Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/271

268 American Slavery, which is the stone of stumbling, the rock of offence in the world's progress.

Slavery is the great obstacle to the present welfare and future progress of the South itself. It prevents the mass of the Southern people from the possession of material comfort,—use and beauty; from the enjoyment of their natural rights; and also, for the future, it hinders them from the increasing development of their natural faculties, and the consequent increasing acquisition of power over the material world. It hinders Christianity and Democracy, which it would destroy, or else itself must thereby be brought to the ground. It shuts the mass of the people from their share of the government of society, forces many to unnatural and vicarious labour, and robs them of the fruit of their toil. Thus it is the great obstacle alike to present welfare and future development. The head-quarters of this regressive force are at the South, where its avowed organization and its institutions may be found. At the North it has three classes of allies. Here they are:—

1. The first class is of base men, such as are somewhat inhuman by birth ; men organized for cruelty, as fools for folly, idiotic in their conscience and heart and soul. If there had been no "inherited sin" up to last night, these men would have "originated" it the first thing this morning; if Adam had had no "fall," and the ground did not incline downward anywhere, they would dig a pit on their own account, and leap down headlong of their own accord. These men are aboriginal kidnappers, and grow up amid the filth of great towns, sweltering in the gutters of the metropolitan pavement at Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York. Nay, you find them even at Boston, lurking in some office, prowling about the Court House, sneaking into alleys, barking in the newspapers, to let their masters know their whereabouts, turning up their noses in the streets, snuffing after some victim as the wind blows from Virginia or Georgia, and generally seeking whom they may devour. These are "earthly, sensual, devilish." For the honour of humanity, this class of men is exceedingly small, and, like other poisonous vermin, commonly bears its warning on its face.