innocent man from Boston into slavery. I would speak of all men
charitably; for I know how easy it is to err, yea, to sin. I can look
charitably on thieves, prowling about in darkness; on rumsellers, whom
poverty compels to crime; on harlots, who do the deed of shame that holy
woman's soul abhors and revolts at; I can pity the pirate, who scours
the seas doing his fiendish crimes--he is tempted, made desperate by a
gradual training in wickedness. The man, born at the South, owning
slaves, who goes to Africa and sells adulterated rum in exchange for men
to retail at Cuba,--I cannot understand the consciousness of such a man;
yet I can admit that by birth and by breeding he has become so
imbruted, he knows no better. Nay, even that he may perhaps justify his
conduct to himself. I say I think his sin is not so dreadful as that of
a commissioner in Boston who sends a man into slavery. A man commits a
murder, inflamed by jealousy, goaded by desire of great gain, excited by
fear, stung by malice, or poisoned by revenge, and it is a horrid thing.
But to send a man into slavery is worse than to murder him. I should
rather be slain than enslaved. To do this, inflamed by no jealousy,
goaded by no desire of great gain,--only ten dollars!--excited by no
fear, stung by no special malice, poisoned by no revenge,--I cannot
comprehend that in any man, not even in a hyena. Beasts that raven for
blood do not kill for killing's sake, but to feed their flesh. Forgive
me, O ye wolves and hyenas! that I bring you into such company. I can
only understand it in a devil!
When a man bred in Massachusetts, whose Constitution declares that "All
men are born free and equal;" within sight of Faneuil Hall, with all its
sacred memories; within two hours of Plymouth Rock; within a single hour
of Concord and Lexington; in sight of Bunker Hill,--when he will do such
a deed, it seems to me that there is no life of crime long enough to
prepare a man for such a pitch of depravity; I should think he must have
been begotten in sin, and conceived in iniquity, and been born "with a
dog's head on his shoulders;" that the concentration of the villany of
whole generations of scoundrels would hardly be enough to fit a man for
a deed like this!
You know the story of Thomas Sims. He crept on board a Boston vessel at
Savannah. Perhaps he had heard of Boston, nay, even of Faneuil Hall, of
the old Cradle of Liberty, and thought this was a Christian town, at
least human, and hoped here to enjoy the liberty of a man. When the ship
arrived here, the first words he spoke were, "Are we up there?" He was
seized by a man who at the court-house boasted of his cruelty towards
him, who held him by the hair, and kept him down, seeking to kidnap and
carry him back into slavery. He escaped!
But a few weeks pass by: the man-stealers are here; the commissioner
issues his warrant; the marshals serve it in the night. Last Thursday
night,--when odious beasts of prey, that dare not face the light of
heaven, prowl through the woods,--those ruffians of the law seized on
their brother-man. They lie to the bystanders, and seize him on a false
pretence. There is their victim--they hold him fast. His faithless knife
breaks in his hand; his coat is rent to pieces. He is the slave of
Boston.[32] Can you understand his feelings? Let us pass by that. His
"trial!" Shall I speak of that? He has been five days on trial for more
than life, and has not seen a judge! A jury? No,--only a commissioner! O
justice! O republican America! Is this the liberty of Massachusetts?
Where shall I find a parallel with men who will do such a deed,--do it
in Boston? I will open the tombs, and bring up most hideous tyrants from
the dead. Come, brood of monsters, let me bring you up from the deep
damnation of the graves wherein your hated memories continue for all
time their never-ending rot. Come, birds of evil omen! come, ravens,
vultures, carrion-crows, and see the spectacle! come, see the meeting of
congenial souls! I will disturb, disquiet, and bring up the greatest
monsters of the human race! Tremble not, women; tremble not, children;
tremble not, men! They are all dead! They cannot harm you now! Fear the
living, not the dead.
Come hither, Herod the wicked. Thou that didst seek after that young
child's life, and destroyedst the Innocents! Let me look on thy face!
No; go! Thou wert a heathen! Go, lie with the Innocents thou hast
massacred. Thou art too good for this company!
