THE EFFECT OF SLAVERY ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 A 
 
 SERMON 
 
 PREACHED AT 
 
 THE MUSIC HALL, BOSTON, 
 
 ON SUNDAY, JULY 4, 1858 
 
 BY 
 
 KEY. THEODORE PARKER, 
 
 MINISTER OP THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY 
 
 REVISED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 WILLIAM L. KENT & COMPANY, 3 STATE STREET. 
 
 1 8 5 8. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, by 
 WM. L. KENT AND COMPANY, 
 
 In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 Geo. C. Hand & Avery, Printers, 3 Cornhill, Poston. 
 
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 SERMON. 
 
 “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that allmen are created equal; that they areendowed by their 
 Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happi¬ 
 ness.” What our fathers said in their Declaration. 
 
 “ Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.” What Jesus said, in 
 the seventh chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, the twelfth verse. 
 
 There are three great events in American 
 • history. The first is the Discovery of the Con¬ 
 tinent ; the second, the Landing of the Pil¬ 
 grims in New England, who brought the 
 Teutonic seed of a new form of civilization; 
 the third, the Declaration of Independence, 
 when new Ideas of Government were clearly 
 set forth, destined to have a great influence on 
 the development of mankind. This is not 
 only the national anniversary; it is the birth¬ 
 day of whole families of republics that we 
 know not of as yet, for it must have a future 
 more glorious than the past or the present. 
 
 Let you and me make the highest religious 
 use of this great day. Religion includes all 
 duties, individual and social, the Self Pro¬ 
 tection that I owe to my own person, the 
 Philanthropy due to my kind, and Patriotism, 
 the virtue I owe my nation. Each man has 
 a human character, general elements common 
 to mankind: an individual character, special 
 elements peculiar to himself, and a national 
 character not less. Patriotism is a great reli¬ 
 gious duty; it is philanthropy modified by the 
 need of the hour, and intensified towards one 
 special people — not that we love mankind 
 less, but our country more. It is the applica¬ 
 tion of Justice to our own nation. 
 
 The Americans are making a new experi¬ 
 ment in human history. The discovery of the 
 continent was not more strange in 1492 than 
 the American Republic is now. This, also, is 
 a New World amongst the governments of the 
 earth. Great abstract truths become great 
 facts in the institutions of the people; the 
 word becomes flesh; what at first is a great 
 thought is at last to be millions of men, their 
 character moulded by the institutions. 
 
 Commonly political parties in any country 
 agree in the end they seek, varying only in 
 
 the means thereto. So the difference between 
 them is not moral, belonging to the ethics of 
 government; but economical, belonging to the 
 technics of administration: it relates to meas¬ 
 ures, not principles. But to-day it is not so 
 with us. There are two parties in America, 
 neither yet completely understanding its prin¬ 
 ciples or its destination. One is the party of 
 Ereedom, tending to Democracy, which must 
 secure welfare and progress to the whole peo¬ 
 ple ; the other is the party of Slavery, tending 
 to Despotism, which must diminish progress, 
 lessen welfare, and end in the ruin of the 
 people. 
 
 On this great day, remembering that we are 
 all Americans, each having his stake in the 
 common fence, religiously owing great patriot¬ 
 ism to our common country, let us look at our 
 special duty, as citizens of this new republic; 
 and so I ask your attention to some thoughts 
 on the Effect of Slavery on the American Peo¬ 
 ple. I shall say much of principles, ideas and 
 facts ; of individual men very little. 
 
 To understand the matter fully, and see the 
 effect of slavery, look a minute at some of the 
 chief peculiarities of our political institutions. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, throughout the greater 
 part of Europe, there prevailed a form of gov¬ 
 ernment which looks strange to you and me. 
 Vicariousness was the general rule in religion 
 and politics; neither Church nor State was 
 amenable to the people. 
 
 First, the clergy were responsible for the 
 Religion of the People; that is, one man in 
 three or four thousand was thought answerable 
 for the future welfare of all the rest. The 
 clergy made an ecclesiastical theology, and 
 called it Divine Revelation; they established 
 
4 
 
 ecclesiastical ceremonies, which they named 
 the Ordinances of God. The people were 
 only to believe the one and practise the other, 
 and their calling and election was made sure ; 
 for the priest claimed to speak with authority 
 superior to human consciousness. “ Believe ” 
 and “ Obey ” were his two commands; “ trust 
 our office, and not your own soul O’ 
 
 Second, the King and the Aristocracy w r ere 
 responsible for the Politics of the people; they 
 made, expounded and administered the stat¬ 
 ute laws, claiming authority above the col¬ 
 lective interests or collective conscience of the 
 people. The magistrate’s statutes were a 
 finality, the people’s Need and Right was 
 none. The official did not propose statutes 5 
 he made them and enforced. Then the church 
 and state were both accounted divine, — that 
 is, the final and ultimate authority. The 
 priest, king, or noble all claimed to hold of 
 God, not of mankind; they were feudatories 
 under Him, responsible to God, not to man. 
 The ecclesiastical or political ruler had all the 
 command and right; only obedience and duty 
 belonged to the ruled. The king or noble 
 was the state, the priest the church. 
 
 So the Political Man said to the people, 
 “ Keep the statute law we make for you; pa}' 
 the taxes, of money in peace time, of blood 
 and yet more money in war time ; and then 
 mind your own business. Leave us alone, 
 either to enjoy the passive dignity of reigning, 
 like King Log, or to practise the active work 
 of ruling, like King Snake. So shall it go 
 well with you here. We are responsible to 
 God for you, and in heavy pains and penalties 
 in the next life are we held in bond. You are 
 responsible to us, and in heavy pains and 
 penalties shall we hold you in bond in this 
 life. God is our law, and Ave are yours.” 
 
 This royal vicariousness went through all 
 society; the title to office and land all run 
 from the king or noble, not from the individual 
 possessor, or the collective mass of men. 
 
 The Ecclesiastical Man said to the people, 
 “Believe the doctrines we teach. You may 
 understand them when you can ; that is not 
 necessary to salvation, for the Scripture says, 
 
 ‘ He that believeth not shall be damned/ but 
 it says nothing against him that understandeth 
 not. Belief on hearsay is better than knowl¬ 
 edge by reason and conscience. You can get 
 things by rote, if you cannot by heart. Com¬ 
 ply with the ceremony, confess and do pen¬ 
 ance ; bring your babies to baptism, else they 
 are damned for your neglect, and you for their 
 
 ruin; pay the tithes and other church dues; 
 and then mind your own business. Leave it 
 for us to make the Catechism, you are only to 
 commit it to memory; for us to administer 
 the ceremonies and propitiate God with our 
 prayers and self-mortification of the flesh; — 
 so shall it go well with you hereafter, and we 
 will put you through this life into the kingdom 
 of heaven. We are responsible to God for 
 you ; and the roar of hell is in our ears all day 
 long and all night; but you are responsible 
 to us for your deeds, words, thoughts, feelings, 
 belief; and you shall hear the crackling of 
 fagots unless you do as we bid. Do n’t talk 
 to us about your ‘ souls;’ human nature is 
 good for nothing. God is our religion and we 
 are yours.” 
 
 This sacerdotal vicariousness likewise ran 
 through all society. No church-doctrines held 
 under humanity, either of reason or instinct, 
 individual or collective; all held under the 
 priesthood, which had eminent domain over 
 human consciousness. Salvation depended on 
 the church, not on the faith or works of saint 
 or sinner. The priest opened and shut the 
 gates of heaven; tickets of entrance were 
 to be bought at his office, and could not be had 
 elsewhere, either of man or God. 
 
