Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/235

222 and, the executive are limited by the laws and Institutions. The legislature is chosen by the people to represent the people; that is, It is chosen to represent and to organize the Ideas, and to express the sentiments, of the people; not to organize sentiments which are in advance of the people, or which are behind the people. The political legislator is restricted by the ideas of the people: if he wants what they do not want, then they do not want him. If senator Wilson had a million of men and women in Massachusetts who entertained the sentiments and ideas of Mr. Garrison, why he would represent the sentiments and ideas of Mr. Garrison, would express them in Congress, and would go to work to organize those ideas.

In hoisting the anchor of a ship, two sets of men are at work, two machines. One, I think, is called the windlass. Many powerful men put their levers to that, and hoist the anchor up out from the deep. Behind them is the capstan, whose business it is to haul in the rope. Now, the function of the non-political reformer is to hoist the anchor up from the bottom: he is the windlass. But the business of Chase, Hale, Sumner, and Wilson, and other political reformers, is to haul in the slack, and see that what the windlass has raised up is held on to, and that the anchor does not drop back again to the bottom. The men at the windlass need not call out to the men at the capstan, "Haul in more slack!" when there is no more to haul in. This is the misfortune of the position of the men at the capstan,—they cannot turn any faster than the windlass gives them slack rope to wind up. That ought to be remembered. Every political man, before he takes his post, ought to understand that; and the non-political men, when they criticize him never so sharply, ought to remember that the men at the capstan cannot turn any fluster than the men at the windlass.

If the politician is to keep in office, he must accommodate himself to the ideas of the people; for the people are sovereign, and reign, while the politicians only govern with delegated power, but do not reign: they are agents, trustees, holding by a special power of attorney, which authorizes them to do certain things, for doing which they are responsible to the people. In order to carry his point, the politician must have a majority on his side: he cannot