Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 3 (of 3)Parker, Theodore
Religion
Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons, Volume 3 (of 3)
Parker, Theodore
Sermons, American; Unitarianism
Come, shade of a judicial butcher! Two hundred years thy name has been
pilloried in face of the world, and thy memory gibbeted before mankind!
Let us see how thou wilt compare with those who kidnap men in Boston! Go
seek companionship with them! Go claim thy kindred, if such they be! Go
tell them that the memory of the wicked shall rot,--that there is a God;
an Eternity; ay! and a Judgment too! where the slave may appeal against
him that made him a slave, to Him that made him a man.
What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back? These not thy kindred! Why dost
thou turn pale, as when the crowd clutched at thy life in London Street?
It is true, George Jeffries, and these are not thy kin. Forgive me that
I should send thee on such an errand, or bid thee seek companionship
with such--with Boston hunters of the slave! Thou wert not base enough!
It was a great bribe that tempted thee! Again I say, pardon me for
sending thee to keep company with such men! Thou only struckst at men
accused of crime; not at men accused only of their birth! Thou wouldst
not send a man into bondage for two pounds! I will not rank thee with
men who, in Boston, for ten dollars, would enslave a negro now! Rest
still, Herod! Be quiet, Nero! Sleep, St. Dominic, and sleep, O
Torquemada! in your fiery jail! Sleep, Jeffries, underneath "the altar
of the church" which seeks with Christian charity to hide your hated
bones.
"But," asks a looker-on, "What is all this for?" Oh! to save the Union.
"A precious Union which needs a saving such as this! And who are to rend
the Union asunder?" Why, men that hate slavery and love freedom for all
mankind. "Is this the way to make them love the Union and slavery, and
hate freedom for all mankind?" We know none better. "What sort of a
measure is this fugitive slave law?" Oh! it is a "peace measure." Don't
you see how well it works? how quiet the city? in the country not a
mouse stirring? There will not be a word against the peace measure in
all New England on this Fast Day. Blessed are the peace-makers, saith
Lord! "But you have great warrant for such deeds?" Oh yes, the best in
the world,--the example of Washington. He also "saved the Union." "So
men blaspheme."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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