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
1. It limits the Western and Northern boundaries of Texas, and so
reduces the territory of that State, where slavery is now established by
law. Yet, as I understand it, he takes off from New Mexico about seventy
thousand square miles, enough to make eight or ten States like
Massachusetts, and delivers it over to Texas to be slave soil; as Mr.
Webster says, out of the power of Congress to redeem from that scourge.
2. It does not maintain that Congress has no power to exclude slavery in
admitting a new State; whereas, if I understand the President in his
Message, he considers such an act "An invasion of their rights."[6]
Let us pass by Mr. Clay, and come to the other aspirant for the
Presidency.
At the Philadelphia Convention, Mr. Webster, at the most, could only get
one half the votes of New England; several of these not given in
earnest, but only as a compliment to the great man from the North. Now,
finding his presidential wares not likely to be bought by New England,
he takes them to a wider market; with what success we shall one day see.
Something has already been said in the newspapers and elsewhere, about
Mr. Webster's speech. No speech ever delivered in America has excited
such deep and righteous indignation. I know there are influential men in
Boston, and in all large towns, who must always have somebody to sustain
and applaud. They some time since applauded Mr. Webster, for reasons
very well known, and now continue their applause of him. His late speech
pleases them; its worst parts please them most. All that is as was to
be expected; men like what they must like. But, in the country, among
the sober men of Massachusetts and New England, who prize Right above
the political expediency of to-day, I think Mr. Webster's speech is read
with indignation. I believe no one political act in America, since the
treachery of Benedict Arnold, has excited so much moral indignation, as
the conduct of Daniel Webster.
But I pass by his speech, to speak of other things connected with that
famous man. One of the most influential pro-slavery newspapers of
Boston, calls the gentlemen who signed the letter to him, the
"Retainers" of Mr. Webster. The word is well chosen and quite
descriptive. This word is used in a common, a feudal, and a legal sense.
In the common sense, it means one who has complete possession of the
thing retained; in the feudal sense, it means a dependent or vassal, who
is bound to support his liege lord; in the legal sense, it means the
person who hires an attorney to do his business; and the sum given to
secure his services, or prevent him from acting for the opposite party,
is called a retaining fee. I take it the word "Retainers," is used in
the legal sense; certainly it is not in the feudal sense, for these
gentlemen do not owe allegiance to Mr. Webster. Nor is it in its common
sense, for events have shown that they have not a "complete possession"
of Mr. Webster.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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