 Such was once the theory of the Divine 
 State and Divine Church, the two-fold king¬ 
 dom of God on earth. It was the best thing 
 men had in those days; let us not grumble. 
 Man is honest always and does the best he 
 knows how. You and I were as faithful when 
 we stumbled and babbled, as to-day when we 
 talk and go alone. Mankind was a baby once, 
 a stupid boy it seems to you and me, but he 
 turns out a pretty promising child. Let us not 
 quarrel with the hole in which our fathers 
 once burrowed, nor the rude wigwam which 
 they built over it and named the divine church 
 and state. Each was once the best of its kind 
 on earth; and if our building be better, it is 
 because theirs was worse and came earlier. 
 
 So much for these Vicarious Institutions. 
 
 Now in America we have somewhat changed 
 that state of things. The political and eccles¬ 
 iastical functionary is the servant, the People 
 master now. Yet it is true that here and there 
 in religious affairs some ecclesiastical man 
 still claims divine right to dictate to the peo¬ 
 ple, setting his authority above their reason, 
 and magisterially telling what they must take 
 for piety, theology and morality. But he does 
 it with such self-distrust and painful fear, he is 
 so afraid of disturbing any powerful wicked- 
 
5 
 
 ness, that it is plain lie thinks the popular 
 stream, fed by all the rains of heaven, is 
 stronger than the ecclesiastical dam said to be 
 built as miraculously as the Neptunian -walls 
 of Troy divine. Nay, he fears lest, by some 
 freshet of humanity, caused through the break¬ 
 ing up of winter, or the melting of distant and 
 time-honored snows, thought everlasting, it 
 may be swept off, carried out to sea, and 
 whelmed forever in the ocean, nor never heard 
 of more. So the man hoists “ the gate of the 
 churl’s dam and lets the stream run free.*’ 
 This sacerdotal vicariousness will not last long 
 in America. The ecclesiastical Ezekiel stands 
 in the church valley of dry bones, and says, 
 “ Come from the four winds, 0 Spirit! and 
 breathe upon these slain, that,they may live \ ,} 
 But the Angel of Humanity answers, “ Son of 
 man, not so ! Let the dead bury their dead ! 
 follow thou me; behold I make all things new. 
 Egyptian and ecclesiastical mummies come 
 not back again. Forward, 0 son of man! 
 Forward ! ” 
 
 In the State the political man counts him¬ 
 self servant, not master. Let President Vo- 
 tedin say in his proclamation to the people, 
 Gentlemen, I am your superior, and you are 
 my servants; you are to do as I say; ” 
 if he should try to act thereon, there 
 would be a state of things presently. The 
 People alone are primitive and final, the magis¬ 
 trate derivative, provisional and responsible. 
 The American Legislative, Judiciary or Execu¬ 
 tive, is only an attorney of the manifold and 
 thirty-million-headed People; a servant hired 
 express to make, expound and administer 
 certain statute laws, which are amenable to 
 the people and reversible thereby. Magistrates 
 are “ Selectmen,’* not the town which “ se¬ 
 lects ” them. Mr. Banks is the hired man of 
 Massachusetts, set to do the governing of the 
 Commonwealth, responsible to his employers 
 not less than if he were still the hired man of 
 Mr. Strikcandblow, and set to do blacksmith- 
 ing. The President and Vice-President, the 
 two and thirty Governors, the Judges, chief 
 and puny, all the honorable Members of Con¬ 
 gress, three hundred of them, all the State 
 Legislators, about six thousand by my count¬ 
 ing, — these are all servants, operatives in that 
 great national mill which is owned by Mr. 
 American People, a respectable gentleman who 
 is rather a newcomer on this continent, though 
 of pretty ancient family, lie has some per¬ 
 sonal property, three million square miles of 
 
 real estate, well fenced on the East and West 
 by a natural ditch, pretty distinctly bounded 
 on the North by the grounds of his father, old 
 Mr. English People, a very respectable gentle¬ 
 man, and a rich, not to be meddled with 
 in haste, a citizen of very eminent gravity. 
 On the South the border line is not less clear, 
 but more variable; there Mr. People abuts 
 on his poor relations, w'hom he respects not 
 because he fears not, and so he turns his cows 
 into their pastures, and sends his naughty 
 boys to rob their hen-roosts and steal their 
 watermelons and commit manifold waste and 
 damage. I say all these functionaries are 
 but servants in the great mill where Mr. 
 American People is trying to manufacture 
 welfare. Ministers abroad are his bagmen, 
 runners, drummers, and other factotums, 
 whom he sends off on his public business. 
 Generals and commanders, with epaulettes on 
 their shoulders, and plumes in their bonnets, 
 and red coats on their backs, and tinkling 
 ornaments all about them, with their manifold 
 subordinates, are only the sea and land police, 
 to prowl about this great national mill, and see 
 that no stranger comes to steal or kill. Let 
 them wear their finery with what pride they 
 may, and stmt their hour, and talk big ; he 
 holds them all to strict account; and to the 
 chiefest of them every four years says, “ De¬ 
 part thou hence; thou must be no longer stew¬ 
 ard ; give place to a more honorable man than 
 thou ! *’ In the State all this vicariousness is 
 gone; office is a trust, not a right; the select 
 man is a servant, the selecting People master. 
 For personal conduct and reputation each man 
 is amenable to the common humanity of all; 
 for personal character, amenable only to God. 
 But each official operative in the national 
 mill, for conduct and character, must answer 
 not only to his God, but to the People, the 
 mill owner. 
 
 Thoocracy, the priest power, monarchy, the 
 one-man power, and oligarchy, the few-men 
 power, are three forms of vicarious government 
 over the People, perhaps for them, not by them. 
 Democracy is Direct Self-government, over all 
 the people, for all the people, by all the people. 
 Our institutions are democratic: theocratic, 
 monarchic, oligarchic vicariousness is all gone. 
 We have no divine vicar who is responsible to 
 God for our polities and religion; only a hu¬ 
 man attorney, answerable to the people for 
 his official work. The axis of rotation has 
 changed : the equator of the old civilization 
 
6 
 
 passes through the poles of the new. This 
 makes some change in the geography of both 
 church and state. 
 
 Then the American government is industrial 
 as well as democratic. The nation is not organ- 
 ized to plunder, hut to earn ; the people are not 
 military, disposed to fight, but yet have great 
 fighting power. Such is the individual variety 
 of action, your and my personal freedom, such 
 the national unity of action, compacting all to 
 one great body, that the people will prove 
 terrible fighters, whenever the worse comes to 
 the worst — and in this stage of civilization I 
 think the ploughman is not safe unless he 
 have a sword as well as a share. Yet the 
 Americans are not military, disposed to kill 
 and plunder, but industrial, inclined to create 
 and earn ; hence, in power for present welfare 
 and future progress, we have an immense 
 superiority over other nations of the world. 
 
 All human property is the result of Toil, 
 which is hand-work, and Thought, which is 
 head-w r ork. In the industrial democracy, 
 wealth is rated proportionally higher than in 
 the vicarious governments of ancient and 
 modern Europe ; for here it is not balanced by 
 any corresponding weight. There the father 
 bequeathed his irresponsible office as family 
 estate to his son or daughter, who were held 
 royal, noble, gentle, because they inherited 
 more than the mass of men. Here no man 
 bequeathes office, honor, title: only Money, 
 which represents power to buy all marketable 
 things — and in America there are few things 
 not marketable. Hence money is valued not 
 simply as personal and immediate power of use 
 and beauty, but also as the power of powers, 
 future ability to determine the social rank of 
 the next generation. If the grandson of Dr. 
 Franklin be poor, and a tallow chandler, no¬ 
 body thinks much better of him because he had 
 the greatest of all Americans for his ancestor ; 
 and if he is rich, nobody will much care whether 
 he is the son of a tallow chandler or the greatest 
 American. In Boston, when men set up a 
 picture or statue of that great, noble man, 
 they do not ask the tallow chandlers, the 
 working men, nor the philosophers, the think¬ 
 ing men, to come and do it ; they ask only the 
 rich men, who represent the wealth of labor, 
 and rhetoricians, whose words bnt ventilate 
 the thought of some great actual thinker— prob¬ 
 ably a dead one ; they do not ask either the 
 present or the future Franklins to do the work. 
 
