Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/308

Rh tion was not brought about by the privileged class, the royal and nobilitary, who officially reign, or the commercial class, who actually govern the nation; but by the moral class, whose conscience stirred the people, and constrained the Government to do so just a deed. Of course a reaction must follow. We see its effect to-day. There is a party which favours African Slavery. Mr. Carlyle is the heroic representative thereof. Personally amiable, in his ideas he is the Goliath of Slavery. Just now, the London Times appears to favour this reactionary movement, and its powerful articles are reprinted with great jubilation in the American newspapers, which hate England because they love the Slavery which she has hated so long. There is no time to inquire into the cause of this reaction. It affects the political class, and still more certain commercial classes to whom "cotton is king." Great is the delight of the South; the slave power sings Te Deums to its God. A bill was before the Senate, not long since, appropriating $3750 to pay the masters for twelve slaves who ran away and were carried off by the British in the war of 1812, whom the captors, even then, refused to deliver up to "democratic bondage." Mr. Hale opposed the bill, because it recognised the doctrine that there may be property in human beings, declaring that neither by vote nor by silence would he ever recognise so odious and false a doctrine. Mr. Seward joined in the opposition. But Mr. Fugitive Slave Bill Mason came to the rescue ; and after referring to the anti-Slavery opinions of the British, declared he was "gratified to see those opinions are rapidly undergoing a change." What signs of such a rapid change he may have seen, I know not ; nor what sympathies with the slave power the accomplished British minister, new in this field, may have expressed to him: "Diplomacy is a silent art." But I think Mr. Mason greatly mistakes the British public, if he believes they will be fickle in their love of right. The Anglo-Saxon has always been a resolute tribe. I believe John Bull is the most obstinate of all national animals. When his instinctive feelings and his reflective conscience command the same thing, depend upon it he will not lack the will.

There may have been a change in the British Government, though I doubt it much; there has been in the