Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/313

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THE PRESENT ASPECT

claims that Congress shall usurp power to abolish Slavery in the slave States;' and the wildest fanatics of abolitionism, of the Parker and Garrison school, acknowledge that their atrocions crosade against the South can only achieve its nnhallowed aims by trampling as well on the Constitution of their country, as on the oracles of God."

He has admiration for one Northern man who has been remarkably faithful to the ideas and plans of the slave power. He says it is the duty of the General Government to protect Slavery by suppressing insurrectionary movements, or attempts at domestic violence, and to turn out the whole force of the Republic, regular and militia:—

"It was in contemplation of such a contingency, such a casus fœderis, that the eloquent, accomplished, and gifted Everett (now dedicating his extraordinary powers of composition and elocution, under the auspices of the Southern Matron, a patriot daughter of the Palmetto State, to the purchase and consecration of the home and the grave of Washington, as the Mecca of America), in his maiden speech as the representative in Congress of the city of Boston, in 1826, then firesh from the pulpit, in honourable contrast with the dastardly Sumners and bullying Burlingames of the present day, thus patriotically and fervently spoke—’Sir, I am no soldier. My habits and education are very unmilitary; but there is no cause in which I would sooner buckle a knapsack on my back, and put a musket on my shoulder, than that of putting down a servile insurrection in the South.'"

The newspapers say, with exquisite truth, that Mr. Everett is "the monarch of the platform," the "greatest literary ornament of the entire continent of America." So he is: but to Mr. Yeadon, he is also a great hero, the iron man of courage, unlike the "dastardly Sumners," and "the dishonoured and perjured miscreants, Seward, Sumners, et id omne genus, who advocated the 'higher law doctrine.'"

He thus sums up the whole of our history:—

"The American Union … has been the great bulwark of … Southern Slavery, and has, in fact, nursed and fostered it, from a feeble and rickety infancy, into a giant manhood and maturity, and self sustaining power, able to maintain itself either in the Union or out of the Union, as may best comport with the future policy and welfare of the Southern States."

"Finally, to crown all, comes, in august majesty, the decision of the Supreme Judicatory of the United States in the case of Dred Scott, pronouncing the Missouri restriction unconstitutional, null and void, and declaring all territories of the Union, present and future, when acquired by purchase or conquest, by common treasure or common blood, to be held by the General Government, as a trustee for the common benefit of all the States, and open to every occupancy and residence of the citizens