 In a Few England town, within forty 
 years, four men — each poor at first, rather 
 
 mean <md dishonorable, with great mercan¬ 
 tile talent for acquisition, — the hungry eye 
 of covetousness, and the iron fist of accu¬ 
 mulation — have died and left some eight 
 millions of dollars ; their children now occupy 
 the foremost social positions in that town. So 
 long as the live money is above ground and 
 circulating, nobody counts them dishonored by 
 the humble station or pecuniary vices of the 
 dead covetousness beneath. If they have 
 money, wit is imputed; when the money fails, 
 the respectability will slide with it. In the in¬ 
 dustrial democracy, money is proportionally 
 more powerful than elsewhere, for “ it answer- 
 eth all things.” Hence it is the chief object of 
 ambition with the hopeful youth, and the chief 
 object of veneration with servile men, young 
 or old. This is better than of old time ; it is 
 better that we worship the dollar, which repre¬ 
 sents creative toil, than the sword, which is 
 the symbol of destruction and violence. 
 
 Property is created by Toil and Thought. 
 In the Free States it is commonly easy for the 
 industrious, forecasting and temperate man to^. 
 obtain a generous competence ; but great for¬ 
 tunes are made only by using the toil and 
 thought of many men. In the North, great 
 fortunes are commonly made in trade; the 
 merchant is a trader — he buys to sell, and 
 hires to let. If honest, he thereby injures no 
 one; but if also successful, he grows rich 
 through help of the toil and thought of other 
 men, who are stimulated and served bv him as 
 much as he by them. Yet the prizes are few 
 and not too great for the risk. In the North, 
 the trading class is held in great honor. It is 
 industrial, and so in harmony with our institu¬ 
 tions ; it is likely to become rich, and so pos- 
 sessed-of the object of youthful ambition and 
 servile veneration. Here it is what the priests 
 are in Italv, what the high soldiers are in Eus- 
 sia and France, and the nobility and gentry in 
 England. The ablest practical talent does not 
 go to science, literature, politics, but to trade. 
 
 This scheme of government works pretty 
 well for us ; it leads to "Welfare now, and prom¬ 
 ises Progress for the future. I will not sav 
 that our industrial democracy secures all the 
 advantages of each other form of government, 
 and escapes from all their ills. It is a new 
 experiment, not complete nor perfect. Its 
 present form, even in the most enlight¬ 
 ened State, is quite imperfect. What the 
 steam engine and printing press were fifty 
 years ago compared with what they are now, 
 that is the industrial democracy of this day 
 
compared with its future glories. But two 
 things are indisputable. 
 
 First, it thrives best where it is purest, least 
 mixed with any alloying element; and so in 
 the Xorth it produces more welfare and pro¬ 
 gress than in the South. 
 
 Second, it produces its most beneficial re¬ 
 sults where it has been longest at work. This 
 appears by comparing the old States of Xew 
 England with the Xew States of the West; for 
 here the higher results of Democracy appear in 
 the form of science, literature, art, philan¬ 
 thropy, better developed character; all these 
 things require time, for they are plants of slow 
 growth. 
 
 So much for the General Institutions of 
 America, which distinguish our government 
 from others. 
 
 Xow see the Effect of Slavery on the People 
 under these peculiar institutions. 
 
 Slavery is an exceptional institution, which 
 we have taken or kept from old time. It 
 , belongs to that rule of vicariousness, or rather 
 to a time of barbarism before that. It is wholly 
 foreign to a democracy, hostile to its funda¬ 
 mental principle. Slavery is property in 
 man. By nature, each man is a unit of human 
 substance, having all the primitive, natural 
 rights of humanity. By slavery, he is reduced 
 to a fraction, with none of the primitive, natu¬ 
 ral rights of humanity. He is bound to do the 
 duties his master sets, and not only has no 
 remedy, but no right. 
 
 Ii* America slavery is mainty limited to 
 such as have African blood in their veins, 
 though this is sometimes pretty well mixed 
 with Saxon blood. The influence of slavery 
 appears in two forms; first, as it affects the 
 Colored Man, and next, as it affects the White 
 Man. 
 
 I. Of its effects upon the Colored Man. 
 All compulsory toil is not necessarily degrad¬ 
 ing. Farmer Hillside has two lazy-bodied 
 sons; he makes them work and earn; else 
 they get neither breakfast, nor dinner, nor sup¬ 
 per, only a hard, cold bed. It is for their good, 
 not their harm, nor merely through his selfish¬ 
 ness, that he does so. Professor Blackboard 
 has two lazy-minded daughters. He makes 
 them study and learn, for their sakes more 
 than his; it does the girls good; by and by 
 they will be thankful for it. Grim necessity 
 forces the human race to toil and think; man¬ 
 kind is not degraded, but elevated, by this com¬ 
 pulsion of the infinite Father, who in our flesh 
 
 enacts this benignant law, “ In the sweat of 
 thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Toil and 
 thought are alike an honor and a dignity to 
 mankind. But slavery degrades its victims, 
 worsens and belittles them in the qualities of 
 man. I do not deny that to the bondmen 
 slavery teaches certain special things which 
 they would not have learned so soon in Africa, 
 perhaps not at all; things, too, which under 
 other circumstances had been a virtue and an 
 elevation ; now they are forced on them, not 
 onlv against their will, but for their master’s 
 good, and meant for the slave’s hurt. 
 
 1. Slavery degrades the Slave. It aims to 
 pervert his nature. It is the excellency of the 
 Slave that he repudiates his own individual¬ 
 ism, is pliant before his master's foreign will. 
 It is the excellency of the Man that he keeps 
 his individualism at the utmost cost, and 
 holds himself rigid and impenetrable against 
 all foreign will. In order that every man may 
 be able to do this, God gives us this terrible 
 Power of Wrath, — such a defence even to 
 feeble men, and such a terror to the invasive 
 and usurping will, even when it is of the 
 strongest sort. Slavery emasculates all virile 
 individualism away. This is the maxim of 
 humanity, “ Rebellion to tyrants is obedience 
 to God.’’ This is the maxim of slavery, 
 “ Submission to tyrants is obedience to God.” 
 
 This degradation is not an accident of slavery, 
 it is essential to it. It is a function of its 
 prime quality. It does that as certainly as fire 
 burns. By its accidents, slavery may improve 
 the bondman in many things; nothing can 
 compensate for thus unmanning him. If the 
 4.000,000 slaves were to-day set down in 
 Africa, in many special things they might sur¬ 
 pass their kinsfolk there, — in agriculture and 
 the mechanic arts, in their idea of comfort 
 and beauty, in comprehensive power of 
 thought and toil; but in general manhood, in 
 self-respect, they would be exceedingly infe¬ 
 rior. Xo finery in dress, no mechanical skill, 
 no art, no literature, no science, no power to 
 sing Methodist hymns and pray Methodist 
 prayers, can ever make up for the loss of that 
 substantial manhood, which cringes to none, 
 but looks each man in the eye, and says to the 
 invader, “ I also am a man, and if not a broth¬ 
 er whom you will respect, then at least an 
 enemy whom you shall fear.” 
 
