Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/315

302 of will. The Southern master gave command to each Northern squad of Democrats — "Make ready your resolutions in support of the Dred Scott decision!" They "make ready." "Consider resolutions!" They "consider." "Vote aye!" They "vote aye."

The slave power, thus controlling the slaves and slave-holders at the South, and the Democratic party at the North, easily manages the Government at Washington. The Federal officers are marked with different stripes—Whig, Democrat, and so on. They are all owned by the same master, and lick the same hand. So it controls the nation. It silences the great sects, Trinitarian, Unitarian, Nullitarian: the chief ministers of this American Church—threefold in denominations, one in nature—have naught to say against Slavery; the Tract Society dares not rebuke the "sum of all villanies," the Bible Society has no "Word of God" for the slave, the " revealed religion" is not revealed to him. Writers of school-books "remember the hand that feeds them," and venture no word against the national crime which threatens to become also the national ruin. In no nation on earth is there such social tyranny of opinion. In Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, Italy, and Spain, the despotic bayonet has pinned the public lips together. The Democratic hands of America have sewed up her own mouth with an iron thread—that and fetters are the only product of the Southern mine. In Washington not a man in the meanest office dares open his lips against the monster which threatens to devour his babies and his wife. No doctor allows himself a word against that tyrant—his business would forsake him if he did. In Southern States, this despotism drives off all outspoken men. Mr. Underwood, of Virginia, made a speech against the extension of Slavery into Kansas,—he must take his life in his hand, and flee from his native State. Mr. Helper, of North Carolina, writes a brave, noble book, ciphering out the results of freedom and of bondage,—even North Carolina is too hot to hold him. Mr. Strickland, at Mobile, sells now and then an anti-Slavery book,—the great State of Alabama drives him out, scares off his wife, and will not allow him to collect his honest debts! At the North, you know the disposition of men who hold office from the Federal Government, or who seek and expect it: the Federal hand