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)
"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
Jeffreys, 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,
Jeffreys, underneath 'the altar of the church' which seeks
with Christian charity to hide your hated bones."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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