Now each of these educational forces has certain defects, negative evils, and certain vices, positive evils, which tend to misdirect the nation, and so hinder the general education of the people: of these, also, let me speak in detail.
The state appeals to force, not to justice; this is its last appeal; the force of muscles aided by force of mind, instructed by modern science in the art to kill. The nation appeals to force in the settlement of affairs out of its borders. We have lately seen an example of this, when we commenced war against a feeble nation, who, in that special emergency, had right on her side, about as emphatically as the force was on our side. The immediate success of the enterprise, the popular distinction acquired by some of the leaders, the high honor bestowed on one of its heroes, all this makes the lesson of injustice attractive. It may be that a similar experiment will again be tried, and doubtless with like success. Certainly there is no nation this side of the water which can withstand the enterprise, the activity, the invention, industry and perseverance of a people so united, and yet so free and intelligent. Another successful injustice of this character, on a large scale, will make right still less regarded, and might honored yet more.
The force we employ out of our borders, might opposed to right, we employ also at home against our brethren, and keep three millions of them in bondage; we watch for opportunities to extend the institution of slavery over soil unpolluted by that triple curse, and convert the Constitution, the fundamental law of the land, into an instrument for the defence of slavery.
The men we honor politically, by choosing them to offices in the state, are commonly men of extraordinary force, sometimes, it is true, only of extraordinary luck, but of only ordinary justice; men who, perhaps, have mind in the heroic degree, but conscience of the most vulgar pattern. They are to keep the law of the United States when it is wholly hostile to the law of the universe, to the everlasting justice of God.
I am not speaking to politicians, professional representatives of the state; not speaking for political effect; not of the state as a political machine for the government of the people. I am speaking to teachers, for an educational purpose; of the state as an educational machine, as one of the great forces for the spiritual development of the people. Now by this preference of force and postponement of justice at home and abroad, in the selection of men for office, with its wealth, and rank, and honor, by keeping the law of the land to the violation of the law of God, it is plain we are teaching ourselves to love wrong; at least to be insensible to the right. What we practise on a national scale as a people, it is not easy to think wrong when practised on a personal scale, by this man and that.
The patriotism, also, which the state nurses, is little more than that Old Testament patriotism which loves your countryman, and hates the stranger; the affection which the Old Testament attributes to Jehovah, and which makes him say, "I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau;" a patriotism which supports our country in the wrong as readily as in the right, and is glad to keep one sixth part of the nation in bondage without hope. It is not a patriotism which, beginning here, loves all the children of God, but one that robs the Mexican, enslaves the African, and exterminates the Indian.
These are among the greater evils taught us by the political action of the people as a whole. If you look at the action of the chief political parties, you see no more respect for justice in the politics of either party, than in the politics of the nation, the resultant of both; no more respect for right abroad, or at home. One party aims distinctively at preserving the property already acquired; its chief concern is for that, its sympathy there; where its treasure is, is also its heart. It legislates, consciously or otherwise, more for accumulated wealth, than for the laboring man who now accumulates. This party goes for the dollar; the other for the majority, and aims at the greatest good of the greatest number, leaving the good of the smaller number to most uncertain mercies. Neither party seems to aim at justice, which protects both the wealth that labor has piled up, and the laborer who now creates it; justice, which is the point of morals common to man and God, where the interests of all men, abroad and at home, electing and elected, greatest number and smallest number, exactly balance. Falsehood, fraud, a willingness to deceive, a desire for the power and distinction of office, a readiness to use base means in obtaining office—these vices are sown with a pretty even hand upon both parties, and spring up with such blossoms and such a fruitage as we all see. The third political party has not been long enough in existence to develop any distinctive vices of its own.
I shall not speak of the public or private character of the politicians who direct the state; no doubt that is a powerful element in our national education; but as a class, they seem no better and no worse than merchants, mechanics, ministers and farmers, as a class; so in their influence there is nothing peculiar, only their personal character ceases to be private, and becomes a public force in the education of the people.
The Churches have the same faults as the State. There is the same postponement of justice and preference of force, the same neglect of the law of God in their zeal for the statutes of men; the same crouching to dollars or to numbers. However, in the churches these faults appear negatively, rather than as an affirmation. The worldliness of the church is not open, self-conscious and avowed; it is not, as a general thing, that human injustice is openly defended, but rather justice goes by default. But if the churches do not positively support and teach injustice, as the state certainly does, they do not teach the opposite, and, so far as that goes, are allies of the state in its evil influence. The fact that the churches, as such, did not oppose the war, and do not oppose slavery, its continuance, or its extension; nay, that they are often found its apologists and defenders, seldom its opponents; that they not only pervert the sacred books of the Christians to its defence, but wrest the doctrines of Christianity to justify it; the fact that they cannot, certainly do not, correct the particularism of the political parties, the love of wealth in one, of mere majorities in the other; that they know no patriotism not bounded by their country, none coextensive with mankind; that they cannot resist the vice of party spirit—these are real proofs that the church is but the ally of the state in this evil influence.