Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/339

Rh sell her own children, how will this "well-born, well-educated, well-bred aristocrat" look down on the poor and ignorant Yankee, when the "gentlemen" of the Old Dominion do not bring a high price in the flesh market. No, this iniquity is not to last for ever! A certain amount of force will compress a cubic foot of water into nine-tenths of its natural size; but beyond that, the weight of the whole earth cannot make it any smaller. Even the North is not infinitely compressible. When atom touches atom, you may take off the screws.

Things cannot continue long in this condition. Every triumph of slavery is a day’s march towards its ruin. There is no higher law, is there? "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness." "The counsel of the wicked is carried,"—ay, but it is carried headlong.

Only see what a change has come over our spirit just now. Three years ago, Isaiah Rynders and Hiram Ketchum domineered over New York. Those gentlemen who are to follow me, and whom you are impatient to hear, were mobbed down in this city two years ago; they could not find a hall which would be leased to them for money or love, and had to adjourn to Syracuse to hold their convention. Look as this assembly now.

A little while ago all the leading clergymen were in favour of the Fugitive Slave Bill; now three thousand of New England's ministers remonstrate against Nebraska. They know there is a fire in their rear, and, in theological language, it is a fire that "is not quenched;" it goeth not out by day; and there is no night there. The clergymen stand between eternal torment on one side, and the "little giant of slavery" on the other. They do not turn back! Two thousand English clergymen once became non-conformists in a single day. Three thousand New England ministers remonstrated against the enslavement of Nebraska. When the "gentlemen of the Old Dominion" find their sons and daughters do not bring a high price in the flesh-markets of the South, they will doubt the "divinity of slavery."

Now is the time to push and be active, call meetings, bring out men of all parties, all forms of religion; agitate, agitate, agitate. Make a fire in the rear of the Government and the Representatives. The South is weak—only