publicly helped the law into being, but would violate its provisions;
conceal a fugitive; share his loaf with a runaway; furnish him golden
wings to fly with. Nay, I think it would be difficult to find a
magistrate in New England, willing to take the public odium of doing the
official duty.[22] I believe it is not possible to find a regular jury,
who will punish a man for harboring a slave, for helping his escape, or
fine a marshal or commissioner for being a little slow to catch a
slave.[23] Men will talk loud in public meetings, but they have some
conscience after all, at home. And though they howl down the "Higher
law" in a crowd, yet conscience will make cowards of them all, when they
come to lay hands on a Christian man, more innocent than they, and send
him into slavery forever! One of the commissioners of Boston talked loud
and long, last Tuesday, in favor of keeping the law. When he read his
litany against the law of God, and asked if men would keep the "Higher
law," and got "Never" as the welcome, and amen for response--it seemed
as if the law might be kept, at least by that commissioner, and such as
gave the responses to his creed. But slave-hunting Mr. Hughes, who came
here for two of our fellow-worshippers,[24] in his Georgia newspaper,
tells a different story. Here it is, from the "Georgia Telegraph," of
last Friday. "I called at eleven o'clock at night, at his [the
commissioner's] residence, and stated to him my business, and asked him
for a warrant, saying that if I could get a warrant, I could have the
negroes [William and Ellen Craft] arrested. He said the law did not
authorize a warrant to be issued: that it was my duty to go and arrest
the negro without a warrant, and bring him before him!" This is more
than I expected. "Is Saul among the prophets?" The men who tell us that
the law must be kept, God willing, or against His will--there are
Puritan fathers behind them also; Bibles in their houses; a Christ
crucified, whom they think of; and a God even in their world, who
slumbers not, neither is weary, and is as little a respecter of
parchments as of persons! They know there is a people, as well as
politicians, a posterity not yet assembled, and they would not like to
have certain words writ on their tombstone. "Traitor to the rights of
mankind," is no pleasant epitaph. They, too, remember there is a day
after to-day; aye, a forever; and, "Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have not done it unto me," is
a sentence they would not like to hear at the day of judgment.[25]
Much danger is feared from the "political agitation" of this matter.
Great principles have never been discussed without great passions, and
will not be, for some time, I suppose. But men fear to have this
despotic idea become a subject of discussion. Last spring, Mr. Webster
said here in Boston, "We shall not see the legislation of the country
proceed in the old harmonious way, until the discussion in Congress and
out of Congress, upon the subject [of slavery] shall be in some manner
suppressed. Take that truth home with you!" We have lately been told
that political agitation on the subject must be stopped. So it seems
this law, like that which Daniel would not keep, is one that may not be
changed, and must not be talked of.
Now there are three modes in which attempts may be made to stop the
agitation.
1. By sending
"----troops, with guns and banners,
Cut short our speeches and our necks,
And break our heads to mend our manners."
That is the Austrian way, which has not yet been tried here, and will
not be.
2. By sending lecturers throughout the land, to stir up the people to be
quiet, and agitate them till they are still; to make them sign the
pledge of total abstinence from the discussion of this subject. That is
not likely to effect the object.
3. For the friends of silence to keep their own counsel--and this seems
as little likely to be tried, as the others to succeed.
Strange is it to ask us to forbear to talk on a subject which involves
the welfare of twenty million men! As well ask a man in a fever not to
be heated, and a consumptive person not to cough, to pine away and turn
pale. Miserable counsellors are ye all, who give such advice. But we
have seen lately the lion of the democrats, and the lamb of the whigs,
lie down together, joined by this opinion, so gentle and so loving, all
at once, that a little child could lead them, and so "fulfil the sure
prophetic word." Yes, we have seen the Herod of one party, and the
Pilate of the other, made friends for the sake of crucifying the freedom
of mankind.
But there is one way in which, I would modestly hint, that we might stop
all this talk "in Congress and out of Congress," that is, to "discuss"
the matter till we had got at the truth, and the whole truth; then to
"agitate" politically, till we had enacted justice into law, and carried
it out all over the North, and all over the South. After that there
would be no more discussion about the fugitive slave bill, than about
the "Boston port bill;" no more agitation about American slavery, than
there is about the condition of the people of Babylon before the flood.
