Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/236

Rh wait for it to grow, but must have it now, else lie loses his post. He takes the wolf by the ears ; and, if he lets go, the wolf eats him up : he must therefore lay hold where he can clinch fast and continue. If Mr. Sumner, in his place in the Senate, says what Massachusetts does not indorse, out goes Mr. Sumner. It is the same with the rest. All politicians are well aware of that fact. I have sometimes thought they forgot a great many other things; they very seldom forget that.

See the proof of what I say. If you will go into any political meeting of Whigs or Democrats, you shall find the ablest men of the party on the platform,—the great Whigs, the great Democrats; "the rest of mankind" will be on the floor. Now, watch the speeches. They do not propose an idea, or appeal to a sentiment that is in advance of the people. But, when you go into an anti-Slavery meeting you find that the platform is a great ways higher than the pews, uniformly so. Accordingly, when an African speaks (who is commonly supposed to be lower than "the rest of mankind") and says a very generous thing, there is a storm of hisses all round this hall. What does it show? That the anti-Slavery platform which the African stands on is somewhat higher than the general level of the floor, even in the city of New York. The politician on his platform often speaks to the bottom of the floor, and not to the top of the ceiling.

So much for the political reformers: I am not speaking of political hunkers. Now a word of the non-political reformers. Their business is, first, to produce the sentiment; next, the idea; and, thirdly, to suggest the mode of action. The anti-Slavery non-political reformer is to raise the cotton, to spin it into thread', to weave it into web, to prescribe the pattern after which the dress is to be made; and then he is to pass over the cloth and the pattern to the political reformer, and say, "Now, sir, take your shears, and cut it out, and make it up." You see how very inferior the business of the political reformer is, after all. The non-political reformer is not restricted by any law, any Constitution, any man, nor by the people, because he is not to deal with institutions; he is to make the institutions better. If he do not like the Union, he is to say so; and, just as soon as he has gathered an audience inside of the