Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/170

Rh thousand other men and women, whom, in the last eight months, I have spoken to, face to face, and they say, "No! America shall not fail!"

I remember the women, who were never found faithless when a sacrifice was to be offered to great principles; I look up to my God, and I look into my own heart, and I say, "We shall not fail! We shall not fail!" This, at my side, it is the willow; it is the symbol of weeping:—but its leaves are deciduous; the autumn wind will strew them on the ground; and beneath, here is a perennial plant; it is green all the year through. When this willow branch is leafless, the other is green with hope, and its buds are in its bosom; its buds will blossom. So it is with America.

Did our fathers live? are we dead? Even in our ashes live their holy fires! Boston only sleeps; one day she will wake! Massachusetts will stir again! New England will rise and walk! the vanished North be found once more queenly and majestic! Then it will be seen that Slavery is weak and powerless in itself, only a phantom of the night.

Slavery is a "finality,"—is it? There shall be no "agitation,"—not the least,—shall there? There is a Hispaniola in the South, and the South knows it. She sits on a powder magazine, and then plays with fire, while humanity shoots rockets all round the world. To mutilate, to torture, to burn to death revolted Africans whom outrage has stung to crime—that is only to light the torches of San Domingo. This black bondage will be red freedom one day: nay, lust, vengeance, redder yet. I would not wait till that flood comes and devours all.

When the North stands up, manfully, united, we can tear down Slavery in a single twelvemonth; and, when we do unite, it must be not only to destroy Slavery in the territories, but to uproot every weed of Slavery throughout this whole wide land. Then leanness will depart from our souls; then the blessing of God will come upon us; we shall have a Commonwealth based on righteousness, which is the strength of any people, and shall stand longer than Egypt,—national fidelity to God our age-outlasting pyramid!