 Man subdues other animals, transfigures 
 their nature by the process, and makes a new 
 creature. The dray-horse, the house-dog, the 
 domestic sheep, arc the works of man, almost 
 
8 
 
 as much as the printing press, or these roses, 
 which have departed so slowly from their 
 primitive parent. He does them no wrong, 
 for they are his natural servants; his natural 
 food when a wild man, and his property when 
 civilized — not for abuse and cruelty, but for 
 kind and honest use; he does them no damage ; 
 their welfare is not thereby necessarily in¬ 
 jured in bulk or in kind; the farmer’s horse is 
 as happy as the horse of the wilderness. But 
 yet all these wild animals repudiate this altera¬ 
 tion of nature, counting it as high treason. 
 Turn a domestic bull into a herd of wild cattle, 
 or a tame crow among bis savage kinsfolk, and 
 they tear him to pieces forthwith: even their 
 brutal instinct repudiates this transformation. 
 
 Now, when a man enslaves bis brothers, he 
 does them a Damage, by personally worsening 
 both the amount and kind of their welfare: 
 he does them a Wrong, by perverting then- 
 nature and hindering their progress in the qual¬ 
 ities of men. The obedient slave, content to be 
 property, differs from the natural man, civilized 
 or savage, more than the lap-dog or the turn¬ 
 spit differs from the wild dog of the Siberian or 
 Canadian woods. What if my father had kept 
 me always a boy, that he might dandle me on 
 his knees ; or my mother had forced me to be 
 always a baby, that she might cradle me in her 
 bosom? In its mildest form, from its very 
 nature, slavery makes dwarfs of what would 
 be men, and might be giants. In the most 
 brutal population of London, there are women 
 who steal the children of honest folk, put out 
 their eyes, and then use them as the instru¬ 
 ments of their idle avarice. What the beggar 
 in the rarest of examples, does to the child she 
 steals, that the slaveholder, as a general rule, 
 does to his bondmen ; he puts out the eyes of 
 their manhood ; and though he burn them out 
 with the gentlest of hot irons, he makes them 
 not less blind. It has long been known that 
 slavery itself was a degradation; that in mak¬ 
 ing the slave it unmakes the man; “ The first 
 day of bondage takes half the man away,” 
 said Ionian Homer 3000 years ago. The con¬ 
 tempt which all men, even the anti-slavery 
 philanthropists, feel for the contented slave, is 
 mankind’s testimony against this high treason 
 towards humanity. The fact itself begins to be 
 comprehended in America. Once this was a 
 common argument: “ Slavery is bad in itself, 
 good in its uses ; it elevates the human savage, 
 and makes him a man, even a Christian.” 
 Now this is abandoned by economists and poli¬ 
 
 ticians, and is left only for that class of minis¬ 
 ters 
 
 “ Whose neck-cloth white 
 Is black at night.” 
 
 See the changes in the slaveholder’s idea of 
 a slave. In 1776 he was a man unjustly held 
 in bondage against the law of nature, but held 
 transiently and provisionally. Next, a man held 
 permanently, but wrongfully, — an inferior 
 kind of man held as an apprentice to a supe¬ 
 rior ; certain rights allowed him, his gain of 
 welfare greater than his loss of freedom. Now, 
 he is declared to be an a animal incapable of 
 civilization ;” he has u no rights which white 
 men are bound to respect.” A popular south¬ 
 ern writer says : “ Hay is good for horses, bad 
 for hogs ; so liberty is good for white men, bad 
 for negroes ; ” he does not know whether they 
 “ have any souls or not.” The Supx-eme Court 
 of Virginia has just decided that a slave has 
 no legal power of assent or dissent. The gen¬ 
 eral public opinion of the South now is, that 
 the white man has the same natural right to 
 enslave an African as to tame a horse ! 
 
 2. Slavery degrades also the Free Colored man 
 in the eyes of his neighbors, and, still worse, in 
 his own eyes. White men in America change 
 their names to get rid of being associated with 
 disgraceful relatives. If I had a brother 
 hanged for an infamous crime, my own self 
 respect would be greatly lessened — not before 
 God, but certainly before men. The position 
 of the free colored man in America is of all 
 others the most unhappy. The poorest 
 Spaniard our fillibusters war against, can 
 point to his European home and boast of the 
 magnificent exploits of his nation, that discov¬ 
 ered the new world, and say 
 
 “We were the first 
 That ever burst 
 Into this silent sea.” 
 
 The humblest German who has nothing but 
 his tobacco his lager-bier and his Kauder- 
 welsch, the patois of some little district he was 
 cradled in, has behind him the noblest of 
 earth’s noble nations ! all the generous glories 
 which have accumulated from fighting Anni- 
 nius down to thoughtful Von Humboldt, weave 
 a halo round the head of Fritz and Gretchcn, 
 cradled in the poorest German home. The 
 rudest Irishman comes from a country which is 
 rich in great names; every O’Brien claims to be a 
 descendant from Brennus who smote Rome to 
 its very foundations; once, Irishmen led west¬ 
 ern Europe in civilization and bought fair- 
 
9 
 
 haired Saxon girls of Britain for their own 
 slaves. When New England was poor, old 
 Ireland sent books for yonder college and 
 bread for this town. No nation has been so 
 despised as the Hebrews; but in the worst 
 ages, in the darkest persecution, hated, out¬ 
 cast, smitten, despised, their venerable beards 
 spit upon by every Christian, the Jew looked 
 back to darker days and saw the Pillar of Eire 
 with Moses walking underneath and leading the 
 world’s civilization; he read his Hebrew 
 Bible, full of sublimest poetry, and bethought 
 him that Judea was one of the queens of civ¬ 
 ilization, when all Europe was a wilderness, 
 save a little fringe of more than Cytheroean 
 beauty, wrought round the borders of the mid¬ 
 land sea. He turned to the Mahommedans 
 
 i 
 
 with their scimetar in their hand and said, 
 “ Three quarters of your religion is only Old 
 Testament; all that is good for anything comes 
 from us ; the commonplaces of a Hebrew poet 
 are the inspiration of your Prophet.” Did 
 the Christians mock 7 The Hebrew said, 
 “ Your Saviour was nothing but a Jew. 
 ‘ God in heaven ’ is he ? A few hundred 
 years ago he was a Jewish carpenter at Naza¬ 
 reth, doing job work, making plows and ox 
 yokes for the farmers.” To-day at Constanti¬ 
 nople the Jew, an exile from Spain, is poor — 
 no where else in the whole globe of lands; 
 even his thrift forsakes him there ; despised by 
 the Christian and the Turk, he opens Isaiah 
 or the Psalms, and remembers that he comes 
 from a line of men who two or three thousand 
 years before, bore in their ark the treasure of 
 humanity, and he feels an inward self-respect 
 which neither Christian nor Turk can ever 
 insult. But the poor Negro has no history to 
 look back upon ; no science, no arts, no litera¬ 
 ture, not even a great war, no single famous 
 name! He looks round him, and his race is 
 enslaved. I do not wonder at his despair, 
 especially amid a tribe of men who are stirred 
 with such intensity of national pride as has 
 marked the Saxon, the Teuton, since he first 
 crossed swords with Roman, Slavonian and 
 Gaul. 
 
 The effect of slavery on the colored men, 
 bond or free, is evil, perhaps only evil. 1 
 know the wrong which they suffer awakens 
 very little sympathy with the mass of men, who 
 in their rudeness reverence Strength and not 
 Justice. But the colored men are one seventh 
 part of our population, and America does not 
 rise as the Negro falls; you and I go down 
 with him; for if one seventh of the people be 
 
 degraded it is the Nation that is debased, 
 Would you feel safe if every seventh house in 
 Boston was full of the yellow fever and every 
 seventh man was dying of it ? There is a 
 moral degradation which is contagious not less 
 than the plague. 
 
