Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/147

134 but it is involved in the measures of both State and nation. This idea is founded in the selfishness of man; it is atheistic.

The idea must lead to a corresponding government; that will be unjust in its substance—for it will depend not on natural right, but on personal force; not on the constitution of the universe, but on the compact of men. It is the abnegation of God in the universe and of conscience in man. Its form will be despotism—the government of all by a part, for the sake of a part. It may be a single-headed despotism, or a despotism of many heads; but whether a Cyclops ora Hydra, is is alike "the abomination which maketh desolate." Its ultimate consequence is plain to foresee—poverty to a nation, misery, ruin.

At first Slavery came as a measure; nothing was said about it as a principle. But in a country full of school- masters, legislatures, newspapers, talking men—a measure without a principle to bear it up is like a single twig of willow cast out on a wooden floor ; there is nothing for it to grow by; it will die. So of late the principle has been boldly avowed. Mr. Calhoun denied the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence; denied the natural, unalienable, and equal rights of man. Many since have done the same — political, literary, and mercantile men, and, of course, ecclesiastical men; there are enough of them always in the market. All parts of the idea of Slavery have been affirmed by prominent men at the North and the South. It has been acted on in the formation of the constitution of every slave State, and in the passage of many of its laws. It lies at the basis of a great deal of national legislation.

Hear the opinions of some of our Southern patriots: "Slavery is coeval with society:" "It was commended by God's chosen theocracy, and sanctioned by His Apostles in the Christian Church." All ancient literature "is the literature of slaveholders;" "Rome and Greece owed their literary and national greatness exclusively to the institution of Slavery;" "Slavery is as necessary for the welfare of the Southern States as sxmshine is for the flowers of the prairies;" "A noble and necessary institution of God's creation." "Nature is the mother and protector of