"his powder had a good kernel, and he kept it dry; his pistols were of
excellent proof; the barrels true, and clean, the trigger went easy,
the caps would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his poignard; the
blade had a good temper, stiff enough and yet springy withal; the
point was sharp."[213] After the immediate danger was over and Knight
and Hughes had avoided the city, where they had received such welcome
from the friends of this Court, such was the tone of the political
newspapers and the commercial pulpit that William and Ellen must needs
flee from America. Long made one by the wedlock of mutual and plighted
faith, their marriage in Georgia was yet "null and void" by the laws
of that "Christian State." I married them according to the law of
Massachusetts. As a symbol of the husband's peculiar responsibility
under such circumstances, I gave William a Sword--it lay on the table
in the house of another fugitive, where the wedding took place--and
told him of his manly duty therewith, if need were, to defend the life
and liberty of Ellen. I gave them both a Bible, which I had bought for
the purpose, to be a symbol of their spiritual culture and a help for
their soul, as the sword was for their bodily life. "With this sword I
thee wed," suited the circumstances of that bridal.
[Footnote 213: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, 55.]
Mr. and Mrs. Craft were parishioners of mine, and besides I have been
appointed "minister at large in behalf of all fugitive slaves in
Boston." I have helped join men and women in wedlock according to the
customs of various sects and nations. There is one wedlock, a
sacrament, but many forms. Never before did I marry two lovers with
the Sword and the Bible--the form of matrimony for fugitive slaves:
out of that fact perhaps Mr. Attorney can frame an indictment that
will hold water. "If it only resists law and obstructs its officers,"
quoth he, "it is treason, and he who risks it must risk hanging for
it!"
At the great Union meeting, November 26, when Mr. Curtis said "I
should like to ask the Reverend Gentleman in what capacity he expects
to be punished for his _perjury_," I said, "Do you want an answer to
your question, Sir?" No doubt that was obstructing a (prospective)
"officer," then preparing for process. How easily could Scroggs make a
"misdemeanor," or "a seditious libel," out of that question! Allybone
would call it "treason," "levying war."
Thirty-six hours after the Union meeting, on Thanksgiving day, 28th
November, 1850, in a "Sermon of the State of the Nation," I said:--
"I have sometimes been amazed at the talk of men who call on
us to keep the fugitive slave law, one of the most odious
laws in a world of odious laws--a law not fit to be made or
kept. I have been amazed that they should dare to tell us
the law of God, writ on the heavens and our hearts, never
demanded we should disobey the laws of men! Well, suppose it
were so. Then it was old Daniel's duty at Darius' command to
give up his prayer; but he prayed three times a day, with
his windows up. Then it was John's and Peter's duty to
forbear to preach of Christianity; but they said, 'Whether
it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more
than unto God, judge ye.' Then it was the duty of Amram and
Jochebed to take up their new-born Moses and cast him into
the Nile, for the law of king Pharaoh, commanding it, was
'constitutional,' and 'political agitation' was
discountenanced as much in Goshen as in Boston. But Daniel
did not obey; John and Peter did not fail to preach
Christianity; and Amram and Jochebed refused 'passive
obedience' to the king's decree! I think it will take a
strong man all this winter to reverse the judgment which the
world has passed on these three cases. But it is 'innocent'
to try.
"However, there is another ancient case, mentioned in the
Bible, in which the laws commanded one thing and conscience
just the opposite. Here the record of the law:--'Now both
the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment,
that if any one knew where he [Jesus] were, he should show
it, that they might take him.' Of course, it became the
official and legal business of each disciple who knew where
Christ was, to make it known to the authorities. No doubt
James and John could leave all and follow him, with others
of the people who knew not the law of Moses, and were
accursed; nay, the women, Martha and Mary, could minister
unto him of their substance, could wash his feet with their
tears, and wipe them with the hairs of their head. They did
it gladly, of their own free will, and took pleasure
therein, I make no doubt. There was no merit in that--'Any
man can perform an agreeable duty.' But there was found one
disciple who could 'perform a disagreeable duty.' He went,
perhaps 'with alacrity,' and betrayed his Saviour to the
marshal of the district of Jerusalem, who was called a
centurion. Had he no affection for Jesus? No doubt; but he
could conquer his prejudices, while Mary and John could
not.
