Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3)

by Theodore Parker

This class opposed abolishing imprisonment for debt, thinking it endangered trade. They now oppose the progress of temperance and the abolition of the gallows. They see the evils of war; they cannot see its sin; will sustain men who help plunge the nation into its present disgraceful and cowardly conflict; will encourage foolish young men to go and fight in this wicked war. A great man said, or is reported to have said, that perhaps it is not an American habit to consider the natural justice of a war, but to count its cost! A terrible saying that! There is a Power which considers its Justice, and will demand of us the blood we have wickedly poured out; blood of Americans, blood of the Mexicans! They favor indirect taxation, which is taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich; they continue to support the causes of poverty; as a class they are blind to this great evil of popular ignorance—the more terrible evils of licentiousness, drunkenness and crime! They can enrich themselves by demoralizing their brothers. I wish it was an American habit to count the cost of that. Some "fanatic" will consider its justice. If they see these evils they look not for their cause; at least, strive not to remove that cause. They have long known that every year more money is paid in Boston for poison drink to be swallowed on the spot, a drink which does no man any good, which fills your asylums with paupers, your jails with criminals, and houses with unutterable misery in father, mother, wife and child,—more money every year than it would take to build your new aqueduct and bring abundance of water fresh to every house![26] If they have not known it, why it was their fault, for the fact was there crying to Heaven against us all. As they are the most powerful class, the elder brothers, American nobles if you will, it was their duty to look out for their weaker brother. No man has strength for himself alone. To use it for one's self alone, that is a sin. I do not think they are conscious of the evil they do, or the evils they allow. I speak not of motives, only of facts.

This class controls the State. The effects of that control appear in our legislation. I know there are some noble men in political life, who have gone there with the loftiest motives, men that ask only after what is right. I honor such men—honor them all the more because they seem exceptions to a general rule; men far above the spirit of any class. I must speak of what commonly takes place. Our politics are chiefly mercantile, politics in which money is preferred, and man postponed. When the two come into collision, the man goes to the wall and the street is left clear for the dollars. A few years ago in monarchical France a report was made of the condition of the working population in the large manufacturing towns—a truthful report, but painful to read, for it told of strong men oppressing the weak.[27] I do not believe that such an undisguised statement of the good and ill could be tolerated in democratic America; no, not of the condition of men in New England; and what would be thought of a book setting forth the condition of the laboring men and women of the South? I know very well what is thought of the few men who attempt to tell the truth on this subject. I think there is no nation in Europe, except Russia and Turkey, which cares so little for the class which reaps down its harvests and does the hard work. When you protect the rights of all, you protect also the property of each and by that very act. To begin the other way is quite contrary to nature. But our politicians cannot say too little for men, nor too much for money. Take the politicians most famous and honored at this day, and what have they done? They have labored for a tariff, or for free trade; but what have they done for man? nay, what have they attempted?—to restore natural rights to men notoriously deprived of them; progressively to elevate their material, moral, social condition? I think no one pretends it. Even in proclamations for Thanksgiving and days of prayer, it is not the most needy we are bid remember. Public sins are not pointed out to be repented of. Slaveholding States shut up in their jails our colored seamen soon as they arrive in a southern port. A few years ago, at a time of considerable excitement here on the slavery question, a petition was sent from this place by some merchants and others, to one of our Senators, praying Congress to abate that evil. For a long time that Senator could find no opportunity to present the petition. You know how much was said and what was done! Had the South demanded every tenth or twentieth bale of "domestics" coming from the North; had a petition relative to that grievance been sent to Congress, and a Senator unreasonably delayed to present it—how much more would have been said and done; when he came back he would have been hustled out of Boston! When South Carolina and Louisiana sent home our messengers—driving them off with reproach, insult, and danger of their lives—little is said and nothing done. But if the barbarous natives of Sumatra interfere with our commerce, why, we send a ship and lay their towns in ruins and murder the men and women! We all know that for some years Congress refused to receive petitions relative to slavery; and we know how tamely that was borne by the class who commonly control political affairs! What if Congress had refused to receive petitions relative to a tariff, or free trade, to the shipping interest, or the manufacturing interest? When the rights of men were concerned, three million men, only the "fanatics" complained. The political newspapers said "Hush!"

