Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/320

Rh To carry all these measures, the slave power depends on the Federal Government. But it never pesters the Government with petitions on paper; it sends its petitions in boots. They are not referred to Committees in House or Senate; the petitions in boots are themselves the Committee of House and Senate. Gentlemen, the slave power has got the Federal Government, especially the Supreme Court—a constant power.

It relies also on the Democratic party North for its aid in this destruction of Democracy. Gentlemen, it has got that party—will it keep it? Heretofore the two have seemed united, not for better but for worse, "so long as they both do live." Witness the arguments of Mr. Cushing, yesterday, in this hall, against the personal liberty law; and he faithfully and consistently represents the Northern Democratic party as it was.

The slave power depends on the four great commercial cities of the North—Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Gentlemen, it has the support of these four cities, and will continue to have it for some time to come. If the two immediate and the three remote aggressive measures I have just mentioned were to be passed on by the voters of these four towns, I think they would vote as the slave power told them. They did so for the Fugitive Slave Bill, for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill;—they will vote for the Lecompton Bill, the Army Bil; and when their help is wanted for the Americanization of the rest of the continent, by filibustering; for the Southernization of the North, by the Lemmon decision ; for the Africanization of America, by restoring the African slave trade, they will do as they are bid.

If these five measures were left to the voters of Boston alone, the result might be doubtful,—nay, I think it would be adverse to the South. But look at the matter a little more nicely. Divide the Boston voters into four classes:—the rich—men worth $100,000 or more; the educated—men with such culture as pupils get at tolerable colleges; the poor—the Irish, and all men worth but $400 or less; the middling class—the rest of the male citizens. If the question were submitted to the first three, I make no doubt the vote would be for the South, for the destruction of Democracy. The educated and the poor would do as the