Come, Nero! Thou awful Roman Emperor! Come up! No; thou wast drunk with
power! schooled in Roman depravity. Thou hadst, besides, the example of
thy fancied gods! Go, wait another day. I will seek a worser man.
Come hither, St. Dominic! come, Torquemada!--Fathers of the Inquisition!
Merciless monsters, seek your equal here! No; pass by! You are no
companions for such men as these! You were the servants of atheistic
popes, of cruel kings. Go to, and get you gone. Another time I may have
work for you,--not now; lie there and persevere to rot. You are not yet
quite wicked and corrupt enough for this comparison. Go, get ye gone,
lest the sun turn back at sight of ye!
Come up, thou heap of wickedness, George Jeffries!--thy hands deep
purple with the blood of thy murdered fellow men! Ah, I know thee! awful
and accursed shade! Two hundred years after thy death, men hate thee
still, not without cause! Let me look upon thee! I know thy history.
Pause and be still, while I tell it to these men.
Brothers, George Jeffries "began in the sedition line." "There was no
act, however bad, that he would not resort to to get on." "He was of a
bold aspect, and cared not for the countenance of any man." "He became
the avowed, unblushing slave of the court, and the bitter persecutor and
unappeasable enemy of the principles he had before supported." He "was
universally insolent and over-bearing." "As a judge, he did not consider
the decencies of his post, nor did he so much as affect to be
impartial, as became a judge." His face and voice were always unamiable.
"All tenderness for the feelings of others, all self-respect were
obliterated from his mind." He had "a delight in misery, merely as
misery," and "that temper which tyrants require in their worst
instruments." "He made haste to sell his forehead of brass and his
tongue of venom to the court." He had "more impudence than ten carted
street-walkers;" and was appropriately set to a work "which could be
trusted to no man who reverenced law, or who was sensible of shame." He
was a "Commissioner" in 1685. You know of the "Bloody assizes" which he
held, and how he sent to execution three hundred and twenty persons in a
single circuit. "The whole country was strewed with the heads and limbs
of his victims." Yet a man wrote that "A little more hemp might have
been usefully employed." He was the worst of the English judges. "There
was no measure, however illegal, to the execution of which he did not
devotedly and recklessly abandon himself." "During the Stuart reigns,
England was cursed by a succession of ruffians in ermine, who, for the
sake of court favor, wrested the principles of law, the precepts of
religion, and the duties of humanity; but they were all greatly
outstripped by Jeffries." Such is his history.
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 Jeffries, 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, Jeffries, underneath "the altar
of the church" which seeks with Christian charity to hide your hated
bones.
"But," asks a looker-on, "What is all this for?" Oh! to save the Union.
"A precious Union which needs a saving such as this! And who are to rend
the Union asunder?" Why, men that hate slavery and love freedom for all
mankind. "Is this the way to make them love the Union and slavery, and
hate freedom for all mankind?" We know none better. "What sort of a
measure is this fugitive slave law?" Oh! it is a "peace measure." Don't
you see how well it works? how quiet the city? in the country not a
mouse stirring? There will not be a word against the peace measure in
all New England on this Fast Day. Blessed are the peace-makers, saith
Lord! "But you have great warrant for such deeds?" Oh yes, the best in
the world,--the example of Washington. He also "saved the Union." "So
men blaspheme."
Let me tell you a little of that great man. Shortly after the passage of
the law of 1793, a favorite female slave of Washington's wife ran away
from the President of the new republic, and went into New Hampshire. She
lived at Portsmouth. Washington wrote to Mr. Whipple, a United States'
marshal, I think, or, at any rate, an officer of the United States,
saying that he should like to have the woman sent back to him, if it
could be done without tumult, and without shocking the principles and
the feelings of the people. He added that the slave was a favorite of
his wife. Mr. Whipple wrote back, and said,--It cannot be done without
tumult, nor without shocking the principles and feelings of the people.
