"If a man falls into the water and is in danger of drowning, it is the natural duty of the bystanders to aid in pulling him out, even at the risk of wetting their garments. We should think a man a coward who could swim, and would not save a drowning girl for fear of spoiling his coat. He would be indictable at common law. If a troop of wolves or tigers were about to seize a man, and devour him, and you and I could help him, it would be our duty to do so, even to peril our own limbs and life for that purpose. If a man undertakes to murder or steal a man, it is the duty of the bystanders to help their brother, who is in peril, against wrong from the two-legged man, as much as against the four-legged beast. But suppose the invader who seizes the man is an officer of the United States, has a commission in his pocket, a warrant for his deed in his hand, and seizes as a slave a man who has done nothing to alienate his natural rights—does that give him any more natural right to enslave a man than he had before? Can any piece of parchment make right wrong, and wrong right?"The fugitive has been a slave before: does the wrong you committed yesterday, give you a natural right to commit wrong afresh and continually? Because you enslaved this man's father, have you a natural right to enslave his child? The same right you would have to murder a man because you butchered his father first. The right to murder is as much transmissible by inheritance as the right to enslave! It is plain to me that it is the natural duty of citizens to rescue every fugitive slave from the hands of the marshal who essays to return him to bondage; to do it peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must, but by all means to do it. Will you stand by and see your countrymen, your fellow-citizens of Boston, sent off to slavery by some commissioner? Shall I see my own parishioners taken from under my eyes and carried back to bondage, by a man whose constitutional business it is to work wickedness by statute? Shall I never lift an arm to protect him? When I consent to that, you may call me a hireling shepherd, an infidel, a wolf in sheep's clothing, even a defender of slave-catching if you will; and I will confess I was a poor dumb dog, barking always at the moon, but silent as the moon when the murderer comes near."I am not a man who loves violence. I respect the sacredness of human life. But this I say, solemnly, that I will do all in my power to rescue any fugitive slave from the hands of any officer who attempts to return him to bondage. I will resist him as gently as I know how, but with such strength as I can command; I will ring the bells,and alarm the town; I will serve as head, as foot, or as hand to any body of serious and earnest men, who will go with me, with no weapons but their hands, in this work. I will do it as readily as I would lift a man out of the water, or pluck him from the teeth of a wolf, or snatch him from the hands of a murderer. What is a fine of a thousand dollars, and jailing for six months, to the liberty of a man? My money perish with me, if it stand between me and the eternal law of God. I trust there are manly men enough in this house to secure the freedom of every fugitive slave in Boston, without breaking a limb or rending a garment."One thing more I think is very plain, that the fugitive has the same natural right to defend himself against the slave-catcher, or his constitutional tool, that he has against a murderer or a wolf. The man who attacks me to reduce me to slavery, in that moment of attack alienates his right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape in no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time this was said. What grasshoppers we are before the statute of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get illegal interest? How many banks are content withsix per cent.when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we? betray the wanderer, and expose the outcast?"[211]
"If a man falls into the water and is in danger of drowning, it is the natural duty of the bystanders to aid in pulling him out, even at the risk of wetting their garments. We should think a man a coward who could swim, and would not save a drowning girl for fear of spoiling his coat. He would be indictable at common law. If a troop of wolves or tigers were about to seize a man, and devour him, and you and I could help him, it would be our duty to do so, even to peril our own limbs and life for that purpose. If a man undertakes to murder or steal a man, it is the duty of the bystanders to help their brother, who is in peril, against wrong from the two-legged man, as much as against the four-legged beast. But suppose the invader who seizes the man is an officer of the United States, has a commission in his pocket, a warrant for his deed in his hand, and seizes as a slave a man who has done nothing to alienate his natural rights—does that give him any more natural right to enslave a man than he had before? Can any piece of parchment make right wrong, and wrong right?
