Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/159

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146
DANGERS WHICH THREATEN


persons; it spent for home purposes $406,707; for foreign purposes $422,294; it distributed tracts in English, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Italian, Hungarian, and Welsh—and it did not print one single line, nor whisper a single word against this great national sin of Slavery! Nay, worse:—if it finds English books which suit its general purpose, but containing matter adverse to Slavery, it strikes out all the anti-Slavery matter, then prints and circulates the book. Is the Tract Society also managed by Jesuits from the Homan Church?

At this day, 600,000 slaves are directly and personally owned by men who are called "professing Christians," "members in good fellowship" of the churches of this land; 80,000 owned by Presbyterians, 225,000 by Baptists, 250,000 owned by Methodists:—600,000 slaves in this land owned by men who profess themselves Christians, and in churches sit down to take the Lord's Supper, in the name of Christ and God! There are ministers who own their fellow-men—"bought with a price."

Does not this look as if Slavery were to triumph over Freedom?

VI. Slavery corrupts the judicial class. In America, especially in New England, no class of men has been so much respected as the judges; and for this reason: we have had wise, learned, excellent men for our judges; men who reverenced the higher law of God, and sought by human statutes to execute justice. You all know their venerable names, and how reverentially we have looked up to them. Many of them are dead ; some are still living, and their hoary hairs are a crown of glory on a judicial life, without judicial blot. But of late Slavery has put a different class of men on the benches of the Federal Courts—mere tools of the Government ; creatures which get their appointment as pajr for past political service, and as pay in advance for imquity not yet accomplished. You see the consequences. Note the zeal of the Federal Judges to execute iniquity by statute and destroy liberty. See how ready they are to support the Fugitive Slave Bill, which tramples on the spirit of the Constitution, and its letter too; which outrages justice and violates the most sacred principles and precepts of Christianity. Not a United States judge, circuit or district, has uttered one