"Judas Iscariot has rather a bad name in the Christian
world: he is called 'The son of perdition,' in the New
Testament, and his conduct is reckoned a 'transgression;'
nay, it is said the devil 'entered into him,' to cause this
hideous sin. But all this it seems was a mistake; certainly,
if we are to believe our 'republican' lawyers and statesmen,
Iscariot only fulfilled his 'constitutional obligations.' It
was only 'on that point,' of betraying his Saviour, that the
constitutional law required him to have any thing to do with
Jesus. He took his 'thirty pieces of silver'--about fifteen
dollars; a Yankee is to do it for ten, having fewer
prejudices to conquer--it was his legal fee, for value
received. True, the Christians thought it was 'The wages of
iniquity,' and even the Pharisees--who commonly made the
commandment of God of none effect by their traditions--dared
not defile the temple with this 'price of blood;' but it was
honest money. Yes, it was as honest a fee as any American
commissioner or deputy will ever get for a similar service.
How mistaken we are! Judas Iscariot is not a traitor! he was
a great patriot; he conquered his 'prejudices,' performed 'a
disagreeable duty,' as an office of 'high morals and high
principle;' he kept the 'law' and the 'Constitution,' and
did all he could to 'save the Union;' nay, he was a saint,
'not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.' 'The law of
God never commands us to disobey the law of man.' _Sancte
Iscariote ora pro nobis._
"Talk of keeping the fugitive slave law! Come, come, we know
better. Men in New England know better than this. We know
that we ought not to keep a wicked law, and that it must not
be kept when the law of God forbids!
"One of the most awful spectacles I ever saw, was this: A
vast multitude attempting, at an orator's suggestion [Hon.
Mr. Hallett], to howl down the 'Higher law,' and when he
said, Will you have this to rule over you? they answered,
'Never!' and treated the 'Higher law' to a laugh and a howl!
It was done in Faneuil Hall; under the eyes of the three
Adamses, Hancock, and Washington; and the howl rung round
the venerable arches of that hall! I could not but ask, 'Why
do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?
the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take
counsel against the Lord and say, Let us break his bands
asunder, and cast off his yoke from us.' Then I could not
but remember that it was written, 'He that sitteth in the
heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.'
'He taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the
inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before Him.'
Howl down the law of God at a magistrate's command! Do this
in Boston! Let us remember this--but with charity."
"I do not believe there is more than one of the New England
men who 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. 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. 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 for ever! 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, 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 tomb-stone.
'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."[214]
[Footnote 214: 2 Parker's Occasional Sermons, pp. 298-300, 301, 302,
304, 305.]
Gentlemen, you see by the faces of this Honorable Court, and you know
by what these honorable functionaries and their coadjutors have done
out of its limit, how much I was mistaken in the notion that no Boston
Commissioner would ever kidnap a man! Perhaps you will pardon me for
the mistake. I will soon explain it by a quotation.
After the rescue of Shadrach, in my Sunday prayer I publicly gave God
the thanks of the congregation for the noble deed. Perhaps that was a
crime. I think Judge Saunders could make it appear that I was an
"accessory after the fact," and then Judge Curtis could call the
offence not a felony but a "misdemeanor," and "in misdemeanors all are
principals." Nay, it might be "levying war" "with force and arms."
After the Hon. Judge Sprague had made himself glorious by charging the
jury "to obey both" the will of God and the laws of men, which forbid
that will; and after Commissioner Curtis had kidnapped Mr. Sims, while
he still had him in his unlawful jail, on Fast-day, April 10, 1851, I
preached a sermon "of the Chief Sins of the People," and said,--
"He [Judge Sprague] supposes a case: that the people ask
him, 'Which shall we obey, the law of man or the will of
God?' He says, 'I answer, obey both. The incompatibility
which the question assumes does not exist.'
"So, then, here is a great general rule, that between the
'law of man' and the 'will of God' there is no
incompatibility, and we must 'obey both.' Now let us see how
this rule will work.
"If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law that all the
Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the will of God that
they should serve the Lord. According to this rule of the
judge, they must 'obey both.' But if they served Baal, they
could not serve the Lord. In such a case, 'what is to be
done?' We are told that Elijah gathered the prophets
together: 'and he came unto all the people, and said, How
long halt ye? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal,
then follow him.' Our modern prophet says, 'Obey both. The
incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist.'