"The fugitive has been a slave before: does the wrong you committed yesterday, give you a natural right to commit wrong afresh and continually? Because you enslaved this man's father, have you a natural right to enslave his child? The same right you would have to murder a man because you butchered his father first. The right to murder is as much transmissible by inheritance as the right to enslave! It is plain to me that it is the natural duty of citizens to rescue every fugitive slave from the hands of the marshal who essays to return him to bondage; to do it peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must, but by all means to do it. Will you stand by and see your countrymen, your fellow-citizens of Boston, sent off to slavery by some commissioner? Shall I see my own parishioners taken from under my eyes and carried back to bondage, by a man whose constitutional business it is to work wickedness by statute? Shall I never lift an arm to protect him? When I consent to that, you may call me a hireling shepherd, an infidel, a wolf in sheep's clothing, even a defender of slave-catching if you will; and I will confess I was a poor dumb dog, barking always at the moon, but silent as the moon when the murderer comes near.
"I am not a man who loves violence. I respect the sacredness of human life. But this I say, solemnly, that I will do all in my power to rescue any fugitive slave from the hands of any officer who attempts to return him to bondage. I will resist him as gently as I know how, but with such strength as I can command; I will ring the bells,and alarm the town; I will serve as head, as foot, or as hand to any body of serious and earnest men, who will go with me, with no weapons but their hands, in this work. I will do it as readily as I would lift a man out of the water, or pluck him from the teeth of a wolf, or snatch him from the hands of a murderer. What is a fine of a thousand dollars, and jailing for six months, to the liberty of a man? My money perish with me, if it stand between me and the eternal law of God. I trust there are manly men enough in this house to secure the freedom of every fugitive slave in Boston, without breaking a limb or rending a garment.
"One thing more I think is very plain, that the fugitive has the same natural right to defend himself against the slave-catcher, or his constitutional tool, that he has against a murderer or a wolf. The man who attacks me to reduce me to slavery, in that moment of attack alienates his right to life, and if I were the fugitive, and could escape in no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time this was said. What grasshoppers we are before the statute of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get illegal interest? How many banks are content withsix per cent.when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we? betray the wanderer, and expose the outcast?"[211]
Gentlemen, you know what Mr. Commissioner Hallett said of such language, said at the Union Meeting in Faneuil Hall.[212]He was only fugitive slave bill commissioner then; in consequence of his denial of the Higher Law of God he is now fugitive slave bill Attorney. You know what Mr. Curtis said of the Sermon; now, in consequence he is Judge Curtis—the fugitive slave bill Judge.
On the 14th of October there was another meeting at Faneuil Hall—the Freesoilers came that time. The old flame of Liberty burnt anew in Charles Francis Adams, who presided. Perhaps some of you remember the prayer of the venerable Dr. Lowell which lifted up our souls to the "Father of all men!" I proposed the appointment of a "Committee of Vigilance and Safety to take such measures as they shall deem just and expedient to protect the colored people of this city in the enjoyment of their lives and liberties." I was appointed one of the Committee, and subsequently Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Vigilance Committee; a very responsible office, Gentlemen. At that meeting I told of a fugitive from Boston, who that day had telegraphed to his wife here, asking if it was safe for him to come back from Canada. I asked the meeting, "Will you let him come back; how many will defend him to the worst?" "Here a hand vote was taken," said the newspapers, "a forest of hands was held up." Surely that was "evincing an express liking" for an obstruction of the kidnappers. But did it violate the law of 1790?
All this you might easily have known before. Here is something you did not know. That Meeting, its Resolutions, its Speeches, itsAction, were brought up in the cabinet of the United States and discussed.Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State,wished to have Mr. Adams, president of the meeting, presented to the grand-jury and indicted for treason! But the majority thought otherwise.
