Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/233

220 this wickedness of Slavery. There has been a most multifarious discussion of the idea; for, after we have the right sentiment, it is difficult to get the intellectual work done, done well, in the best way. It takes a large-minded man, with great experience, to cipher out all this intellectual work, and show how we can get rid of Slavery, and what is to take its place, and how the thing is to be done. Accordingly, very various schemes are proposed.

Now, the idea which has been attained to, the anti-Slavery idea reached by the ablest men, is embodied in these two propositions: first, no Slavery anywhere in America; second, no Slavery anywhere on earth. That is the topmost idea.

There has been an opposite work going on. First, an attempt "to crush out" the sentiment of humanity from all mankind. That was the idea of a very distinguished son of Massachusetts. He said "it must be crushed out." Second, to put down the idea of Freedom. That has been. attempted, not only by political officers, but also by a great many other men. It is not to be denied that, throughout the South, in the controlling classes of society, the sentiment and idea of Freedom are much less widely spread than twenty years ago. The South has grown despotic, while the North becomes more humane. III. The third thing is to do the deed. After the sentiment is right, and the idea right, organization must be attended to. But the greatest and most difficult work is to get the heart right and the head right ; for, when these are in a proper condition, the hand obeys the two, and accomplishes its work. Still it is a difficult matter to organize Freedom. It will require great talent and experience; for, as it takes a master mind to organize thought into matter, and to make a Sharp's rifle or a sewing-machine, so it requires a great deal more mind to organize an idea into political institutions, and establish a State where the anti-Slavery sentiment shall blossom into an idea, and the idea grow into a national fact, a State where law and order secure to each man his natural and unalienable rights.

In the individual Northern States a good deal has been done in five-and-twenty years to organize the idea of