whom he "owns legally," the other is the poor white man, whom he "owns morally" and harnesses to his chariot. Hence these American lords of the lash cleave to this institution — they love it. To the slave-holders, slavery is money and power!

Now the South, weak in numbers, feeble in respect to money, has continually directed the politics of America just as she would. Her ignorance and poverty were more efficacious than the Northern riches and education. She is in earnest for slavery; the North not in earnest for freedom; only earnest for money. So long as the Federal Government grinds the axes of the Northern merchant, he cares little whether the stone is turned by the freeman's labour or the slave's. Hence, the great centres of Northern commerce and manufactures are also the great centres of pro-slavery politics. Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Buffalo, Cincinnati, they all liked the Fugitive Slave Bill ; all took pains to seize the fugitive who fled to a Northern altar for freedom; nay, the most conspicuous clergymen in those cities became apostles of kidnapping ; their churches were of commerce, not Christianity. The North yielded to that last most insolent demand. Under the influence of that excitement she chose the present Administration, the present Congress. Now see the result! Whig and Democrat meet on the same platform at Baltimore. It was the platform of slavery. Both candidates—Scott and Pierce—gave in their allegiance to the same measure; it was the measure which nullifies the first principles of American Independence—they were sworn on the Fugitive Slave Bill. Whig and Democrat knew no "higher law," only the statute of slave-holders. Conscience bent down before the Constitution. What sort of a government can you expect from such conduct? What Representatives? Just