Washington said no more! The woman died at a great age, a few years ago,
at Portsmouth. That was the example of Washington,--the man who at his
death freed his slaves! Would to God he had done it before! But they
that come at the eleventh hour shall never be cast out from my charity.
* * * * *
See what is the consequence of this measure! See what has been the
condition of Boston for the past week! Read the mingled truth and lies
in the newspapers; look at men's faces in the street; listen to their
talk; see the court-house in chains; see one hundred policemen on guard,
and three companies of military picketed in Faneuil Hall; behold the
people shut out from the courts--I will not say of justice! See the
officers of Massachusetts made slave-hunters--against the law;
constitutional rights struck down--against the law; sheriffs refusing to
serve writs--against the law; see the great civil rights our fathers
gained five hundred years ago, the trial by jury, by our "peers," by the
"law of the land," all cloven down; the writ of "personal replevin" made
null--no sheriff daring to execute a law made to suit such a case as
this, made but eight years ago! Where is your high Sheriff? Where is
your Governor? See the judges of Massachusetts bend beneath that chain;
see them bow down, one by one, and kneel, and creep, and cringe, and
crouch, and crawl, under the chain! Note the symbol! That was the chain
on the neck of the Commonwealth, visible on the necks of the judges as
they entered the Bastile of Boston,--the Barracoon of Boston! A few
years ago, they used to tell us, "Slavery is an abstraction;" "we at the
North have nothing to do with it," Now liberty is only an abstraction!
Here is a note just handed me in the pulpit:--
"Marshal Tukey told me this morning, that his orders were
_not merely to keep the peace_, but to _assist the United
States' marshal in detaining and transporting the slave_;
that he _knew he was violating the State law, as well as I
did_; but it was not his responsibility, but that of the
Mayor and Aldermen. I thought you might like to know this."
Well, my brethren, I know Boston has seen sad days before now. When the
stamp act came here in our fathers' time, it was a sad day; they tolled
the bells all over town, and Mayhew wished "they were cut off that
trouble you." It was a sad day when the tea came here, although, when it
went down the stream, all the hills of New England laughed. And it was a
sadder day still, the 17th of June, 1775, when our fathers fought and
bled on yonder hill, all red from battle at Concord and Lexington, and
poured sheeted death into the ranks of their enemies, while the
inhabitants of this town lifted up their hands, but could not go to
assist their brethren in the field; and when, to crown all their
sadness, they saw four hundred of the houses of their sister town go up
in flames to heaven, and could not lend a helping hand! A sadder day
when they fired one hundred guns in Boston for the passage of the
fugitive slave law. It was the saddest day of all, when a man was
kidnapped in Boston by the men of Boston, and your court-house hung with
chains.
It was not from the tyrants of the other side of the world that this
trouble came!
If you could have seen what I have this morning, at sunrise, one hundred
of the police of this city, contrary to the laws of the State, drilling
with drawn swords, to learn to guard a man whilst he should be carried
into bondage! And who do you suppose was at their head? A man bearing an
honorable name--Samuel Adams! Tell it not in Massachusetts; let not your
children hear of this, lest they curse the mothers that bore them. It is
well that we should have a day of fasting and humiliation and prayer,
when such things are done here.
Well, my brethren, these are only the beginning of sorrows. There will
be other victims yet; this will not settle the question. What shall we
do? I think I am a calm man and a cool man, and I have a word or two to
say as to what we shall do. Never obey the law. Keep the law of God.
Next I say, resist not evil with evil; resist not now with violence. Why
do I say this? Will you tell me that I am a coward? Perhaps I am; at
least I am not afraid to be called one. Why do I say, then, do not now
resist with violence? Because it is not time just yet; it would not
succeed. If I had the eloquence that I sometimes dream of, which goes
into a crowd of men, and gathers it in its mighty arm, and sways them as
the pendent boughs of yonder elm shall be shaken by the summer breeze
next June, I would not give that counsel. I would call on men, and lift
up my voice like a trumpet through the whole land, until I had gathered
millions out of the North and the South, and they should crush slavery
forever, as the ox crushes the spider underneath his feet. But such
eloquence is given to no man. It was not given to the ancient Greek who
"shook the arsenal and fulmined over Greece." He that so often held the
nobles and the mob of Rome within his hand, had it not. He that spoke as
never man spake, and who has since gathered two hundred millions to his
name, had it not. No man has it. The ablest must wait for time! It is
idle to resist here and now. It is not the hour. If in 1765 they had
attempted to carry out the Revolution by force, they would have failed.