Such is the difference between Judge Elijah and Judge Peleg.
"Let us see how this rule will work in other cases; how you
can make a compromise between two opposite doctrines. The
king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew nurses, 'When you do the
office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, if it be a son ye
shall kill him.' I suppose it is plain to the Judge of the
Circuit Court that this kind of murder, killing the new-born
infants, is against 'the will of God;' but it is a matter of
record that it was according to 'the law of man.' Suppose
the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge Sprague for his
advice. He must have said, 'Obey both!' His rule is a
universal one.
"Another decree was once made, as it is said in the Old
Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God
for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast
into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel--I mean the old
Daniel, the prophet--should have asked him, What is to be
done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? 'Obey both!'
would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray
to God. We know what Daniel did do.
"The elders and scribes of Jerusalem commanded the
Christians not to speak or to teach at all in the name of
Jesus; but Peter and John asked those functionaries,
'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you
more than unto God, judge ye.' Our judge must have said,
There is no 'incompatibility;' 'obey both!' What 'a
comfortable Scripture' this would have been to poor John
Bunyan! What a great ethical doctrine to St. Paul! He did
not know such Christianity as that. Before his time a
certain man had said, 'No man can serve two masters.' But
there was one person who made the attempt, and he also is
eminent in history. Here was 'the will of God,' to do to
others as you would have others do to you: 'Love thy
neighbor as thyself.' Here is the record of 'the law of
man:' 'Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had
given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he [Jesus]
were, he should show it that they might take him.' Judas, it
seems, determined to 'obey both,'--'the law of man' and 'the
will of God.' So he sat with Jesus at the Last Supper,
dipped his hand in the same dish, and took a morsel from the
hand of Christ, given him in token of love. All this he did
to obey 'the will of God.' Then he went and informed the
Commissioner or Marshal where Jesus was. This he did to obey
'the law of man.' Then he came back, and found Christ,--the
agony all over, the bloody sweat wiped off from his brow
presently to bleed again,--the Angel of Strength there with
him to comfort him. He was arousing his sleeping disciples
for the last time, and was telling them, 'Pray, lest ye
enter into temptation.' Judas came and gave him a kiss. To
the eleven it seemed the friendly kiss, obeying 'the will of
God.' To the Marshal it also seemed a friendly
kiss,--obeying 'the law of man.' So, in the same act, he
obeys 'the law of God' and 'the will of man,' and there is
no 'incompatibility!'
"Of old it was said, 'Thou canst not serve God and mammon.'
He that said it, has been thought to know something of
morals,--something of religion.
"Till the fugitive slave law was passed, we did not know
what a great saint Iscariot was. I think there ought to be a
chapel for him, and a day set apart in the calendar. Let him
have his chapel in the navy yard at Washington. He has got a
priest there already. And for a day in the calendar--set
apart for all time the seventh of March!"
"Last Thanksgiving day, I said it would be difficult to find
a magistrate in Boston to take the odium of sending a
fugitive back to slavery. I believed, after all, men had
some conscience, although they talked about its being a duty
to deliver up a man to bondage. Pardon me, my country, that
I rated you too high! Pardon me, town of Boston, that I
thought your citizens all men! Pardon me, lawyers, that I
thought you had been all born of mothers! Pardon me,
ruffians, who kill for hire! I thought you had some animal
mercy left, even in your bosom! Pardon me, United States'
commissioners, marshals, and the like, I thought you all had
some shame! Pardon me, my hearers, for such mistakes. One
commissioner was found to furnish the warrant [Mr. George T.
Curtis]! Pardon me, I did not know he was a commissioner; if
I had, I never would have said it!
"Spirits of tyrants, I look down to you! Shade of Cain, you
great first murderer, forgive me that I forgot your power,
and did not remember that you were parent of so long a line!
And you, my brethren, if hereafter I tell you that there is
any limit of meanness or wickedness which a Yankee will not
jump over, distrust me, and remind me of this day, and I
will take it back!
"Let us look at the public conduct of any commissioner who
will send an 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 rum-sellers, 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!"
"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. 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 destroyed 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 Jeffreys!--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 Jeffreys '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 overbearing.'
'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 Jeffreys.' 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.