The merchant-manufacturers want a protective tariff; the merchant-importers, free trade; and so the national politics hinge upon that question. When Massachusetts was a carrying State, she wanted free trade; now a manufacturing State, she desires protection. That is all natural enough; men wish to protect their interests, whatsoever they may be. But no talk is made about protecting the labor of the rude man, who has no capital, nor skill, nothing but his natural force of muscles. The foreigner underbids him, monopolizing most of the brute labor of our large towns and internal improvements. There is no protection, no talk of protection for the carpenter, or the bricklayer. I do not complain of that. I rejoice to see the poor wretches of the old world finding a home where our fathers found one before. Yet if we cared for men more than for money, and were consistent with our principles of protection, why, we should exclude all foreign workmen, as well as their work, and so raise the wages of the native hands. That would doubtless be very foolish legislation—but perhaps not, on that account, very strange. I know we are told that without protection, our hand-worker, whose capital is his skill, cannot compete with the operative of Manchester and Brussels, because that operative is paid but little. I know not if it be true, or a mistake. But who ever told us such men could not compete with the slave of South Carolina who is paid nothing? We have legislation to protect our own capital against foreign capital; perhaps our own labor against the "pauper of Europe;" why not against the slave labor of the Southern States? Because the controlling class prefers money and postpones man. Yet the slave-breeder is protected. He has, I think, the only real monopoly in the land. No importer can legally spoil his market, for the foreign slave is contraband. If I understand the matter, the importation of slaves was allowed, until such men as pleased could accumulate their stock. The reason why it was afterwards forbidden I think was chiefly a mercantile reason: the slave-breeder wanted a monopoly, for God knows and you know that it is no worse to steal grown men in Africa than to steal new born babies in Maryland, to have them born for the sake of stealing them. Free labor may be imported, for it helps the merchant-producer and the merchant-manufacturer. Slave labor is declared contraband, for the merchant-slave-breeders want a monopoly.

This same preference of money over men appears in many special statutes. In most of our manufacturing companies the capital is divided into shares so large that a poor man cannot invest therein! This could easily be avoided. A man steals a candlestick out of a church, and goes to the State Prison for a year and a day. Another quarrels with a man, maims him for life, and is sent to the common jail for six months. A bounty is paid, or was until lately, on every gallon of intoxicating drink manufactured here and sent out of the country. If we begin with taking care of the rights of man, it seems easy to take care of the rights of labor and of capital. To begin the other way is quite another thing. A nation making laws for the nation is a noble sight. The Government of all, by all, and for all, is a democracy. When that Government follows the eternal laws of God, it is founding what Christ called the kingdom of heaven. But the predominating class making laws not for the nation's good, but only for its own, is a sad spectacle; no reasoning can make it other than a sorry sight. To see able men prostituting their talents to such a work, that is one of the saddest sights! I know all other nations have set us the example, yet it is painful to see it followed, and here.

Our politics, being mainly controlled by this class, are chiefly mercantile, the politics of peddlers. So political management often becomes a trick. Hence we have many politicians, and raise a harvest of them every year, that crop never failing, party-men who can legislate for a class; but we have scarce one great statesman who can step before his class, beyond his age, and legislate for a whole nation, leading the people and giving us new ideas to incarnate in the multitude, his word becoming flesh. We have not planters, but trimmers! A great statesman never came of mercantile politics, only of politics considered as the national application of religion to life. Our political morals, you all know what they are, the morals of a huckster. This is no new thing; the same game was played long ago in Venice, Pisa, Florence, and the result is well known. A merely mercantile politician is very sharp-sighted and perhaps far-sighted, but a dollar will cover the whole field of his vision and he can never see through it. The number of slaves in the United States is considerably greater than our whole population when we declared Independence, yet how much talk will a tariff make, or a public dinner; how little the welfare of three million men! Said I not truly, our most famous politicians are, in the general way, only mercantile party-men? Which of these men has shown the most interest in those three million slaves? The man who in the Senate of a Christian Republic valued them at twelve hundred million dollars! Shall respectable men say, "We do not care what sort of a Government the people have, so long as we get our dividends." Some say so; many men do not say that, but think so and act accordingly! The Government, therefore, must be so arranged that they get their dividends.

