Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/152

Rh port from their own local roots, and spread into great and independent trees. All this may take place without fighting. Massachusetts and Maine were once a single State; now friendly sisters. But I do not think this "dissolution of the Union" will take place immediately, or very soon. For America is not now ruled—as it is commonly thought—either by the mass of men who follow their national, ethnological, and human instincts; or by a few far-sighted men of genius for politics, who consciously obey the Law of God made clear in their own masterly mind and conscience, and make statutes in advance of the calculation or even the instincts of the people, and so manage the ship of State that every occasional tack is on a great circle of the Universe, a right line of justice, and therefore the shortest way to welfare: but by two very different classes of men;—by mercantile men, who covet money, actual or expectant capitalists; and by political men, who want power, actual or expectant office-holders. These appear diverse; but there is a strong unanimity between the two;—for the mercantile men want money as a means of power, and the political men power as a means of money. There are noble men in both classes, exceptional, not instantial, men with great riches even, and great office. But as a class, these men are not above the average morality of the people, often below it; they have no deep, religious faith, which leads them to trust the Higher Law of God. They do not look for principles that are right, conformable to the constitution of the universe, and so creative of the nation's permanent welfare; but only for expedient measures, productive to themselves of selfish money or selfish power. In general, they have the character of adventurers, the aims of adventurers, the morals of adventurers ; they begin poor, and of course obscure, and are then "democratic," and hurrah for the people: "Down with the powerful and the rich" is the private maxim of their heart. If they are successful, and become rich, famous, attaining high office, they commonly despise the people: "Down with the people!" is the axiom of their heart—only they dare not say it; for there are so many others with the same selfishness, who have hot yet achieved their end, and raise the opposite cry. The line of the nation's course is a resultant of the compound selfishness of these two classes.