Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 2 (of 3)Parker, Theodore
Religion
Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 2 (of 3)
Parker, Theodore
Sermons, American; Unitarianism
Then these men always are in favor of a pro-slavery President. The
President must be a slaveholder. There have been fifteen presidential
elections. Men from the free States have filled the chair twelve years,
or three terms; men from the slave States forty-four years, or eleven
terms. During one term, the chair was filled by an amphibious
presidency, by General Harrison, who was nothing but a concrete
availability, and John Tyler, who was--John Tyler. They called him an
accident; but there are no accidents in politics. A slaveholder presides
over the United States forty-eight years out of sixty! Do those men who
control the politics of New England not like it? It is no such thing.
They love to have it so. We have just seen the democratic party, or
their leaders, nominate General Cass for their candidate--and General
Cass is a northern man; but on that account is he any the less a
pro-slavery man? He did oppose the South once, but it was in pressing a
war with England. Everybody knows General Cass, and I need say no more
about him. But the northern whigs have their leaders--are they
anti-slavery men? Not a whit more. Next week you will see them nominate,
not the great Eastern whig, though he is no opponent of slavery, only an
Expounder and Defender of the Constitution; not the great Western whig,
the Compromiser, though steeped to the lips in slavery; no, they will
nominate General Taylor, a man who lives a little further south, and is
at this moment dyed a little more scarlet with the sin of slavery.
But go a step further as to the proof. Those men who control the
politics of Massachusetts, or New England, or the whole North, they have
never opposed the aggressive movements of the slave power. The
annexation of Texas, did they oppose that? No, they were glad of it.
True, some earnest men came up here in Faneuil Hall, and passed
resolutions, which did no good whatever, because it was well known that
the real controllers of our politics thought the other way. Then
followed the Mexican war. It was a war for slavery, and they knew it;
they like it now--that is, if a man's likings can be found out by his
doings, not his occasional and exceptional deeds, but his regular and
constant actions. They knew that there would be a war against the
currency, a war against the tariff, or a war against Mexico. They chose
the latter. They knew what they were about.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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