Gentlemen, when the kidnappers came to Boston I did some things of which this court has not taken notice, and so I will not speak of them now, but only tell your grandchildren of, if I live long enough. Others did more and better than I could do, however. In due time they will have their reward. One thing let me say now. When the two brothers Curtis, with their kinsfolk and coadjutors, were seeking to kidnap the Crafts, I took Ellen to my own house, and kept her there so long as the (Southern) kidnappers remained in the city. For the first time I armed myself, and put my house in a state of defence. For two weeks I wrote my sermons with a sword in the open drawer under my inkstand, and a pistol in the flap of the desk, loaded, ready, with a cap on the nipple. Commissioner Curtis said "a process was in the hands of the marshal ..." in the execution of which, hemight be called upon to break open dwelling-houses, and perhaps to take life, by quelling resistance actual or "threatened." I was ready for him. I knew my rights.
I went also and looked after William Craft. I inspected his weapons; "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.
Mr. and Mrs. Craft were parishioners of mine, and besides I have been appointed "minister at large in behalf of all fugitive slaves inBoston." 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 hisperjury," 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 mybusiness, 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]
"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 mybusiness, 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]
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 modernprophet 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 youhad 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 evilomen! 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."What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back! These not thy kindred! Whydost 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.""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 them 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 for ever, 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."[215]
"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 modernprophet 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 youhad 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 evilomen! 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.
"What! Dost thou shudder? Thou turn back! These not thy kindred! Whydost 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."
"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 them 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 for ever, 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."[215]
Gentlemen, I think Judge Finch could construct a misdemeanor out of these words; you will find in them nothing but the plain speech of a minister of the Christian religion.
On the 6th of July, 1851, I preached "Of the three chief Safeguards of Society," and said:—
"Nowhere in the world is there a people so orderly, so much attached to law, as the people of these Northern States. But one law is an exception. The people of the North hate the fugitive slave law, as they have never hated any law since the stamp act. I know there are men in the Northern States who like it,—who would have invented slavery, had it not existed long before. But the mass of the Northern people hate this law, because it is hostile to the purpose of all just human law, hostile to thepurpose of society, hostile to the purpose of individual life; because it is hostile to the law of God,—bids the wrong, forbids the right. We disobey that, for the same reason that we keep other laws: because we reverence the law of God. Why should we keep that odious law which makes us hated wherever justice is loved? Because we must sometimes do a disagreeable deed to accomplish an agreeable purpose? The purpose of that law is to enable three hundred thousand slaveholders to retake on our soil the men they once stole on other soil! Most of the city churches of the North seem to think that is a good thing. Very well; is it worth while for fifteen million freemen to transgress the plainest of natural laws, the most obvious instincts of the human heart, and the plainest duties of Christianity, for that purpose? The price to pay is the religious integrity of fifteen million men; the thing to buy is a privilege for three hundred thousand slaveholders to use the North as a hunting field whereon to kidnap men at our cost. Judge you of that bargain.""I adjure you to reverence a government that is right, statutes that are right, officers that are right; but to disobey every thing that is wrong. I intreat you by your love for your country, by the memory of your fathers, by your reverence for Jesus Christ, yea, by the deep and holy love of God which Jesus taught, and you now feel."[216]
"Nowhere in the world is there a people so orderly, so much attached to law, as the people of these Northern States. But one law is an exception. The people of the North hate the fugitive slave law, as they have never hated any law since the stamp act. I know there are men in the Northern States who like it,—who would have invented slavery, had it not existed long before. But the mass of the Northern people hate this law, because it is hostile to the purpose of all just human law, hostile to thepurpose of society, hostile to the purpose of individual life; because it is hostile to the law of God,—bids the wrong, forbids the right. We disobey that, for the same reason that we keep other laws: because we reverence the law of God. Why should we keep that odious law which makes us hated wherever justice is loved? Because we must sometimes do a disagreeable deed to accomplish an agreeable purpose? The purpose of that law is to enable three hundred thousand slaveholders to retake on our soil the men they once stole on other soil! Most of the city churches of the North seem to think that is a good thing. Very well; is it worth while for fifteen million freemen to transgress the plainest of natural laws, the most obvious instincts of the human heart, and the plainest duties of Christianity, for that purpose? The price to pay is the religious integrity of fifteen million men; the thing to buy is a privilege for three hundred thousand slaveholders to use the North as a hunting field whereon to kidnap men at our cost. Judge you of that bargain."