Had it failed, we had not been here to-day. There would have been no
little monument at Lexington "sacred to liberty and the rights of
mankind," honoring the men who "fell in the cause of God and their
country." No little monument at Concord; nor that tall pile of eloquent
stone at Bunker Hill, to proclaim that "Resistance to tyrants is
obedience to God." Success is due to the discretion, heroism, calmness,
and forbearance of our fathers: let us wait our time. It will
come--perhaps will need no sacrifice of blood.
Resist, then, by peaceful means; not with evil, but with good. Hold the
men infamous that execute this law; give them your pity, but never give
them your trust, not till they repent. Then swiftly forgive. Agitate,
discuss, petition, and elect to office men whom you can trust; not men
who never show their face in the day of darkness and of peril. Choose
men that are men.
I suppose that this man will be carried back to slavery. The law of the
United States has been cloven down; the law of Massachusetts cloven
down. If we have done all that we can we must leave the result to God.
It is something that a man can only be kidnapped in Boston by riding
over the law, and can only be tried in a court-house surrounded by
chains, when the crouching judges crawl under the iron of slavery to
enter their house of bondage; that even on Fast Day it is guarded by one
hundred police, and three companies of military are picketed in Faneuil
Hall--the "Sims Brigade!"[33]
The Christians saw Christ crucified, and looked on from afar; sad, but
impotent. The Christians at Rome saw their brethren martyred, and could
not help them: they were too weak. But the blood of martyrs is the seed
of the church. To-day is St. Bademus' Day: three hundred and seventy-six
years after Christ, that precious saint was slain because he would not
keep the commandment of the king. By crucified redeemers shall mankind
be saved. If we cannot prevent crucifixion, let us wait for the
redemption.
Shall I ask you to despair of human liberty and rights? I believe that
money is to triumph for the present. We see it does in Boston,
Philadelphia, New York, and Washington: see this in the defence of
bribery; in the chains of the court-house; in the judges' pliant necks;
in the swords of the police to-day; see it in the threats of the press
to withdraw the trade of Boston from towns that favor the unalienable
rights of man!
Will the Union hold out? I know not that. But, if men continue to
enforce the fugitive slave law, I do not know how soon it will end; I do
not care how soon the Union goes to pieces. I believe in Justice and the
Law of God; that ultimately the right will prevail. Wrong will prevail
for a time, and attract admiration. I have seen in a haberdasher's
shop-window the figure of a wooden woman showily arrayed, turning round
on a pivot, and attracting the gaze of all the passers-by; but ere long
it is forgotten. So it will be with this transient love of slavery in
Boston; but the love of right will last as long as the granite in New
Hampshire hills. I will not tell you to despair of freedom because
politicians are false; they are often so. Despair of freedom for the
black man! No, never. Not till heaven shakes down its stars; nay, not
till the heart of man ceases to yearn for liberty; not till the eternal
God is hurled from his throne, and a devil takes his place! All the arts
of wicked men shall not prevail against the Father; nay, at last, not
against the Son.
The very scenes we have witnessed here,--the Court-House in chains,--the
Laws of Massachusetts despised,--the Commonwealth disgraced,--these
speak to the people with an eloquence beyond all power of human speech.
Here is great argument for our cause. This work begets new foes to every
form of wrong. There is a day after to-day,--an eternity after
to-morrow. Let us be courageous and active, but cool and tranquil, and
full of hope.
These are the beginning of sorrows; we shall have others, and trials.
