Such being the case, and such being the chief transient national desire just now, the controlling class consider the State as a machine to help them make money. A great politician, it is said, once laid down this rule,--"Take care of the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor." Perhaps he did not say that, though he did say that "The great object of government is the protection of property at home, and respect and renown abroad." Such being the case, laws are made accordingly, and institutions are modified accordingly. Let me give an example. In all the towns of New England, town-money is raised by taxes on all the people, and on all the property. The rich man is taxed according to his riches, and the poor man according to his poverty. But the national money is raised by taxation not in proportion to a man's wealth. A bachelor in New England, with a million dollars, pays a much smaller national tax than a carpenter who has no money at all, but only ten children, the poor man's blessing. The mechanic, with a family of twelve, pays more taxes than the Southern planter owning a tract of land as wide as the town of Worcester, with fifteen hundred slaves to till it. This, I say, is not an accident. It is the work of politicians, who know what they are about, and think a blunder is worse than a sin; and, sin as they may, they do not commit such blunders as that. This controlling class, with their dependents, their vassals, lay and clerical--and they have lay as well as clerical vassals, and more numerous, if less subservient--keep up the institution of slavery. Two hundred years ago, that was the worst institution of Europe. Our fathers, breaking with feudal institutions in general, did not break with this: they brought it over here. But when the nation, aroused for its hour of trial, rose up to its great Act of Prayer, and prayed the Declaration of Independence, all the nation said "Amen" to the great American idea therein set forth. Every Northern State reaffirms the doctrine that "All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But in spite of this, and of the consciousness that it is true, while the Northern States have cast out this institution, the Southern States have kept it. The nation has adopted, extended, and fostered it. This has been done, notwithstanding the expectation of the people in 1787 that it would soon end. It has been done against the design of the Constitution, which was "to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty;" against the idea of America, that "All men have an equal and unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" against all religion, all humanity, all right, ay, and against the conscience of a majority of the people.