I think there is no other way in which we are likely to get rid of this
discussion.
* * * * *
Such is our condition, such its causes, such our dangers. Now, for the
lesson, look a moment elsewhere. Look at continental Europe, at Rome,
Austria, Prussia, and the German States--at France. How uncertain is
every government! France--the stablest of them all! Remember the
revolution which two years ago shook those States so terribly, when all
the royalty of France was wheeled out of Paris in a street cab. Why are
those States so tottering? Whence those revolutions? They tried to make
iniquity their law, and would not give over the attempt! Why are the
armies of France five hundred thousand strong, though the nation is at
peace with all the world? Because they tried to make injustice law! Why
do the Austrian and German monarchs fear an earthquake of the people?
Because they tread the people down with wicked laws! Whence came the
crushing debts of France, Austria, England? From the same cause: from
the injustice of men who made mischief by law!
It is not for men long to hinder the march of human freedom. I have no
fear for that, ultimately,--none at all, simply for this reason, that I
believe in the Infinite God. You may make your statutes; an appeal
always lies to the higher law, and decisions adverse to that get set
aside in the ages. Your statutes cannot hold Him. You may gather all the
dried grass and all the straw in both continents; you may braid it into
ropes to bind down the sea; while it is calm, you may laugh, and say,
"Lo, I have chained the ocean!" and howl down the law of Him who holds
the universe as a rosebud in his hand--its every ocean but a drop of
dew. "How the waters suppress their agitation," you may say. But when
the winds blow their trumpets, the sea rises in its strength, snaps
asunder the bonds that had confined his mighty limbs, and the world is
littered with the idle hay! Stop the human race in its development and
march to freedom? As well might the boys of Boston, some lustrous night,
mounting the steeples of this town, call on the stars to stay their
course! Gently, but irresistibly, the Greater and the Lesser Bear move
round the pole; Orion, in his mighty mail, comes up the sky; the Bull,
the Ram, the Heavenly Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Maid, the Scales,
and all that shining company, pursue their march all night, and the new
day discovers the idle urchins in their lofty places, all tired, and
sleepy, and ashamed.
It is not possible to suppress the idea of freedom, or forever hold down
its institutions. But it is possible to destroy a State; a political
party with geographical bounds may easily be rent asunder. It is not
impossible to shiver this American Union. But how? What clove asunder
the great British party, one nation once in America and England? Did not
our fathers love their father-land? Aye. They called it home, and were
loyal with abundant fealty; there was no lack of piety for home. It was
the attempt to make old English injustice New England law! Who did
it,--the British people? Never. Their hand did no such sacrilege! It was
the merchants of London, with the "Navigation Act;" the politicians of
Westminster with the "Stamp Act;" the tories of America, who did not die
without issue, that for office and its gold would keep a king's unjust
commands. It was they, who drove our fathers into disunion against their
will. Is here no lesson? We love law, all of us love it; but a true man
loves it only as the Safeguard of the Rights of Man. If it destroy these
rights, he spurns it with his feet. Is here no lesson? Look further
then.
Do you know how empires find their end? Yes, the great States eat up the
little. As with fish, so with nations. Aye, but how do the great States
come to an end? By their own injustice, and no other cause. They would
make unrighteousness their law, and God wills not that it be so. Thus
they fall; thus they die. Look at these ancient States, the queenliest
queens of earth. There is Rome, the widow of two civilizations,--the
Pagan and the Catholic. They both had her, and unto both she bore
daughters and fair sons. But, the Niobe of Nations, she boasted that her
children were holier and more fair than all the pure ideas of justice,
truth, and love, the offspring of the eternal God. And now she sits
there, transformed into stone, amid the ruins of her children's bones.
At midnight I have heard the owl hoot in the coliseum and the forum,
giving voice to desolation; and at midday I have seen the fox in the
palace where Augustus gathered the wealth, the wit, the beauty and the
wisdom of a conquered world; and the fox and the owl interpreted to me
the voice of many ages, which came to tell this age, that though hand
join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper.