 There is a solidarity in mankind. You lift 
 yourselves up by your attempts to elevate 
 your neighbor. The New Englander sends 
 a missionary to India : he does more 
 good in New Haven, in Boston, in Andover, 
 than ever in Beloochistan or Siam. You en¬ 
 slave yourselves when you enslave your brother 
 man. 
 
 I just now said no nation is safe without the 
 power to fight. In case of war with England, 
 of the four million slaves at least three mil¬ 
 lions would take sides with the enemy; most 
 of the free blacks would spontaneously do the 
 same. Would you dare to blame them and 
 then look at yonder monument 1 Did not our 
 fathers draw the great and terrible sword 
 against our own mother nation that had injured 
 us, and yet but little ? Revenge is natural 
 to savage bosoms : God enthroned it there 
 that when the tyrant trembled at nothing else, 
 he might quake at the foeman’s lifted arm and 
 the fear of assassination. 
 
 Napoleon has put down open,resistance and 
 is not afraid of that; there is nothing left for 
 the people but what Italians and Frenchmen 
 have been trained to love —the assassin’s dag¬ 
 ger— and he trembles at that. If America 
 keeps the slave from developing the noblest 
 quality of his nature, then he falls back on the 
 lowest. The power of wrath never fades out 
 from human bones; the animal instinct is 
 older than the spiritual cultivation. 
 
 Wise rulers do not like to have in any com¬ 
 munity a class of men who are not interested 
 in its welfare and progress, for such arc always 
 ready for rebellion and care not who breaks 
 through the hedge they have not a stake in. 
 Even carpenters in their shops have the shav¬ 
 ings carefully swept up at night, lest a spark 
 should burn their riches down. But no nation 
 has so dangerous a class of proletaries as 
 America. Paris has her Faubourg St. An¬ 
 toine, and the forts have their cannon so 
 planted that they can play upon it and make it 
 spring into the air with their perpendicular or 
 horizontal shot. London has its St. Giles, a 
 double police guarding it through the day and 
 twofold lanterns illuminating it by night. But 
 our Faubourg St. Antoine extends over fifteen 
 States in America; there arc ifour millions of 
 
10 
 
 paupers in our St. Giles. No carpenter's shop 
 is so littered with inflammable material as 
 America. Why, a loco-foco match thrown by 
 a Democratic hand might fire these shavings of 
 humanity which we have planed off from the 
 African tree,—and then where are we 1 Be 
 sure of it, unless we amend, one day there will 
 be a St. Domingo in Ameriea, and worse 
 wrongs will be requited worse. 
 
 So much for the Effect of Slavery on the 
 Colored man. 
 
 II. As the feeling for four or five million of 
 colored men is so weak that the politician des¬ 
 pises it, counting it not one of the forces that 
 sway the popular opinion; as the fear of out¬ 
 break or invasion is so small that no northern 
 man is troubled at it, look at the Effect of Sla¬ 
 very on the White Man. To understand it 
 thoroughly look briefly at some of its details. 
 
 The chief work of mankind may be thus 
 lotted out. First, there is the Industrial Activ¬ 
 ity, which aims at property, command over the 
 forces of nature. This is represented by 
 Business; its result is Wealth in all its forms. 
 
 The second, is the Literary and Scientific 
 Activity,which aims at Knowledge—to acquire 
 and distribute thought. This is represented by 
 the Press and the School; its result is Popular 
 Intelligence, Education in all its forms. 
 
 The third is the Religious Activity which 
 aims at Rest in God, Completeness and Per¬ 
 fection of Character. This is represented by 
 the Church ; and the results are Noble Charac¬ 
 ter, Noble Life — individual and social, in the 
 family, in the community, in the state and in 
 the world. 
 
 The fourth is the Political Activity which 
 aims at Sociality, companionship of man with 
 man, the enjoyment of all individual and social 
 rights. This is represented by the State; its 
 highest result is National Unity of Action, all 
 working as one, and Individual Variety of Ac¬ 
 tion, each having his personal freedom. 
 
 I have so often and so long spoken of these 
 things, that to-day I need not say much thereof. 
 
 First, Slavery degrades the Industrial Ac¬ 
 tivity and hinders the creation of wealth. No 
 doubt it enriches the slaveholders, but it im¬ 
 poverishes the community. So piracy is profit¬ 
 able to pirates, though ruinous to the merchant 
 who falls into their hands, and perilous to trade 
 in general. Slavery degrades work, makes 
 men despise it, as the business only of bond¬ 
 
 men. Looked at economically it is a poor 
 tool for the work of productive industry. See 
 how the facts look in figures. 
 
 In 1850 the fifteen slave states had 850,000 
 square miles of land ; the sixteen free states 
 but 612,000 square miles. But the actual val¬ 
 uation of the slave land was only $13,000,000, 
 while the free land went up to $2,440,000,000. 
 240,000 square miles less was worth $1,100,- 
 000,000 more. 
 
 In 1856, the total value of the slave states 
 was $2,500,OQO,000 ; the total value of the free 
 states was $5,700,000,000. So the North could 
 buy up all the land and goods which the South 
 possesses, and then buy the whole population 
 at $300 ahead — black and white, bond and 
 free. 
 
 The Effect of Slavery on the industrial ac¬ 
 tivity of the country, its business and wealth, is 
 terrible. It degrades labor, it impoverishes the 
 People. It concentrates their riches into the 
 hands of a few, who, like Senator Hammond 
 of South Carolina, call American working-men 
 slaves, and like him add their sons and 
 daughters to the assessable property of their 
 estates. 
 
 Slavery is the great enemy of the laboring 
 man who is not a slave. The New England 
 thinker makes a steam shovel which takes up 
 two and a half tons weight at a lift and strikes 
 four times in three minutes, and with four men 
 to attend it does the work of ninety-six more. 
 This elevates labor, it improves the condition 
 of the working-man ; it promotes also his edu¬ 
 cation, by mixing thought with his toil: while 
 the common digger gets but a dollar a day, 
 the thoughtful man who can manage a steam 
 engine gets from three to four dollars. Great 
 inventors are the Evangelists and Apostles to 
 the Gentiles who announce a new Kingdom of 
 God which is a Kingdom of righteousness, the 
 reign of peace on earth and good will amongst 
 men. But he who kidnaps a man and forces 
 him to work, degrades labor itself and com¬ 
 mits high treason against the industrial democ¬ 
 racy. I know the Catholic-Irishman’s right 
 eye is put out by the priest, and his left eye is 
 covered up by the thumb of the American 
 demagogue: but, with both his eyes treated 
 thus, I should think he would yet have human 
 instinct enough to know that whoever enslaved 
 a negro, degraded likewise every working Irish¬ 
 man. But yet not only Irishmen do not know 
 it, a quarter part of the American working 
 men, native born, are not aware of this most 
 obvious fact. 
 
11 
 
 Second. Then Slavery degrades Literary 
 and Scientific Activity. 
 
 It hinders the Education of the people. 
 Look at this. In 1850, the South had but 
 18,000 public schools, the North 62,000; the 
 South had 19,000 teachers, the North 73.000; 
 the South had 700,000 pupils in schools, acad¬ 
 emies and colleges, the North 2,900,000 — 
 2,200.000 more than all the South. In 1854, 
 Virginia paid $70,000 for educating her poor ; 
 $73,000 for a Public Guard, to keep the slaves 
 from rising up and saying, Sic semper tyrannis. 
 One day $73,000,000 will not do it. Sic sem¬ 
 per tyrannis will be the slave's motto, as it is 
 his master's now. 
 
