Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/77

Rh spoil of the slave is in our houses. We are a republic, but the only nation of the Christian world whose fields are tilled by chattel slaves. To such a degree has covetousness blinded the eyes of the whole nation. In saying all this I will not say that we are less righteous than other nations. No other people has had the same temptation. It has been too great for America. Slavery is loved as well in Boston as in New Orleans. The love of liberty is strong with us; but it is liberty for ourselves we love, not for our brother man whom we can oppress and enthrall. This vice is not confined to the South. I look on some of the clergymen of the North as only chaplains of the slave-driver.

Look at the next safeguard of society. Setting aside the institution of Slavery, and the statutes relating thereto, I think we have the most righteous establishments in the world. By no means perfect, they produce the greatest variety of action in the individuals, the greatest unity of action in society, and afford an opportunity to achieve the purpose of social and individual life. Here is the great institution of democracy, the government of all, by all, and for all, resting on the American idea that all men have natural rights which only the possessor can alienate, that all are equal in their rights, that it is the business of government to preserve them all for each man. Under this great institution of a free State, there naturally come the church, the school, the press—all free. In politics, and all depending thereon, we are coming to recognise this principle, that restraint is only to be exercised for the good of all, the restrainer and the restrained.

Let me single out two excellent institutions, not wholly American: the contrivance for making laws, and that for executing them. To make laws, the people choose the best men they can find and confide in, and set them to this work. They aim to take all the good of past times, of the present times, and add to it their private contribution of justice. Each State legislature is a little political academy for the advancement of jural science and art. They get the wisest and most humane men to aid them. Then after much elaboration the law is made. If it works well in one State it is soon tried in others; if not, it is repealed and ceases to be. The experience of mankind has discovered