Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/73

Rh ideas hostile thereto, and which could not be made real in England, but were destined—as are all such ideas—to form institutions and make laws in their own image. There are three such political ideas which have already found a theoretical expression, and have more or less been made facts and become incarnate in institutions and laws. These are, first, the idea, that in virtue of his manhood,, not derived from men or revocable thereby, but derived only from God; second, that in respect to these rights ; third, that. The priesthood, nobility, royalty, did not share these ideas—nor the sentiments which led to them. These ideas were of the people; they must form a democracy, the government of all, for all, and by all—a commonwealth with no privileged class—a state without nobles or kings, a church without prelate or priest. These ideas, in becoming facts and founding political institutions to represent themselves, modified also the ancient and common law. "The laws of England," said Sir John Fortescue, in the fifteenth century, "the laws of England favour liberty in every case;" "let him who favours not liberty be judged impious and cruel." After the national and solemn expression of the above democratic ideas, the laws must favour liberty yet more, and new institutions likewise come into being. Accordingly, in the free States of the North, where these ideas have always had the fullest practical exposition, ever since the Revolution there has been a continual advance in legislation—laws becoming more humane, universal principles getting established, and traditional exceptions becoming annulled. In law—the theory of these ideas—so far as expressed in institutions and habits; and in society—the practice thereof, so far as they have passed into actual life,—there is a constant levelling upward; the low are raised—the slave, the servant, the non-freeholder; the lofty not degraded. In the constitutions of nearly all the free States it is distinctly stated that all men are created equal in rights, and in all it is implied. They are all advancing towards a realization of that idea—slowly, but