A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers.Thoreau, Henry David
History
A Yankee in Canada, with Anti-slavery and reform papers.
Thoreau, Henry David
Brown, John, 1800-1859; Québec (Province) -- Description and travel; Slavery -- United States
What should concern Massachusetts is not the Nebraska Bill, nor the
Fugitive Slave Bill, but her own slaveholding and servility. Let the
State dissolve her union with the slaveholder. She may wriggle and
hesitate, and ask leave to read the Constitution once more; but she can
find no respectable law or precedent which sanctions the continuance of
such a Union for an instant.
Let each inhabitant of the State dissolve his union with her, as long as
she delays to do her duty.
The events of the past month teach me to distrust Fame. I see that she
does not finely discriminate, but coarsely hurrahs. She considers not
the simple heroism of an action, but only as it is connected with its
apparent consequences. She praises till she is hoarse the easy exploit
of the Boston tea party, but will be comparatively silent about the
braver and more disinterestedly heroic attack on the Boston Court-House,
simply because it was unsuccessful!
Covered with disgrace, the State has sat down coolly to try for their
lives and liberties the men who attempted to do its duty for it. And
this is called _justice_! They who have shown that they can behave
particularly well may perchance be put under bonds for _their good
behavior_. They whom truth requires at present to plead guilty are, of
all the inhabitants of the State, pre-eminently innocent. While the
Governor, and the Mayor, and countless officers of the Commonwealth are
at large, the champions of liberty are imprisoned.
Only they are guiltless, who commit the crime of contempt of such a
court. It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of
justice, and let the courts make their own characters. My sympathies in
this case are wholly with the accused, and wholly against their accusers
and judges. Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and
discordant. The judge still sits grinding at his organ, but it yields no
music, and we hear only the sound of the handle. He believes that all
the music resides in the handle, and the crowd toss him their coppers
the same as before.
Do you suppose that that Massachusetts which is now doing these
things,—which hesitates to crown these men, some of whose lawyers, and
even judges, perchance, may be driven to take refuge in some poor
quibble, that they may not wholly outrage their instinctive sense of
justice,—do you suppose that she is anything but base and servile? that
she is the champion of liberty?
Show me a free state, and a court truly of justice, and I will fight for
them, if need be; but show me Massachusetts, and I refuse her my
allegiance, and express contempt for her courts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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