Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/252

Rh three hundred years—from 1556, when the three millions of Old England were ruled by the bloody Mary, to 1856, when the three millions of New England govern themselves! Do you fear for the next three himdred years? That historic momentum will not be lost.

7. Then there is the spirit of the age we live in. Only see what has been done in a century! A hundred years ago, there were slaves in every comer of the land, there are men on this platform, whose fathers, within fourscore years, have not only owned black, but red and white slaves also. See what a steady march there has been of freedom in New England, and throughout the North—likewise on the continent of Europe! Christendom repudiates bondage. Think of British and French emancipation, of Dutch and Danish. Slavery is only at home in three places in Christendom,—Russia, Brazil, and the south of the United States. A hundred years ago, there was not a spot in all Europe where there was not Slavery in one form or another,—men put up at auction. It is only ninety-eight years ago since men were kidnapped in Glasgow, Scotland, and sold into bondage for ever in the City of Brotherly Love, at Philadelphia. That thing took place in 1758. See what an odds there is!

It is plain that American Slavery is to end ultimately. It cannot stand. The question before us is, " Shall it rum America before it stops?" I think it will not. The next question is, "Shall it end peaceably, as the Quakers wish, and as all anti-Slavery men wish, or shall it end in blood?" On that point I shall not now give my opinion.