Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/335

Rh get Cuba in order to establish slavery there, endangering the interests of England and the freedom of her coloured citizens, depend upon it, England will not suffer this to be done without herself interfering. If she is so deeply immersed in European wars that she cannot interfere directly, she will indirectly. But I have not thought that England and France are to be much engaged in a European war. I suppose the intention of the American Cabinet is to seize Cuba as soon as the British and Russians are fairly fighting, thinking that England will not interfere. But in "this war of elder sons" which now goes on for the dismemberment of Turkey, it is not clear that England will be so deeply engaged that she cannot attend to her domestic affairs, or the interest of her West Indies. I think these powers are going to divide Turkey between them, but I do not believe they are going to do much fighting there. If we are bent on seizing Cuba, a long and a ruinous fight is a thing that ought to enter into men’s calculations. Now let such a naval warfare take place, and how will your insurance stock look in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston? How will your merchants look when reports come one after another that your ships are carried in as prizes by Spain, or sunk on the ocean after they have been plundered? I speak in the great commercial "metropolis of America. I wish these things to be seriously considered by mercantile men. Let the Northern men look out for their own ships. But here is a matter which the South may think of. In case of foreign war, the North will not be the battle-field. An invading army would attack the South. Who would defend it—the local militia, the "chivalry" of South Carolina, the "gentlemen" of Virginia, who are to slaughter a hundred thousand Abolitionists in a day ? Let an army set foot on Southern soil, with a few black regiments ; let the commander offer freedom to all the slaves, and put arms in their hands; let him ask them to burn houses and butcher men; and there would be a state of things not quite so pleasant for "gentlemen" of the South to look at. "They that laughed at the grovelling worm and trod on him, may cry and howl when they see the stoop of the flying and fiery-mouthed dragon! "Now, there is only one opinion about the valour of President Pierce. Like the sword of Hudibras, it cut into itself,