"I adjure you to reverence a government that is right, statutes that are right, officers that are right; but to disobey every thing that is wrong. I intreat you by your love for your country, by the memory of your fathers, by your reverence for Jesus Christ, yea, by the deep and holy love of God which Jesus taught, and you now feel."[216]
You will say all this is but indispensable duty; but the judge who hanged a man for treason because he promised to make his son "heir to the Crown"—meaning the "Crown Tavern" that he lived in—would doubtless find treason in my words also.
On the 12th of April, 1852, I delivered an address to commemorate the first anniversary of the Kidnapping of Thomas Sims, and said:—
"But when the rulers have inverted their function, and enacted wickedness into a law which treads down the unalienable rights of man to such a degree as this, then I know no ruler but God, no law but natural Justice. I tear the hateful statute of kidnappers to shivers; I trample it underneath my feet. I do it in the name of all law; in the name of Justice and of Man; in the name of the dear God.""You remember the decision of the Circuit judge,—himself soon to be summoned by death before the Judge who is no respecter of persons,—not allowing the destined victim his last hope, 'the great writ of right.' The decision left him entirely at the mercy of the other kidnappers. The Court-room was crowded with 'respectable people,' 'gentlemen of property and standing:' they received the decision with 'applause and the clapping of hands.' Seize a lamb out of a flock, a wolf from a pack of wolves, the lambs bleat with sympathy, the wolves howl with fellowship and fear; but when a competitor for the Presidency sends back to eternal bondage a poor, friendless negro, asking only his limbs, wealthy gentlemen of Boston applaud the outrage.
"But when the rulers have inverted their function, and enacted wickedness into a law which treads down the unalienable rights of man to such a degree as this, then I know no ruler but God, no law but natural Justice. I tear the hateful statute of kidnappers to shivers; I trample it underneath my feet. I do it in the name of all law; in the name of Justice and of Man; in the name of the dear God."
"You remember the decision of the Circuit judge,—himself soon to be summoned by death before the Judge who is no respecter of persons,—not allowing the destined victim his last hope, 'the great writ of right.' The decision left him entirely at the mercy of the other kidnappers. The Court-room was crowded with 'respectable people,' 'gentlemen of property and standing:' they received the decision with 'applause and the clapping of hands.' Seize a lamb out of a flock, a wolf from a pack of wolves, the lambs bleat with sympathy, the wolves howl with fellowship and fear; but when a competitor for the Presidency sends back to eternal bondage a poor, friendless negro, asking only his limbs, wealthy gentlemen of Boston applaud the outrage.
"When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, the six New England States lay fast asleep: Massachusetts slept soundly, her head pillowed on her unsold bales of cotton and of woollen goods, dreaming of 'orders from the South.' Justice came to waken her, and whisper of the peril of nine thousand citizens; and she started in her sleep, and, being frighted, swore a prayer or two, then slept again. But Boston woke,—sleeping, in her shop, with ears open, and her eye on the market, her hand on her purse, dreamingof goods for sale,—Boston woke broadly up, and fired a hundred guns for joy. O Boston, Boston! if thou couldst have known, in that thine hour, the things which belong unto thy peace! But no: they were hidden from her eyes. She had prayed to her god, to Money; he granted her the request, but sent leanness into her soul.""Yet one charge has been made against the Government, which seems to me a little harsh and unjust. It has been said the administration preferred low and contemptible men as their tools; judges who blink at law, advocates of infamy, and men cast off from society for perjury, for nameless crimes, and sins not mentionable in English speech; creatures 'not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus's