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
Toryism exists in all lands. In some, there is a good deal of excuse to
be made for it. I can understand the Toryism of the Duke of Medina
Sidonia, and of such men. If a man has been born to great wealth and
power, derived from ancestors for many centuries held in admiration and
in awe; if he has been bred to account himself a superior being, and to
be treated accordingly, I can easily understand the Toryism of such a
man, and find some excuse for it. I can understand the Tory literature
of other nations. The Toryism of the "London Quarterly," of "Blackwood,"
is easily accounted for, and forgiven. It is, besides, sometimes adorned
with wit, and often set off by much learning. It is respectable Toryism.
But the Toryism of men who only know they had a grandfather by
inference, not by positive testimony; who inherited nothing but their
bare limbs; who began their career as tradesmen or mechanics,--mechanics
in divinity or law as well as in trade,--and get their bread by any of
the useful and honorable callings of life--that such men, getting rich,
or lifting their heads out of the obscurity they were once in, should
become Tories, in a land, too, where institutions are founded on the
idea of freedom and equity and natural justice--that is another thing.
The Toryism of American journals, with little scholarship, with no wit,
and wisdom in homoeopathic doses; the Toryism of a man who started
from nothing, the architect of his own fortune; the Toryism of a
Republican, of a Yankee, the Toryism of a Snob,--it is Toryism reduced
to its lowest denomination, made vulgar and contemptible; it is the
little end of the tail of Toryism. Let us loathe the unclean thing in
the depth of our soul, but let us pity the poor Tory; for he, also, in
common with the negro slave, is "A man and a brother."
Then the Spirit of Trade is often against us. Mr. Mann, in his letter,
speaks of the opposition made to Wilberforce by the "Guinea merchants"
of Liverpool, in his attempts to put an end to the slave-trade. The
Corporation of Liverpool spent over ten thousand pounds in defence of a
traffic, "the worst the sun ever shone upon." This would seem to be a
reflection upon some of the merchants of Boston. It seems, from a
statement in the Atlas, that Mr. Mann did not intend his remarks to
apply to Boston, but to New York and Philadelphia, where mass meetings
of merchants had been held, to sustain Mr. Clay's compromise
resolutions. Although Mr. Mann did not apply his remarks to Boston, I
fear they will apply here as well as to our sister cities. I have yet to
learn that the letter of Mr. Webster's retainers was any less well
adapted to continue and extend slavery, than the resolutions passed at
New York and Philadelphia. I wish the insinuations of Mr. Mann did not
apply here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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