Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3)Parker, Theodore
Religion
Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 1 (of 3)
Parker, Theodore
Sermons, American; Unitarianism
I do not believe in killing kings, or any other men; but I do say, in a
time when the nation was not in danger, that no British king, for two
hundred years past, would have dared call it treason to discuss the
war--its cause, its progress, or its termination!
Now is the time to act! Twice we have let the occasion slip; beware of
the third time! Let it be infamous for a New England man to enlist; for
a New-England merchant to loan his dollars, or to let his ships in aid
of this wicked war; let it be infamous for a manufacturer to make a
cannon, a sword, or a kernel of powder, to kill our brothers with,
while we all know that they are in the right, and we in the wrong.
I know my voice is a feeble one in Massachusetts. I have no mountainous
position from whence to look down and overawe the multitude; I have no
back-ground of political reputation to echo my words; I am but a plain
humble man; but I have a back-ground of Truth to sustain me, and the
Justice of Heaven arches over my head! For your sakes, I wish I had that
oceanic eloquence whose tidal flow should bear on its bosom the
drift-weed which politicians have piled together, and sap and sweep away
the sand hillocks of soldiery blown together by the idle wind; that
oceanic eloquence which sweeps all before it, and leaves the shore hard,
smooth and clean! But feeble as I am, let me beg of you, fellow-citizens
of Boston, men and brothers, to come forward and protest against this
wicked war, and the end for which it is waged. I call on the whigs, who
love their country better than they love the tariff of '42; I call on
the democrats, who think Justice is greater than the Baltimore
Convention,--I call on the whigs and democrats to come forward and join
with me in opposing this wicked war! I call on the men of Boston, on the
men of the old Bay State, to act worthy of their fathers, worthy of
their country, worthy of themselves! Men and brothers, I call on you all
to protest against this most infamous war, in the name of the State, in
the name of the country, in the name of man, yes, in the name of God:
Leave not your children saddled with a war debt, to cripple the nation's
commerce for years to come. Leave not your land cursed with slavery,
extended and extending, palsying the nation's arm and corrupting the
nation's heart. Leave not your memory infamous among the nations,
because you feared men, feared the Government; because you loved money
got by crime, land plundered in war, loved land unjustly bounded;
because you debased your country by defending the wrong she dared to do;
because you loved slavery; loved war, but loved not the Eternal Justice
of all-judging God. If my counsel is weak and poor, follow one stronger
and more manly. I am speaking to men; think of these things, and then
act like men.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] John Quincy Adams.
V.
A SERMON OF THE MEXICAN WAR.--PREACHED AT THE MELODEON, ON SUNDAY, JUNE
25, 1848.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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