sores; but, like flies, still buzzing upon any thing that is raw.' There is a semblance of justice in the charge: witness Philadelphia, Buffalo, Boston; witness New York. It is true, for kidnappers the Government did take men that looked 'like a bull-dog just come to man's estate;' men whose face declared them, 'if not the devil, at least his twin-brother.' There are kennels of the courts wherein there settles down all that the law breeds most foul, loathsome, and hideous and abhorrent to the eye of day; there this contaminating puddle gathers its noisome ooze, slowly, stealthily, continually, agglomerating its fetid mass by spontaneous cohesion, and sinking by the irresistible gravity of rottenness into that abhorred deep, the lowest, ghastliest pit in all the subterranean vaults of human sin. It is true the Government has skimmed the top and dredged the bottom of these kennels of the courts, taking for its purpose the scum and sediment thereof, the Squeers, the Fagins, and the Quilps of the law, the monsters of the court. Blame not the Government; it took the best it could get. It was necessity, not will, which made the selection. Such is the stuff that kidnappers must be made of. If you wish to kill a man, it is not bread you buy: it is poison. Some of the instruments of Government were such as one does not often look upon. But, of old time, an inquisitor was always 'a horrid-looking fellow, as beseemed his trade.' It is only justice that a kidnapper should bear 'his great commission in his look.'""I pity the kidnappers, the poor tools of men almost as base. I would not hurt a hair of their heads; but I would take the thunder of the moral world, and dash its bolted lightning on this crime of stealing men, till the name of kidnapping should be like Sodom and Gomorrah. It is piracy to steal a man in Guinea; what is it to do this in Boston?"I pity the merchants who, for their trade, were glad to steal their countrymen; I wish them only good. Debate in yonder hall has shown how little of humanity there is in the trade of Boston. She looks on all the horrors which intemperance has wrought, and daily deals in every street; she scrutinizes the jails,—they are filled by rum; she looks into the alms-houses, crowded full by rum; she walks her streets, and sees the perishing classes fall, mowed down by rum; she enters the parlors of wealthy men, looks into the bridal chamber, and meets death: the ghosts of the slain are there,—men slain by rum. She knows it all, yet says, 'There is an interest at stake!'—the interest of rum; let man give way! Boston does this to-day. Last year she stole a man; her merchants stole a man! The sacrifice of man to money, when shall it have an end? I pity those merchants who honor money more than man. Their gold is cankered, and their soul is brass,—is rusted brass. They must come up before the posterity which they affect to scorn. What voice can plead for them before their own children? The eye that mocketh at the justice of its son, and scorneth to obey the mercy of its daughter, the ravens of posterity shall pick it out, and the young eagles eat it up!"But there is yet another tribunal: 'After the death the judgment!' When he maketh inquisition for the blood of the innocent, what shall the stealers of men reply? Boston merchants, where is your brother, Thomas Sims? Let Cain reply to Christ."[217]
"When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, the six New England States lay fast asleep: Massachusetts slept soundly, her head pillowed on her unsold bales of cotton and of woollen goods, dreaming of 'orders from the South.' Justice came to waken her, and whisper of the peril of nine thousand citizens; and she started in her sleep, and, being frighted, swore a prayer or two, then slept again. But Boston woke,—sleeping, in her shop, with ears open, and her eye on the market, her hand on her purse, dreamingof goods for sale,—Boston woke broadly up, and fired a hundred guns for joy. O Boston, Boston! if thou couldst have known, in that thine hour, the things which belong unto thy peace! But no: they were hidden from her eyes. She had prayed to her god, to Money; he granted her the request, but sent leanness into her soul."
