Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/210

Rh support is not in the conscience of the mass of men, but in the violence of the few who rule; not in the consent of the Hungarians and Poles, but in the cannons of the Emperor and the Czar. Military violence is the complement of oligarchy, for the special privilege of the oligarch is held of his private selfishness, and against mankind; not of his human nature, and for all the people; is a conventional, not a natural accident of humanity. Hence is it also insecure: for what will not even touch firm ground with its feet must one day with its head.

Now, the American civilization has two characteristics exactly opposite to these. First, it is not oligarchic; it is a democracy; in theory, having a government of all, for all, by all. Next, it is industrial, and not military.

I. This democracy, in theory, rests on the idea that the substance of manhood, the human nature in which all are alike, is superior to any human accident wherein all must differ. Manhood is more than priesthood, kinghood, noblehood, masterhood. The qualitative human agreement of nature is more than the quantitative difference between the genius and the clown; more than the historic and conventional distinction between noble-born and common-born, rich and poor. So democracy can exist only on condition that this human substance is equally respected in the greatest and the least; in man and woman; in the largest majority, and in the minority of one, that stands on manhood. So the people is not for the ruler, but the ruler for the people ; the government is the creature of the nation, not the nation of the government. Each man's natural rights are to be sacred against the wrong-doing of any other man, or of the whole nation of men — all protected against each, each against all. That is the first point.

II. Then the American civilization is also industrial. Military power is to be exceptional, subordinate; the industrial is instantial and chief. Now, industry aims at the production and enjoyment of property; for, in a word, industry is the art of making material nature into human property. Property is a natural accident of man, inseparable from his substance. The first thing he does on