Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/298

Rh rights of man was getting begun. Ah me! the long-continued strife is not ended. The question laid over by our fathers is adjourned to us for settlement. It is the old question between the substance of man and his accidents, labour and capital, the people and a caste.

Shall the 360,000 slave-holders own all the 1,400,000 square miles of territory not yet made States, and drive all Northern men away from it, or shall it belong to the people; shall this vast area be like Arkansas and South Carolina, or like Michigan and Connecticut? That is the immediate question.

Shall Slavery spread over all the United States, and root out Freedom from the land? or shall Freedom spread wide her blessed boughs till the whole continent is fed by her fruit, and lodged beneath her arms—her very leaves for the healing of the nations? That is the ultimate question.

Now is the time for America to choose between these two alternatives, and choose quick. For America? No, for the North. You and I are to decide this mighty question. I take it, the Anglo-Saxon will not forego his ethnological instinct for freedom; will not now break the historic habit of two thousand years ; he will progressively tend to Christianity and Democracy ; will put Slavery down, peaceably if he can, forcibly if he must.

We may now end this crime against humanity by ballots; wait a little, and only with swords and with blood can this deep and widening blot of shame be scoured out from the continent. No election, since that first and unopposed of Washington, has been so important to America as this now before us. Once the nation chose between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson. When the choice is between Slavery and Freedom, will the North choose wrong P Any railroad company may, by accident, elect a knave for President; but, when he has been convicted of squandering their substance on himself, and blowing up their engines, nay, destroying their sons and daughters, will the stockholders choose a swindler for ever? I think we shall put Slavery down; I have small doubt of that. But shall we do it now and without tumult, or by and by with a dreadful revolution, St. Domingo massacres, and the ghastly work of war?

Shall America decide for wickedness, — extend the dark