This class of men buys up legislators, consciously or not, and pays them, for value received. Yes, so great is its daring and its conscious power, that we have recently seen our most famous politician bought up, the stoutest understanding that one finds now extant in this whole nineteenth century, perhaps the ablest head since Napoleon. None can deny his greatness, his public services in times past, nor his awful power of intellect. I say we have seen him, a Senator of the United States, pensioned by this class, or a portion thereof, and thereby put mainly in their hands! When a whole nation rises up and publicly throws its treasures at the feet of a great man who has stood forth manfully contending for the nation, and bids him take their honors and their gold as a poor pay for noble works, why that sight is beautiful, the multitude shouting hosanna to their King, and spreading their garments underneath his feet! Man is loyal, and such honors so paid, and to such, are doubly gracious; becoming alike to him that takes and those who give. Yes, when a single class, to whom some man has done a great service, goes openly and makes a memorial thereof in gold and honors paid to him, why that also is noble and beautiful. But when a single class, in a country where political doings are more public than elsewhere in the whole world, secretly buys up a man, in high place and world-famous, giving him a retaining fee for life, why the deed is one I do not wish to call by name! Could such men do this without a secret shame? I will never believe it of my countrymen.[28] A gift blinds a wise man's eyes, perverts the words even of the righteous, stopping his mouth with gold so that he cannot reprove a wrong! But there is an absolute justice which is neither bought nor sold! I know other nations have done the same and with like effect. Fight with silver weapons, said the Delphic oracle, and you'll conquer all. It has always been the craft of despots to buy up aspiring talent; some with a title; some with gold. Allegiance to the sovereign is the same thing on both sides of the water, whether the sovereign be an eagle or a guinea. Some American, it is said, wrote the Lord's Prayer on one side of a dime, and the Ten Commandments on the other. The Constitution and a considerable commentary might perhaps be written on the two sides of a dollar!

This class controls the Churches, as the State. Let me show the effect of that control. I am not to try men in a narrow way, by my own theological standard, but by the standard of manliness and Christianity. As a general rule, the clergy are on the side of power. All history proves this, our own most abundantly. The clergy also are unconsciously bought up, their speech paid for, or their silence. As a class, did they ever denounce a public sin? a popular sin? Perhaps they have. Do they do it now and here? Take Boston for the last ten years, and I think there has been more clerical preaching against the abolitionists than against slavery; perhaps more preaching against the temperance movement than in its favor. With the exception of disbelieving the popular theology, your evangelical alliance knows no sin but "original sin," unless indeed it be "organic sins," which no one is to blame for; no sinner but Adam and the devil; no saving righteousness but the "imputed." I know there are exceptions, and I would go far to do them honor, pious men who lift up a warning, yes, bear Christian testimony against public sins. I am speaking of the mass of the clergy. Christ said the priests of his time had made a den of thieves out of God's house of prayer. Now they conform to the public sins and apologize for popular crime. It is a good thing to forgive an offence: who does not need that favor and often? But to forgive the theory of crime, to have a theory which does that, is quite another thing. Large cities are alike the court and camp of the mercantile class, and what I have just said is more eminently true of the clergy in such towns. Let me give an example. Not long ago the Unitarian clergy published a protest against American slavery. It was moderate, but firm, and manly. Almost all the clergy in the country signed it. In the large towns few: they mainly young men and in the least considerable churches. The young men seemed not to understand their contract, for the essential part of an ecclesiastical contract is sometimes written between the lines and in sympathetic ink. Is a steamboat burned or lost on the waters, how many preach on that affliction! Yet how few preached against the war? A preacher may say he hates it as a man, no words could describe his loathing at it, but as a minister of Christ, he dares not say a word! What clergymen tell of the sins of Boston,—of intemperance, licentiousness; who of the ignorance of the people; who of them lays bare our public sin as Christ of old; who tells the causes of poverty, and thousand-handed crime; who aims to apply Christianity to business, to legislation, politics, to all the nation's life? Once the church was the bride of Christ, living by his creative, animating love; her children were apostles, prophets, men by the same spirit, variously inspired with power to heal, to help, to guide mankind. Now she seems the widow of Christ, poorly living on the dower of other times. Nay, the Christ is not dead, and 'tis her alimony, not her dower. Her children—no such heroic sons gather about her table as before. In her dotage she blindly shoves them off, not counting men as sons of Christ. Is her day gone by? The clergy answer the end they were bred for, paid for. Will they say, "We should lose our influence were we to tell of this and do these things?"[29] It is not true. Their ancient influence is already gone! Who asks, "What do the clergy think of the tariff, or free trade, of annexation, or the war, of slavery, or the education movement?" Why no man. It is sad to say these things. Would God they were not true. Look round you, and if you can, come tell me they are false.