Continued material prosperity is commonly bad for a man, always for a
nation. I think the time is coming when there will be a terrible contest
between liberty and slavery. Now is the time to spread ideas, not to
bear arms. I know which will triumph: the present love of thraldom is
only an eddy in the great river of the nation's life; by and by it will
pass down the stream and be forgot. Liberty will spread with us, as the
spring over the New England hills. One spot will blossom, and then
another, until at last the spring has covered the whole land, and every
mountain rejoices in its verdant splendor.
O Boston! thou wert once the prayer and pride of all New England men,
and holy hands were laid in baptism on thy baby brow! Thou art
dishonored now; thou hast taken to thy arms the enemies of men. Thou
hast betrayed the slave; thy brother's blood cries out against thee from
the ground. Thou art a stealer of mankind. In thy borders, for long
years, the Cradle of Liberty has been placed. The golden serpent of
commerce has twined its snaky folds about it all, and fascinated into
sleep the child. Tread lightly, soldiers: he yet may wake. Yes, in his
time this child shall wake, and Boston shall scourge out the memory of
the men who have trodden her laws under foot, violated the dearest
instincts of her heart, and profaned her religion. I appeal from
Boston, swollen with wealth, drunk with passion, and mad against
freedom--to Boston in her calm and sober hour.
O Massachusetts, noble State, the mother that bore us all; parent of
goodly institutions and of noble men, whose great ideas have blessed the
land!--how art thou denied, dishonored, and brought low! One of thine
own hired servants has wrought this deed of shame, and rent the bosom
which took him as an adopted son. Shall it be always thus? I conjure
thee by all thy battle-fields,--by the remembrance of the great men born
of thee, who battled for the right, thy Franklin, Hancock, the
Adamses--three in a single name,--by thine ideas and thy love of
God,--to forbid forever all such deeds as this, and wipe away thy deep
disgrace.
America, thou youngest born of all God's family of States! thou art a
giant in thy youth, laying thine either hand upon thine either sea; the
lakes behind thee, and the Mexique bay before. Hast thou too forgot thy
mission here, proud only of thy wide-spread soil, thy cattle, corn, thy
cotton, and thy cloth? Wilt thou welcome the Hungarian hero, and yet
hold slaves, and hunt poor negroes through thy land? Thou art the ally
of the despot, thyself out-heathening the heathen Turk. Yea, every
Christian king may taunt thee with thy slaves. Dost thou forget thine
own great men,--thy Washington, thy Jefferson? forget thine own proud
words prayed forth to God in thy great act of prayer? Is it to protect
thy wealth alone that thou hast formed a State? and shall thy wealth be
slaves? No, thou art mad. It shall not be. One day thou wilt heed the
lessons of the past, practise thy prayer, wilt turn to God, and rend out
of thy book the hated page where Slavery is writ. Thy sons who led thee
astray in thy madness, where shall they appear?
And thou our God, the Father of us all, Father and Mother too, Parent of
freemen, Parent also of the slave, look down upon us in our sad estate.
Look down upon thy saints, and bless them; yea, bless thy sinners too;
save from the wicked heart. Bless this town by thy chastisement; this
State by thine afflictions; this nation by thy rod. Teach us to resist
evil and with good, till we break the fetters from every foot, the
chains from every hand, and let the oppressed go free. So let thy
kingdom come; so may thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] The above paragraph refers to cases which had then recently
occurred, and were known to everybody.
[27] Mr. Peleg Sprague.
[28] The above paragraph was written in April, 1851, and was only
historical, not also prophetic.
[29] It was well known that the laws of Massachusetts were violated, but
no prosecution of the offenders was ever begun. The committee to whom
the matter was referred, thought that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts
was not to be trusted to vindicate the laws of the State, against
kidnappers in Boston.
[30] In November, 1851, the City Marshal reports to the Board of
Aldermen, the following facts:--There are fifteen hundred places in
Boston, where intoxicating drinks are sold, in violation of the laws of
Massachusetts.
Kept by Americans, 490
Kept by foreigners, 1010
Open on Sunday, 979
Groceries that keep intoxicating drink, 469
Other places, 1031