Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/330

318 what you have got. Sow the wind, will you? then reap the whirlwind. Mr Pierce said in his Inaugural, "I believe that involuntary servitude is recognized by the Constitution;" "that it stands like any other admitted right. I hold that the Compromise measures [that is, the Fugitive Slave Bill] are strictly constitutional and to be unhesitatingly carried into effect." The laws to secure the master's right to capture a man in the free States "should be respected and obeyed, not with a reluctance encouraged by abstract opinions as to their propriety in a different state of society, but cheerfully and according to the decision of the tribunal to which their exposition belongs." These words were historical,—reminiscences of the time when "no higher law" was the watchword of the American State and the American Church; they were prophetic—ominous of what we see to-day.

I. Here is the Gadsden Treaty which has just been negotiated. How bad it is I cannot say; only this: If I am rightly informed, a tract of 39,000,000 acres, larger than all Virginia, is "reannexed" to the slave soil which the "flag of our Union" already waves over. The whole thing, when it is fairly understood by the public, I think will be seen to be a more iniquitous matter than this Nebraska wickedness.

II. Then comes the Nebraska Bill, yet to be consummated. While we are sitting here in cold debate, it may be the measure has passed. From the beginning I have never had any doubts that it would pass. If it could not be put through this session—as I thought it would—I felt sure that before this Congress goes out of office, Nebraska would be slave soil. You see what a majority there was m the Senate; you see what a majority there is in the House. I know there is an opposition—and most brilliantly conducted, too, by the few faithful men; but see this: The Administration has yet three years to run. There is an annual income of sixty millions of dollars. There are forty thousand offices to be disposed of—four thousand very valuable. And do you think that a Democratic Administration, with that amount of offices, of money and time, cannot buy up Northern doughfaces enough to carry any measure it pleases? I know better. Once I thought