 Out of a white population of less than 
 6,000,000, the South has 500,000 native white 
 inhabitants who cannot read the word Buchan¬ 
 an; while out of a white population of 13,500,- 
 000, the North has not quite a quarter of a 
 million natives who cannot read the New 
 Testament all through, and the Declaration of 
 Independence besides. 
 
 Whence come the Practical Inventions pa¬ 
 tented at Washington ? Eleven-twelfths of 
 them come from a Northern brain, and the 
 one-twelfth which has emanated from the 
 Southern mind is hardly worth the parchment 
 which records it. 
 
 Whence comes the Literature of the nation— 
 its histories, essays, romances, poems, plays, 
 great sermons 'i All from the North. For 
 fifty years the South has not produced a great 
 writer, who has even a national reputation ; no 
 historian, no philosopher, no poet, no moralist, 
 even no preacher. 
 
 Whence comes the nation's Science ? From 
 the same quarter. Yet I do know two emi¬ 
 nent men of science of whom Virginia mav 
 well be proud that she gave them birth, as 
 Massachusetts that she gave them each a home: 
 but their parents were Scotch, married in Scot¬ 
 land ; the children were only born in Virginia. 
 It was the Scotch egg of freedom which was 
 brooded over only in the Virginia nest of 
 slaveholders — and it was not a slaveholder 
 ’which brooded that. 
 
 Slavery strikes the Southern mind with 
 palsy ; the people cannot be educated there. 
 Talent enough, no doubt, is born there ; it 
 cannot be bred. If the star of genius stands 
 still over a southern home, yet the “ desire of 
 all nations," whose birth it heralds, is stifled 
 by the asses that bray around the young child’s 
 cradle and seek its life. 
 
 But the influence of Slavery extends beyond 
 
 the South, and poisons also the literature of 
 the Northern men who support it. Look at 
 the newspapers of the slave editors of the 
 North, — some of you read them every day; 
 listen to the orations of slave orators — you 
 can hear enough of them to-morrow ; hearken 
 to the sermons of the slave preachers — you 
 may hear such to-day; and learn the ghastly 
 effect of slavery on the literary activity of the 
 people. Nay, look at the school books com¬ 
 posed by such men, and see how the slave 
 power, afar off, can debauch even a northern 
 mind. More than thirty years ago, Von 
 Humboldt, the grandest scholar of all Chris¬ 
 tendom, wrote a political essay on the Island 
 of Cuba. It circulates in the court of every 
 tyrant of Europe; it is welcome in Spain, 
 translated into that sonorous tongue. He tells 
 the tale of the black man’s wrong, and the woe 
 which may one day spring out of the ground 
 which has been fattened by his sweat and red¬ 
 dened by his blood. But an American Dem¬ 
 ocrat translates the book into English, 
 leaves out the magnificent philanthropy of Mr. 
 Humboldt, and puts in his own twaddling 
 partisanship, sustaining slavery, and declaring 
 that free society is a mistake. I do not won¬ 
 der the indignation of the old man, almost four 
 score and ten years venerable, is stirred within 
 him when he learns the disgraceful fact. 
 
 Third. Then Slavery degrades the Religious 
 Activity of the People. At the South it is 
 only the least enlightened sects which pre¬ 
 vail ; such as have the lowest ideas of Man 
 and God, and their Relation to each other. 
 Southern men are proud of this, and make it 
 their boast that “there arc no Unitarians of 
 the South,"— that is, none who preach an in¬ 
 telligible rational idea of the oneness of God. 
 They are proud that they “have no Univer- 
 salists," — none who think that God is too 
 good to damn even a slaveholder forever and 
 ever. Nay, they declare that Heresy rends 
 not asunder the seamless vail of the pro-slavery 
 Church, behind which the slaveholder and the 
 slave-hunter stand. They make it their boast 
 that there arc no Tylerites nor Taylorites, no 
 Bushnellites nor Becchcrites, among them, 
 but that all equally accept the faith once for all 
 delivered to the saints, for the enslavement of 
 the negro and the salvation of the slaveholder, 
 the slave-hunter, the slave-driver, the slave- 
 trader, the slave-breeder, not out of his sins, 
 but in his sins. For eighty years the Southern 
 church has contributed nothing to the theology 
 
12 
 
 of America — not a new thought worth the 
 nation’s hearing, no great truth on any theo¬ 
 logical, religious or moral theme. Nay, there 
 is not a single hymn sung by a Southern voice 
 that finds its way into a Northern church. 
 
 Then, too, consider the cruelty. Remember 
 that the South solemnly burns alive, with green 
 wood, criminals from the humblest class of 
 society, as sport to the “ gentlemen ” of the 
 land. Remember that when an assassin dealt 
 your noble Senator a coward’s blow, more 
 bitter than death, remember that all the 
 Southern religion said it was a good thing ! 
 Thus see the effect of slavery on your own 
 brothers, in their own churches, called after 
 Christ, with the same gospel before them out 
 of which the grand truths of humanity so 
 preach themselves to you and me! 
 
 How Slavery degrades the churches of the 
 North ! Some men it silences, and they dare 
 not speak of the great outrage against the 
 Democratic Institutions of America, against 
 the natural Rights of Man, the Law of God. 
 Other men it makes madmen or idiots in their 
 religious faculty, and they boldly proclaim 
 that this great crime against mankind is a 
 “ Revelation from Almighty God.” 
 
 My ears are not preternaturally delicate, yet 
 from childhood up I could not hear profane 
 words profanely spoke, without a shudder; 
 but no swearing of the lowest men I ever en¬ 
 countered in an Ohio railroad car, or met in 
 an Illinois bar-room, has ever filled me with 
 such horror as the profanity of ministers in 
 their pulpits, out of this Bible which they call 
 God’s word, in the name of Jesus whom they 
 affect to worship as God, attempting to justify 
 the foulest wrong which man ever does to 
 man. The State makes slavery a Measure, 
 but the Chureh baptizes it as a Principle. 
 
 Look at the Bible Society, counting its 
 money by millions, which has not a New Tes¬ 
 tament for a slave. Look at the Foreign Mis¬ 
 sionary Society; where are its Evangelists to 
 preach the “ acceptable year of the Lord ” unto 
 American heathen, who fill up whole Gallilees 
 of southern Gentiles ? Look at the American 
 Tract Society ; it has not a word against the 
 great wickedness of a nation which enslaves 
 one seventh part of the People and imperils 
 the rights of all the rest. Then vou see how 
 Slavery debases the holiest thing it lays its 
 hands upon. 
 
 Finally, it degrades the Political Activity of 
 
 the American people in their industrial De¬ 
 mocracy. 
 
 At the South, it rears up a Privileged Class 
 — 350,000 slaveholders — who monopolize all 
 the education — and do not get much — who 
 monopolize the money, respectability, and the 
 political power. They are the masters of the 
 bondmen whom they own, and of the “ poor 
 whites ” whom they control. So in the midst 
 of our industrial democracy there grows up a 
 class who despise the industry which feeds and 
 clothes them. Not a Southern State has a 
 “ Republican form of Government.” These 
 men are seeking to revive that old Vicarious¬ 
 ness of the dark ages, and that in its worst 
 form. See how they degrade the mass of the 
 people, hindering their education, their reli¬ 
 gion, their self-respect; hindering even their 
 industry. The greatest intellect of the South 
 runs to politics, and yet, in the last thirty 
 years, the South has not produced one single 
 great statesman. Over her head there hangs 
 a peril more disastrous and more imminent 
 than impends over Italy, over Spain, over 
 France, even over Turkey, and yet, in that 
 democracy of the South, not a single politician 
 has risen up and dared to cope with this giant 
 ill, and warn his nation against it ! 
 