Come with me, my friends, a moment more, pass over this Golgotha of
human history, treading reverent as you go, for our feet are on our
mothers' grave, and our shoes defile our fathers' hallowed bones. Let us
not talk of them; go further on, look and pass by. Come with me into the
Inferno of the nations, with such poor guidance as my lamp can lend. Let
us disquiet and bring up the awful shadows of empires buried long ago,
and learn a lesson from the tomb.
Come, old Assyria, with the Ninevitish dove upon thy emerald crown! What
laid thee low? "I fell by my own injustice. Thereby Nineveh and Babylon
came, with me, also, to the ground."
Oh queenly Persia, flame of the nations, wherefore art thou so fallen,
who troddest the people under thee, bridgedst the Hellespont with ships,
and pouredst thy temple-wasting millions on the western world? "Because
I trod the people under me, and bridged the Hellespont with ships, and
poured my temple-wasting millions on the western world. I fell by my own
misdeeds!"
Thou muselike, Grecian queen, fairest of all thy classic sisterhood of
States, enchanting yet the world with thy sweet witchery, speaking in
art, and most seductive song, why liest thou there with beauteous yet
dishonored brow, reposing on thy broken harp? "I scorned the law of God;
banished and poisoned wisest, justest men; I loved the loveliness of
flesh, embalmed it in the Parian stone; I loved the loveliness of
thought, and treasured that in more than Parian speech. But the beauty
of justice, the loveliness of love, I trod them down to earth! Lo,
therefore have I become as those Barbarian States--as one of them!"
Oh manly and majestic Rome, thy sevenfold mural crown, all broken at thy
feet, why art thou here? It was not injustice brought thee low; for thy
great book of law is prefaced with these words, justice is the
unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right! "It was not the
saint's ideal: it was the hypocrite's pretence! I made iniquity my law.
I trod the nations under me. Their wealth gilded my palaces,--where thou
mayst see the fox and hear the owl,--it fed my courtiers and my
courtezans. Wicked men were my cabinet counsellors, the flatterer
breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of bondmen wet the soil with
tears and blood. Do you not hear it crying yet to God? Lo here have I my
recompense, tormented with such downfall as you see! Go back and tell
the new-born child, who sitteth on the Alleghanies, laying his either
hand upon a tributary sea, a crown of thirty stars about his youthful
brow--tell him that there are rights which States must keep, or they
shall suffer wrongs! Tell him there is a God who keeps the black man and
the white, and hurls to earth the loftiest realm that breaks His just,
eternal law! Warn the young Empire that he come not down dim and
dishonored to my shameful tomb! Tell him that justice is the unchanging,
everlasting will to give each man his right. I knew it, broke it, and am
lost. Bid him to know it, keep it, and be safe!"
* * * * *
"God save the Commonwealth!" proclaims the Governor. God will do his
part,--doubt not of that. But you and I must help Him save the State.
What can we do? Next Sunday I will ask you for your charity; to-day I
ask a greater gift, more than the abundance of the rich, or the poor
widow's long remembered mite. I ask you for your justice. Give that to
your native land. Do you not love your country? I know you do. Here are
our homes and the graves of our fathers; the bones of our mothers are
under the sod. The memory of past deeds is fresh with us; many a
farmer's and mechanic's son inherits from his sires some cup of manna
gathered in the wilderness, and kept in memory of our exodus; some
stones from the Jordan, which our fathers passed over sorely bested and
hunted after; some Aaron's rod, green and blossoming with fragrant
memories of the day of small things when the Lord led us--and all these
attach us to our land, our native land. We love the great ideas of the
North, the institutions which they founded, the righteous laws, the
schools, the churches too--do we not love all these? Aye. I know well
you do. Then by all these, and more than all, by the dear love of God,
let us swear that we will keep the justice of the Eternal Law. Then are
we all safe. We know not what a day may bring forth, but we know that
Eternity will bring everlasting peace. High in the heavens, the
pole-star of the world, shines Justice; placed within us, as our guide
thereto, is Conscience. Let us be faithful to that
"Which though it trembles as it lowly lies,
Points to the light that changes not in heaven."
FOOTNOTES:
[18] The late Mr. John Parker.
[19] This took place at a meeting in Faneuil Hall to welcome Mr. George
Thompson.
[20] At the "Union meeting" two days before the delivery of this sermon.
