Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/134

Rh proprietors own thirteen hundred millions of money invested in men. In virtue thereof they control the legislation of their own States, making their institutions despotic, and not republican; they keep the poor white man from political power, from comfort, from the natural means of education and religion; they destroy his self-respect, and leave him nothing but his body; from the poorest of the poor, they take away his body itself. Next they control the legislation of America; they make the President, they appoint the Supreihe Court, they control the Senate, the Representatives; they determine the domestic and foreign policy of the nation. Finally, they affect the laws of all the other sixteen States—the Southern hand colouring the local institutions of New Haven and Boston.

That is only one example—one of many. Russia is governed by a long-descended Czar; England by a Queen, nobles, and gentry,—men of ancient family, with culture and riches. America is ruled by a troop of men with nothing but new money and what it brings—three hundred thousand slaveholders and their servants, North and South. Boston is under their thumb; at their command the mayor spits in the face of Massachusetts law, and plants a thousand bayonets at the people's throat. They make ball cartridges under the eaves of Faneuil Hall.

Accordingly, money is the great object of desire and pursuit. There are material reasons why this is so in many lands:—in America there are also social, political, and ecclesiastical reasons for it. "To be rich is to be blessed: poverty is damnation: "that is the popular creed.

The public looks superficially at the immediate effect of this opinion, at this exceeding and exclusive desire for riches; they see its effect on Israel and John Jacob, on Stephen, Peter, and Robert: it makes them rich, and their children respectable and famous. Few ask. What effect will this have on the nation? They foresee not the future evil it threatens. Nay, they do not consider how it debauches the institutions of America—ecclesiastical, academic, social, political; how it corrupts the hearts of the people, making them prize money as the end of life, and manhood as only the means thereto, making money master, and human nature its tool or servant, but no more.

The political effect of this unnatural esteem for riches is.