principle of Republican government; in politics, religion makes men mad! Mr. Clay declared that 'no Northern gentleman will ever help return a fugitive Slave!' What took place at Philadelphia? New York? Cincinnati?--nay, at Boston? The Northern churches of commerce thought Slavery was a blessing, Kidnapping a 'grace.' The Democrats and Whigs vie with each other in devotion to the fugitive slave bill. The 'Compromises' are the golden rule. The North conquered her prejudices. The South sees this, and makes another demand. Why not? I am glad of it. She serves us right." "In 1775, what if it had been told the men all red with battle at Lexington and Bunker Hill,--'your sons will gird the Court House with chains to kidnap a man; Boston will vote for a Bill which puts the liberty of any man in the hands of a Commissioner, to be paid twice as much for making a Slave as for declaring a freeman; and Boston will call out its soldiers to hunt a man through its streets!' What if on the 19th of April, 1775, when Samuel Adams said, 'Oh! what a glorious morning is this!' as he heard the tidings of war in the little village where he passed the night,--what if it had been told him,--'On the 19th of April, seventy-six years from this day, will your City of Boston land a poor youth at Savannah, having violated her own laws, and stained her Magistrates' hands, in order to put an innocent man in a Slave-master's jail?' What if it had been told him that Ellen Craft must fly out of Democratic Boston, to Monarchic, Theocratic, Aristocratic England, to find shelter for her limbs, her connubial innocence, and the virtue of her woman's heart? I think Samuel would have cursed the day in which it was said a man-child was born, and America was free! What if it had been told Mayhew and Belknap, that in the pulpits of Boston, to defend kidnapping should be counted to a man as righteousness? They could not have believed it. They did not know what baseness could suck the Northern breast, and still be base."[219] [Footnote 219: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 351, 352, 357-359, 368, 369.] You will think all this is good morality; but Mr. Curtis in 1836, maintained that kidnapping in Massachusetts, would "promote harmony and good-will where it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage frequent intercourse, and soften prejudice by increasing acquaintance, and tend to peace and good-will." Nay, that it may be "perfectly consistent with our policy ... _to interfere actively to enable the citizens of those States_ [the slave States] _to enjoy those institutions at home_." "Slavery is not immoral;" "By the law of this Commonwealth slavery is not immoral."[220] [Footnote 220: Med Case, p. 9, 11.]