[21] Nor even yet. November 24, 1851.
[22] Subsequent events have shown the folly of this statement.
Clergymen, it is said, are wont to err, by overrating the moral
principle of men. See the next sermon.
[23] Recent experiments fortunately confirm this, and, spite of all the
unjust efforts to pack a jury, none has yet been found to punish a man
for such a "Crime."
[24] Mr. William Craft, and Mrs. Ellen Craft.
[25] This also appears to have been a mistake. Still I let the passage
stand, though it is apparently not at all true.
VI.
THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE.--A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE MELODEON,
BOSTON, ON FAST DAY, APRIL 10, 1851.
My Friends,--This is a day of Public Humiliation and Prayer. We have one
every year. It is commonly in the city churches only a farce, because
there is no special occasion for it, and the general need is not felt.
But such is the state of things in the Union at this moment, and
particularly in Boston, that, if it were not a custom, it would be a
good thing, even if it were for the first time in the history of our
country, to have such a day for Humiliation and Prayer, that we consider
the state of the nation, and look at our conduct in reference to the
great principles of religion, and see how we stand before God; for these
are times that try men's souls.
Last Sunday, I purposely disappointed you, and turned off from what was
nearest to your heart and was nearest to mine,--a subject that would
have been easy to preach on without any preparation. Then I asked you
to go to the Fountain of all strength, and there prepare yourselves for
the evils that we know not of. To-day, the Governor has asked us to come
together, and consider, in the spirit of Christianity, the public sins
of the community, to contemplate the value of our institutions, and to
ask the blessing of God on the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed. I
am glad of this occasion; and I will improve it, and ask your attention
to a sermon of The Chief Sins of this People.
I have said that these are times that try men's souls. This is such an
occasion as never came before, and, I trust, never will again. I have
much to say to you, much more than I intend to say to-day, much more
than there are hours enough in this day to speak. Many things I shall
pass by. I shall detain you to-day somewhat longer than is my wont; but
do not fear, I will look out for your attention. I simply ask you to be
calm, to be composed, and to hear with silence what I have to say.
To understand these things, we must begin somewhat far off.
The purpose of human life is to form a manly character, to get the best
development of body and of spirit,--of mind, conscience, heart, soul.
This is the end: all else is the means. Accordingly, that is not the
most successful life in which a man gets the most pleasure, the most
money or ease, the most power of place, honor, and fame; but that in
which a man gets the most manhood, performs the greatest amount of human
duty, enjoys the greatest amount of human right, and acquires the
greatest amount of manly character. It is of no importance whether he
win this by wearing a hod upon his shoulders, or a crown upon his head.
It is the character, and not the crown, I value. The crown perishes with
the head that wore it; but the character lives with the immortal man who
achieved it; and it is of no consequence whether that immortal man goes
up to God from a throne or from a gallows.
Every man has some one preponderating object in life,--an object that he
aims at and holds supreme. Perhaps he does not know it. But he thinks of
this in his day-dreams, and his dreams by night. It colors his waking
hours, and is with him in his sleep. Sometimes it is sensual pleasure
that he wants; sometimes money; sometimes office, fame, social
distinction; sometimes it is the quiet of a happy home, with wife and
children, all comfortable and blessed; sometimes it is excellence in a
special science or art, or department of literature; sometimes it is a
special form of philanthropy; and sometimes it is the attainment of
great, manly character.
This supreme object of desire is sometimes different at different times
in a man's life, but in general is mainly the same all through. For "The
child is father of the man," and his days bound each to each, if not by
natural piety, then by unnatural profaneness. This desire may act with
different intensity in the active and passive periods, in manhood and in
age. It is somewhat modified by the season of passion, and by the season
of ambition.
