Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/278

Rh In civilized society, there must be an organization of things and of persons, of labour and of government; and so slavery is to be looked at, not only in its economical relations, as affecting labour and wealth, power over matter, but also in its political relations, as affecting government, which is power over men.

There are 350,000 slave-holders in the United States, with their families, making a population of 1,750,000 persons. Now, Slavery is a political institution which puts the government of all the people of the slave States into the hands of those few men: the majority are the servants of this minority.

1. The 350,000 slave-holders control the 3,250,000 slaves; owning their bodies, and, by direct legislation, purposely preventing their development. 2. They control the 4,750,000 non- slave-holders, cutting them off from their share of government, and hindering them alike in their labour and their education, and purposely preventing their development.

3. They control the Federal politics, and thereby affect the organization of things and persons, of labour and government, throughout the whole nation, and purposely prevent the development of the whole people.

In all these three forms of political action, they have selfishly sought their own immediate interest, and wrought to the lasting damage of the slaves, the non-slave-holders, and the whole people. But neither the slaves nor the non-slave-holders have made any powerful opposition to this injury : the chief hostility has been shown by the North, or rather by the few persons therein who either had mind enough to see this manifold mischief clearly, or else such moral and religious instinct as made them at once revolt from this wickedness. But, ever since the Declaration of Independence, there has been a strife, open or hidden, between the South and this portion of the Northern people; and though the battle has been often joined, yet, since 1788, the North has been beaten in every conflict, pitched battle or skirmish, until last January; then, after much fighting, the House of Representatives chose for Speaker a man hostile to Slavery. Always before, the South conquered the North; that is, the minority conquered the majority. The party with the smallest numbers, the least