 There is no great political talent developed 
 at the South, no statesmanship. Power of 
 intrigue, power to take the lumps of dough 
 which we send from the North, and fashion 
 them to vessels of dishonor, and fill them 
 with the shame they are only fit to hold, — 
 this is the extent of the South’s political 
 talent. 
 
 This slave power has its vassals all over 
 the North. They abound in the great cities,— 
 Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, Boston. 
 Read their journals, listen to their orations, hear 
 what they propose for laws, and see the bane¬ 
 ful influence of slavery on the political develop¬ 
 ment of the North. 
 
 But this privileged class, this oligarchy of 
 slave-holders, slave-hunters, and slave-breeders, 
 has long controlled the politics of the nation. 
 Once it ruled the Whig party; then the Know- 
 Nothing party ; the Democratic party it has 
 controlled for a long time. See its measures : 
 The Fugitive Slave Bill, the Dred Scott De¬ 
 cision ; the spread of slavery into Kansas and 
 other territory ; the acquisition of new territory 
 to spread it into; the re-opening of the Afri¬ 
 can slave trade, to fill the South with men 
 whose masters shall force them to work, and 
 degrade still further the labor of every Irish 
 
13 
 
 man, German, or American bom to the soil! 
 Take the last three administrations,—include, 
 if you will, the present; study their great 
 acts; look at their representative men; con¬ 
 sider the principles they lay down, and the 
 measures they thereon build up. Compare 
 these with the three first administrations, — of 
 Washington, Adams, Jefferson. Try them by 
 the two texts of this morning’s sermon, — the 
 Golden Rule, which is now a maxim of hu¬ 
 manity ; the noble word of our fathers, also a 
 self-evident truth,—and then you see the effect 
 of Slavery on American politics. 
 
 The slave power violates the conscience of 
 the American people, and then seeks to muz¬ 
 zle the mouth. In the South there must be 
 no discussion of Slavery. Ministers are 
 mobbed, tarred and feathered, and driven off. 
 Even a bookseller is not allowed to retail his 
 liberal wares in Alabama, which Mr. Clay, its 
 representative Senator in Congress, says is a 
 “ model slave State.” So indeed it is ! This 
 is the test of institutions : Can they bear to be 
 looked at in the daylight, and talked about 
 by every tongue ? Napoleon and the Pope, say 
 tyranny cannot be looked at; the South says the 
 same. Has the North any institution that it is 
 afraid to have looked at and talked about 1 
 Senator Hammond says, “We will send our 
 missionaries to the North, to talk about the 
 wrongs of the people ! The wrongs of the 
 Northern People! where a shoemaker turns 
 into a Senator, and nobly fills the place, — far 
 better than the accomplished scholar, who but 
 trod on it before; where we turn blacksmiths 
 into Governors, and have Colleges for the Peo¬ 
 ple by every valley, and beside every little 
 stream that runs among the hills ! Mr. Ham¬ 
 mond’s father, a native of this State, went to 
 the South in a humble capacity, to seek his 
 fortune, and found it by marrying a plantation ; 
 and from that wedlock has this Senator Ham¬ 
 mond sprung, who says that the working people 
 of the North are “the mud-sills of society,” 
 “ essentially slaves,” only not so well paid and 
 cared-for as his own ! While he was utterincr 
 this, the valuation of all the lands and goods 
 in South Carolina was not quite $ 148 , 000 , 000 , 
 but the valuation of assessable property in 
 Boston was $ 258 , 000 , 000 . The “ mud-sills,” 
 the “ slaves ” of the North, in a single city, 
 had $110,000,000 more of property than the 
 whole great State of South Carolina, and her 
 Senator thrown in! 
 
 Such are the Effects that slavery has on the 
 Industrial, Intellectual, Religious and Political 
 Development of the people. It is a four-fold 
 curse upon the master, not less than upon the 
 slave. 
 
 Look at New England! She has 60.000 
 square miles of land — and what is it? 
 Some of you have tilled it; I also for many a 
 year. The soil is thin and poor; the climate 
 ungenial; the summers short, the winters long 
 and terribly severe. Timber, granite, ice, 
 are our natural staples, wherein yet we have 
 no monopoly. Virginia has 63,000 square 
 miles ; she has 1300 more than New England, 
 with an admirable soil, and “ the finest climate 
 in the world.” Her surface bears every thing, 
 from tropic cotton in the southern valleys to 
 arctic moss on the mountain top. The earth 
 teems with most valuable minerals. Her 
 coast has the best of harbors; her great rivers are 
 a static power for internal navigation; small 
 ones a dymanic force for manufactures. She 
 had been settled twelve years while New Eng¬ 
 land had no man but the red Indian. Now, 
 New England has 3,000,000 people, all free ; 
 Virginia a million and a half, and 500,000 of 
 them are slaves. New England has 3600 miles 
 of railroad, which have cost $120,000,000; 
 Virginia 1200 miles, which have cost $23,000,- 
 000. The value of the land in Virginia, in 
 1850, was $252,000,000; in New England, 
 $690,000,000. The whole property of Vir¬ 
 ginia, in land and goods, in 1856, was 
 $330,000,000; of New England, $1,220,000,- 
 000. In 1858 Boston only lacks $72,000,000 
 to be worth as much as all the lands and goods 
 of the great Sate of Virginia, with 1,500,000 
 people and 63,000 square miles of land. 
 By nature how poor New England ; Virginia 
 how rich: by art how poor Virginia ; how rich 
 New England! Whence the odds ? Here is 
 Freedom ; every avenue to wealth, to honor, 
 office, fame, is open to all. There is Slavery ; 
 and as men sow, thus shall they reap, — New 
 England, Wealth of her freedom ; Virginia, 
 from her bondage Poverty. The exports of 
 New England, they are the products of her 
 toilsome hand and thinking brain ; they are 
 books, manufactured articles: New England’s 
 hand goes through every land. The exports 
 of Virginia, they are her sons and daughters, 
 bred as slaves, to be sold as cattle. Virginia 
 has 78,000 children at school and college; 
 New England 676,000. From the Aroostook 
 to the Ilousatonic, from the day of the Pil¬ 
 grims until now, New England has been cov- 
 
14 
 
 % 
 
 ered all over with the footprints of human 
 freedom. The poor little school-houses dot the 
 land, everywhere, and the meeting house lifts 
 its finger to heaven as the index of God's 
 Higher Law, his self-evident Truths, the Un¬ 
 alienable Right of man to Life, Liberty, and 
 the Pursuit of Happiness. While New Eng¬ 
 land opens her ten thousand schools to all chil¬ 
 dren — Saxon, German, Irish. African — in 
 Virginia the arm of the State shuts a woman 
 in jail because she taught a colored girl to read 
 the Hew Testament. While Massachusetts 
 turns with scorn a Judge of Probate out from 
 his office., because he kidnapped a man, Vir¬ 
 ginia shuts a Northern Sea Captain for forty 
 years in her penitentiary, because he aided 
 $4000 worth of human property to become free 
 men. who believe sic semper tyrannis. That is 
 the effect of slavery ! 
 
 Nothing can save Slavery. It is destined to 
 ruin. Once I thought it might end peacefully; 
 now I think it must fall as so many another 
 wickedness, in violence and blood. Slavery is 
 in flagrant violation of the institutions of Amer¬ 
 ica — Direct Government, — over all the peo¬ 
 ple, by all the people, for all the people. It is 
 hostile to the interests of industrial Democracy; 
 it lessens wealth — weakening the growth of 
 creative power, Toil and Thought. It lies in 
 the way of all religion. There is one great 
 maxim of morality, older than Jesus of Naza¬ 
 reth, common to the Chinese, Buddistic, 
 Classic, Mohammedan, and Christian religion, 
 “Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 unto you, do ye even so to them." Measure 
 Slavery by the Golden Rule and where is it 1 
 It conflicts with the self-evident truths of hu¬ 
 man reason so clear to our Fathers, and first 
 promulged eighty-two years ago this day. It 
 stands in the way of that Automatic Instinct 
 of Progress which is eternal in the human 
 race and irresistible in human history. 
 