We are not singular in this. In all lands the clergy favors the controlling class. Bossuet would make the monarchy swallow up all other institutions, as in history he sacrificed all nations to the Jews. In England the established clergy favors the nobility, the crown, not the people; opposes all freedom of trade, all freedom in religion, all generous education of the people: its gospel is the gospel for a class, not Christ's gospel for mankind. Here also the sovereign is the head of the church, it favors the prevailing power, represents the morality, the piety which chances to be popular, nor less nor more; the Christianity of the street, not of Christ.

Here trade takes the place of the army, navy, and court in other lands. That is well, but it takes also the place in great measure of science, art and literature. So we become vulgar, and have little but trade to show. The rich man's son seldom devotes himself to literature, science, or art; only to getting more money, or to living in idleness on what he has inherited. When money is the end, what need to look for any thing more? He degenerates into the class of consumers, and thinks it an honor. He is ashamed of his father's blood, proud of his gold. A good deal of scientific labor meets with no reward, but itself. In our country this falls almost wholly upon poor men. Literature, science and art are mainly in their hands, yet are controlled by the prevalent spirit of the nation. Here and there an exceptional man differs from that, but the mass of writers conform. In England, the national literature favors the church, the crown, the nobility, the prevailing class. Another literature is rising, but is not yet national, still less canonized. We have no American literature which is permanent. Our scholarly books are only an imitation of a foreign type; they do not reflect our morals, manners, politics, or religion, not even our rivers, mountains, sky. They have not the smell of our ground in their breath. The real American literature is found only in newspapers and speeches, perhaps in some novel, hot, passionate, but poor, and extemporaneous. That is our national literature. Does that favor man—represent man? Certainly not. All is the reflection of this most powerful class. The truths that are told are for them, and the lies. Therein the prevailing sentiment is getting into the form of thought. Politics represent the morals of the controlling class, the morals and manners of rich Peter and David on a large scale. Look at that index, you would sometimes think you were not in the Senate of a great nation, but in a board of brokers, angry and higgling about stocks. Once in the nation's loftiest hour, she rose inspired and said: "All men are born equal, each with unalienable rights; that is self-evident." Now she repents her of the vision and the saying. It does not appear in her literature, nor church, nor state. Instead of that, through this controlling class, the nation says: "All dollars are equal, however got; each has unalienable rights. Let no man question that!" This appears in literature and legislation, church and state. The morals of a nation, of its controlling class, always get summed up in its political action. That is the barometer of the moral weather. The voters are always fairly represented.