Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/214

Rh they committed under the transient and accidental stimulus of strong drink, or temporary malice, or passion, that springs upon the man,—causes which gender so many brawls and murders. These offences are committed by persons of high standing in society, done deliberately, the man knowing very well what he is about. For convenience in my handling and your remembering, I will put these into three classes. First, offences against the property of individuals; next, offences against the life of individuals for the sake of getting their property; and third, offences against the property and the life of other nations. The first and second are individual,—personal vices; the last is national,—a collective vice.

I. Here are some cases which I put in the first class, offences against property. I will not travel out of America, nor go back more than twelve months. Let me save at the outset, of the individuals who have done the deeds I refer to, I would speak and judge with the greatest delicacy and the most refined charity. It is the deed itself on which I wish to fasten your condemnation, not the man who did it; for I want you to look through the man at the deed; through the deed, at the cause of it, lying far behind, which I will presently bring before your eye.

Here is the first in the first class. Mr. Crane, President of the New England railroad, deprived the company of I know not how large a sum of money entrusted to him. In this particular case there was much in the man's character, and has been much in his conduct since,—which, I am told, is, in general, manly and upright,—to lead to a favourable judgment of him. It is the deed I look at, and the principle which lies behind the deed, which I condemn: for the man, I have a woman's charity; for the deed and the principle behind it, a man's justice.

Here is the next case. Mr. Schuyler, at New York, plundered the public of about two millions of dollars, committing the largest fraud of the kind ever perpetrated in America or Europe.

Here is the third. In California, Mr. Meigs robbed the public of one million six hundred thousand dollars.

As a fourth thing, in New York, the Ocean Bank has robbed the public of one or two hundred thousand dollars.