Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/50

Rh by reason of the great proportion of the citizens necessary to remain at home, to prevent insurrection among the negroes, and prevent the desertion of them to the enemy." From 1775 to 1783, South Carolina contained 166,018 free persons, Connecticut only 158,760. During the nine years of the war. South Carolina sent 5,508 soldiers to the army, and Connecticut 39,831. While the six slave States could raise only 58,421 soldiers, and 12,779 militia-men, Massachusetts alone contributed 67,937 soldiers to the continental army, and 15,155 militia-men—in all 83,092! The demoralizing influence of American despotism is fearfully obvious in the conduct of the general Government. It debases the legislative and the executive power; the Supreme Court is its venal prostitute. You remember the Inaugural of Mr. Pierce:—

"I believe that involuntary servitude is recognised by the Constitution. I believe that it stands like any other admitted right. I hold that the laws of 1850 [the Fugitive Slave Act] commonly called the 'compromise measures,' are strictly constitutional, and to be unhesitatingly carried out." "The laws to enforce these [rights to property in the body and soul of men] should be respected and obeyed, not with a reluctance encouraged by abstract opinions as to their propriety in a different state of society, but cheerfully, and according to the decisions of the tribunal to which their exposition belongs."

The effect of Slavery on the morality of the North is painful to reflect upon. Northern merchants engage in the internal slave trade ; in the foreign slave trade; they own plantations at the South ; they lend money to the South, and take slaves as security. The Northern church is red with the guilt of bondage; most of its eminent preachers are deadly enemies to the freedom of the African. How many clerical defenders has the Fugitive Slave Act found in the North? The court-house furnished kidnappers at Philadelphia, New York, and Boston; the church justified them in the name of God. I know of no church which has ever showed itself more cowardly than the American. Since 1849, the Bible Society dares not distribute the Scriptures to slaves. The American Tract