 Democracy is the stone which the builders 
 rejected, in due time it is hoisted up with 
 shouting, and made the head of the corner. It 
 was not the work of wise men, who knew what 
 they did. “It is the Lord’s doing, and it is 
 marvellous in our eves;” not your forecast, 
 but the Divine Providence that works by us 
 and through us without our will. “Whoso 
 falleth on that stone shall be broken, but on 
 whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to 
 powder.” 
 
 Slavery must go down. The course of Trade 
 
 is against it; the course of Thought; the course 
 of Religion ; the course of Politics,—the course 
 of History. All the Ccesars could not save 
 Paganism, when the Sun of Christian right¬ 
 eousness shone in the Roman sky. No Julian, 
 the apostate, can turnback the eyes of free men 
 to love that Vicariousness of government, 
 which our Pilgrim Fathers fled from with de¬ 
 vout prayers, and which our Patriot Fathers 
 declared against and put down with devout 
 swords. Meetings of Southern planters to re¬ 
 store the slave trade, assemblies of Northern 
 capitalists and their flunkeys to suppress agita¬ 
 tion and enforce Kidnapping, conventions of 
 National Politicians to put down the principles 
 of democracy and the Christian religion — 
 can these things save Slaverv from its fate ? 
 No more than a convention of grizzly bears in 
 the Rocky Mountains can protect the savage 
 woods from the axe, or stay the tide of civil¬ 
 ized man, which will sweep across the conti¬ 
 nent, and fill the howling wilderness with farms 
 and villages and cities of Christian men in¬ 
 stead of grizzly bears. Let Presidents and 
 Cabinets do their possible, mankind will tread 
 Slavery underneath their feet. 
 
 You and I, American men and women, w T e 
 must end Slavery soon, or it ruins our democ¬ 
 racy — the sooner the better and at the smaller 
 cost. And if we are faithful, as our Patriot 
 Fathers and our Pilgrim Fathers, then when 
 you and your children shall assemble eighteen 
 years hence to keep the one hundredth birth¬ 
 day of the land, there shall not be a slave in 
 all America! 
 
 Then wdiat a prospect, what a history is 
 there for the American People with their In¬ 
 dustrial Democracy ! For all men Freedom in 
 the Market, freedom in the School, freedom in 
 the Church, freedom in the State! Remove 
 this monstrous evil, what a glorious future 
 shall be ours! The whole mighty continent 
 will come within the bounds of Liberty, aad 
 the very islands of the gulf rejoice. 
 
 And, henceforth, there shall be no chain, 
 
 Save, underneath the sea, 
 
 The wires shall murmur through the main 
 Sweet songs of liberty. 
 
 The conscious stars accord above, 
 
 The waters wild below, 
 
 And under, through the cable wove, 
 
 Her fiery errands go. 
 
 For He who worketli high and wise, 
 
 Nor pauses in his plan, 
 
 Will take the sun out of the skies 
 Ere freedom out of man. 
 
Cl ROULAE, 
 
 TO THE THINKING PUBLIC THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. 
 
 . ■ - < — » > - 
 
 REY. THEODORE PARKER’S 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 % 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Present Revival of Religion, 
 
 DELIVERED AT MUSIC HALL, BOSTON. 
 
 THREE DISTINCT DISCOURSES. 
 
 The First, — delivered on 14th February, upon “False and True Theology,” 
 to which is added the Prayers which were offered at Park Street, Boston, for 
 Mr. Parker’s Conversion. 
 
 The Second, — delivered April 4th, upon “A False and True Bevival of 
 Religion.” 
 
 The TniRD, — delivered April 11th, upon “The Revival of Religion which 
 
 WE NEED.” 
 
 Full and accurate reports, revised by the Author. 
 
 ffp* These Sermons have created an immense sensation throughout the country, 
 calling forth numerous replies from the pulpit, and have already reached the 30th 
 thousand. 
 
 The public will please bear in mind that these Sermons are published separately, 
 and order accordingly. 
 
 Liberal Rates to the Trade. 
 
 WM L. KENT & CO., Publishers, 
 
 No. 3 STATE STREET, BOSTON 
 
REV. THEODORE PARKER’S WORKS. 
 
 The following Works of Rev. Theodore Parker will be. sent to 
 any address by mail, post-paid, on receipt of the regular retail price, 
 which is affixed to each Work on the Catalogue, by addressing 
 
 WM. L. KENT & CO., 
 
 Wo. 3 STATE ST,, BOSTON. 
 
 */ Liberal Rates to the Trade. 
 
 1. A DISCOURSE OF MATTERS PERTAINING TO RELIGION. 
 
 1 Vol. 12mo. $1.25 
 
 2. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT. From the 
 
 German of De Wette. 2 Vols. 8vo. 3.75 
 
 3. CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 1 Vol. 12mo. 1.25 
 
 4. TEN SERMONS OF RELIGION. 1 Vol. 12mo. 1.00 
 
 5. SERMONS OF THEISM, ATHEISM, AND THE POPULAR 
 
 THEOLOGY. 1 Vol. 12mo. 1.25 
 
 6. OCCASIONAL AND ADDITIONAL SERMONS AND 
 
 7. THE TRIAL OF THEODORE PARKER,’for the Misdemeanor'of 
 a Speech in Faneuil Hall, against Kidnapping; with the Defence. 
 
 1 Vol. 8vo. 1.00 
 
 PAMPHLETS. 
 
 1. A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR. (1848.).20 
 
 2. MOST CHRISTIAN USE OF THE SUNDAY. (1848.).20 
 
 3. ON THE DEATH OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. (1848.).... .20 
 
 4. THE PUBLIC EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. (1850.).20 
 
 5. THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE. (1851.).15 
 
 6. LETTER TO THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE AMER¬ 
 
 ICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION, TOUCHING THEIR 
 NEW CREED. (1853.).12 
 
 7. ON LEAVING THEIR OLD AND ENTERING A NEW PLACE 
 
 OF WORSHIP. 2 Sermons. (1853.).20 
 
 8 THE LAWS OF GOD AND THE STATUTES OF MEN. (1854.) .15 
 
 9. THE NEW CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY. (1854.).20 
 
 10. A SERMON OF OLD AGE. (1854.).15 
 
 11. DANGERS WHICH THREATEN THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 
 
 (1854.).20 
 
 12. THE MORAL DANGERS INCIDENT TO PROSPERITY. (1855.) .15 
 
 13. CONSEQUENCES OF AN IMMORAL PRINCIPLE. (1855.).. .15 
 
 14. OF IMMORTAL LIFE. 4th Edition. (1855.).10 
 
 15. THE FUNCTIONS OF A TEACHER OF RELIGION. (1855.) .20 
 
 16. A NEW LESSON FOR THE DAY. (1856.).15 
 
 17. THE GREAT BATTLE BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLA¬ 
 
 VERY. (1856.).25 
 
 18. THE PRESENT ASPECT OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA. (1858.) .20 
 
 19. A SERMON OF FALSE AND TRUE THEOLOGY. (Feb. 1S58.) .08 
 
 20. A FALSE AND TRUE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. (April, 
 
 1858.).08 
 
 21. THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION WHICH WE NEED. (April, 
 
 1858.). 08 
 
 22. THE RELATION OF SLAVERY TO A REPUBLICAN FORM 
 
 OF GOVERNMENT. (1858.).08