Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/136

than all the present slave States. Who pays the national taxes? The North, for the slaves pay but a trifle. Who owns the greater part of the property, the mills, the shops, the ships? The North. Who writes the books—the histories, poems, philosophies, works of science, even the sermons and commentaries on the Bible ? Still the North. Who sends their children to school and college? The North. Who builds the churches, who founds the Bible societies. Education societies. Missionary societies, the thousand-and-one institutions for making men better and better off? Why the North. In a word, who is it that in seventy years has made the nation great, rich, and famous for her ideas and their success all over the world? The answer is, still the North, the North.

Well, says the calculator, but who has the offices of the nation? The South. Who has filled the Presidential chair forty-eight years out of sixty? Nobody but slave- holders. Who has held the chief posts of honour? The South. Who occupy the chief offices in the army and navy? The South. Who increases the cost of the post- office and pays so little of its expense?^[1]The South. Who is most blustering and disposed to quarrel? The South. Who made the Mexican war? The South. Who sets at nought the Constitution? The South. Who would bring the greatest peril in case of war with a strong enemy? Why the South, the South. But what is the South most noted for abroad? For her three million slaves; and the North? for her wealth, freedom, education, religion!

Then the calculator begins to remember past times—opens the account-books and turns back to old charges: five slaves count the same as three freemen, and the three million slaves, which at home are nothing but property, entitle their owners to as many representatives in Congress as are now sent by all the one million eight hundred thousand freemen who make the entire population of Maine,

1. The following table shows the facts of the case:

   Cost of post-office in slave States for the year ending July 1st, 1847, $1,318,541 Receipts from post-office, 624,380

   Cost of post-office in free States for the year ending July 1st, 1847, §1,038,219 Receipts from post-office, 1,459,631

   So the Southern post-office cost the nation $694,161, and the Northern post-office paid the nation $421,412, making a difference of $1,115,573 against the South.