The Trial of Theodore Parker: For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the DefenceParker, Theodore
Religion
The Trial of Theodore Parker: For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence
Parker, Theodore
Antislavery movements -- Massachusetts -- Boston; United States -- Fugitive slave law (1850)
Gentlemen of the Jury, let me make this more clear by a special case
wholly fictitious.--Thomas Nason, a "Non-Resistant" and a Quaker, is a
colored citizen of Boston, the son and once the slave of Hon. James
Nason of Virginia, but now legally become a free man by self-purchase;
he has the bill of sale of himself in his pocket, and so carries about
him a title deed which would perhaps satisfy your Honors of his right
to liberty. But his mother Lizzie (Randolph) Nason, a descendant of
both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison,--for Virginia, I am told, can
boast of many children descended from two Presidents, perhaps from
three, who
"Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,
In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece"--
from Saxon master to African slave,--is still the bondwoman of the
Hon. James, the father of her son Thomas. From the "Plantation
manners" of her master, the concubine, "foolishly dissatisfied with
slavery," flies to Boston, and takes refuge with her Quaker son, who
conceals his mother, and shelters her for a time. But let me suppose
that his Honor Judge Curtis, while at Washington, fired with that
patriotism which is not only habitual but natural and indigenous to
his Honor, informs Mr. Nason of the hiding-place of his female slave,
thus betraying a "mistress" to her master, no longer, alas, her
"keeper." It is no injurious imputation--it is an imaginary honor I
attribute to the learned and honorable Judge. Mr. Nason sends the
proper agent to Boston to save the Union of States by restoring the
union of master and slave. Mr. George Ticknor Curtis, fugitive slave
bill commissioner, and brother to the Hon. Judge, issues his warrant
for kidnapping the mother; his coadjutor and friend, Mr. Butman,
attempts to seize her in her son's house. Thomas, unarmed, resists the
intruder, and with a child's pop-gun drives that valiant officer out
of the house, and puts the mother in a place of safety,--beneath the
flag of England, or the Pope, or the Czar. Commissioner Curtis
telegraphs the news to Washington,--announcing a "NEW CASE OF
TREASON--more 'levying war!'" The Secretaries of State and of War
write dreadful letters, breathing fire and slaughter, and President
Pierce, a man of most heroic courage, alike mindful of his former
actual military exploits at Chapultepec, of his delegated triumph at
Greytown, and of the immortal glory of Mr. Fillmore, issues his
Proclamation, calling on all good citizens, and especially on the
politicians of his party, to "Save the Union" from the treason of this
terrible Thomas Nason, who will blow up the Constitution with a
pop-gun!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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