If this object of special desire be worthy, so is the character in
general; if base, so is the man. For this special desire becomes the
master-motive in the man; and, if strong, establishes a unity in his
consciousness, and calls out certain passions, appetites, powers of mind
and conscience, heart and soul; and, in a long life, the man creates
himself anew in the image of his ideal desire. This desire, good or bad,
which sways the man, is writ on his character, and thence copied into
the countenance; and lust or love, frivolity or science, interest or
principle, mammon or God, is writ on the man. Still this unity is seldom
whole and complete. With most men there are exceptional times, when they
turn off a little from their great general pursuit. Simeon the Stylite
comes down from his pillar-top, and chaffers in the market-place with
common folks. Jeffries is even just once or twice in his life, and
Wilkes is honorable two or three times. Even when the chief desire is a
high and holy one, I should not expect a man to go through life without
ever committing an error or a sin. When I was a youngster, just let
loose from the theological school, I thought differently; but at this
day, when I have felt the passions of life, and been stirred by the
ambitions of life, I know it must be expected that a man will stumble
now and then. I make allowances for that in myself, as I do in others.
These are the exceptional periods in a man's life,--the eddies in the
stream. The stream runs down hill all the time, though the eddy may for
a time apparently run up.
Now, as with men, so it is with nations. The purpose of national life is
to bring forth and bring up manly men, who do the most of human duty,
have the most of human rights, and enjoy the most of human welfare. So
that is not the most successful nation which fills the largest space,
which occupies the longest time, which produces the most cattle, corn,
cotton, or cloth, but that which produces the most men. And, in
reference to men, you must count not numbers barely, but character quite
as much. That is not the most successful nation which has an exceptional
class of men, highly cultured, well-bodied, well-minded, well-born,
well-bred, at the one end of society; and at the other a mighty
multitude, an instantial class, poor, ill-born, ill-bred, ill-bodied,
and ill-minded too, as in England; but that is the most successful
nation which has the whole body of its people well-born, well-bred,
well-bodied, and well-minded too; and those are the best institutions
which accomplish this best; those worst, which accomplish it least. The
government, the society, the school, or the church, which does this
work, is a good government, society, school, or church; that which does
it not, is good for nothing.
As with men, so with nations. Each has a certain object of chief desire,
which object prevails over others. The nation is not conscious of
it,--less so, indeed, than the individual; but, silently, it governs the
nation's life. Sometimes this chief desire is the aggrandizement of the
central power,--the monarchy: it was so once in France; but, God be
praised! is not so now. Then devotion to the king's person was held as
the greatest national excellence, and disrespect for the king was
treason, the greatest national crime. The people must not dare to
whisper against their king. Sometimes it is the desire to build up an
aristocracy. It was once so in Venice. It may be an aristocracy of
priests, of soldiers, of nobles, or an aristocracy of merchants.
Sometimes it is to build up a middle class of gentry, as in Basel and
Berne. It may be a military desire, as in ancient Rome; it may be
ecclesiastical ambition, as in modern Rome; or commercial ambition, as
in London and many other places.
The chief object of desire is not always the same in the course of a
nation's history. A nation now greatens the centripetal power,
strengthening the king and weakening the people; now it greatens the
centrifugal power, weakening the king and strengthening the people. But,
commonly, you see some one desire runs through all the nation's history,
only modified by its youth, or manhood, or old age, and by
circumstances which react upon the nation as the nation acts upon them.
This chief object of desire may be permanent, and so govern the whole
nation for all its history. Or it may be, on the other hand, a transient
desire, which is to govern it for a time. In either case, it will appear
prominently in the controlling classes; either in the classes which
control all through, or in such as last only for a time. Thus the
military desire appeared chiefly in the patricians of old Rome, and not
much in the plebeians; the commercial ambition appeared in the nobles of
Venice; the ecclesiastical in the priests of modern Rome, where the
people care little for the church, though quite as much perhaps as it
deserves.
As the chief desire of the individual calls out appetites and passions,
which are the machinery of that desire, and reconstructs the man in its
image; so the desire of a nation, transient or permanent, becoming the
master-motive of the people, calls out certain classes of men, who
become its exponents, its machinery, and they make the constitution,
institutions, and laws to correspond thereto.
As with one man, so with the millions, there may be fluctuations of
purpose for a time. I cannot expect that one man, or many men, will
always pursue an object without at some time violating fundamental
principles. I might have thought so once. But as I live longer, and see
the passion and the ambition of men, see the force of circumstances, I
know better. No ship sails across the ocean with a straight course,
without changing a sail: it frequently leaves its direct line, now
"standing" this way, now that; and the course is a very crooked one,
although, as a whole, it is towards the mark.