"Yet one charge has been made against the Government, which seems to me a little harsh and unjust. It has been said the administration preferred low and contemptible men as their tools; judges who blink at law, advocates of infamy, and men cast off from society for perjury, for nameless crimes, and sins not mentionable in English speech; creatures 'not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus's sores; but, like flies, still buzzing upon any thing that is raw.' There is a semblance of justice in the charge: witness Philadelphia, Buffalo, Boston; witness New York. It is true, for kidnappers the Government did take men that looked 'like a bull-dog just come to man's estate;' men whose face declared them, 'if not the devil, at least his twin-brother.' There are kennels of the courts wherein there settles down all that the law breeds most foul, loathsome, and hideous and abhorrent to the eye of day; there this contaminating puddle gathers its noisome ooze, slowly, stealthily, continually, agglomerating its fetid mass by spontaneous cohesion, and sinking by the irresistible gravity of rottenness into that abhorred deep, the lowest, ghastliest pit in all the subterranean vaults of human sin. It is true the Government has skimmed the top and dredged the bottom of these kennels of the courts, taking for its purpose the scum and sediment thereof, the Squeers, the Fagins, and the Quilps of the law, the monsters of the court. Blame not the Government; it took the best it could get. It was necessity, not will, which made the selection. Such is the stuff that kidnappers must be made of. If you wish to kill a man, it is not bread you buy: it is poison. Some of the instruments of Government were such as one does not often look upon. But, of old time, an inquisitor was always 'a horrid-looking fellow, as beseemed his trade.' It is only justice that a kidnapper should bear 'his great commission in his look.'"
"I pity the kidnappers, the poor tools of men almost as base. I would not hurt a hair of their heads; but I would take the thunder of the moral world, and dash its bolted lightning on this crime of stealing men, till the name of kidnapping should be like Sodom and Gomorrah. It is piracy to steal a man in Guinea; what is it to do this in Boston?
"I pity the merchants who, for their trade, were glad to steal their countrymen; I wish them only good. Debate in yonder hall has shown how little of humanity there is in the trade of Boston. She looks on all the horrors which intemperance has wrought, and daily deals in every street; she scrutinizes the jails,—they are filled by rum; she looks into the alms-houses, crowded full by rum; she walks her streets, and sees the perishing classes fall, mowed down by rum; she enters the parlors of wealthy men, looks into the bridal chamber, and meets death: the ghosts of the slain are there,—men slain by rum. She knows it all, yet says, 'There is an interest at stake!'—the interest of rum; let man give way! Boston does this to-day. Last year she stole a man; her merchants stole a man! The sacrifice of man to money, when shall it have an end? I pity those merchants who honor money more than man. Their gold is cankered, and their soul is brass,—is rusted brass. They must come up before the posterity which they affect to scorn. What voice can plead for them before their own children? The eye that mocketh at the justice of its son, and scorneth to obey the mercy of its daughter, the ravens of posterity shall pick it out, and the young eagles eat it up!
"But there is yet another tribunal: 'After the death the judgment!' When he maketh inquisition for the blood of the innocent, what shall the stealers of men reply? Boston merchants, where is your brother, Thomas Sims? Let Cain reply to Christ."[217]
The Sunday after Mr. Webster's death, Oct. 31, 1852, I spoke of that powerful man; listen to this:—
"Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through into the great hollow of practical atheism, which undergulfs the State and Church. Then what a caving in was there! The firm-set base of northern cities quaked and yawned with gaping rents. 'Penn's sandy foundation' shook again, and black men fled from the city of brotherly love, as doves, with plaintive cry, flee from a farmer's barn when summer lightning stabs the roof. There was a twist in Faneuil Hall, and the doors could not open wide enough for Liberty to regain her ancient Cradle; only soldiers, greedy to steal a man, themselves stole out and in. Ecclesiastic quicksand ran down the hole amain. Metropolitan churches toppled, and pitched, and canted, and cracked, their bowing walls all out of plumb. Colleges, broken from the chain which held them in the stream of time, rushed towards the abysmal rent. Harvard led the way, 'Christo et Ecclesiæ' in her hand. Down plunged Andover, 'Conscience and the Constitution' clutched in its ancient, failing arm. New Haven began to cave in. Doctors of Divinity, orthodox, heterodox, with only a doxy of doubt, 'no settled opinion,' had great alacrity in sinking, and went down quick, as live as ever, into the pit of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the bottomless pit of lower law,—one with his mother, cloaked by a surplice, hid beneath his sinister arm, and an acknowledged brother grasped by his remaining limb. Fossils of theology, dead as Ezekiel's bones, took to their feet again, and stood up for most arrant wrong. 'There is no higher law of God,' quoth they, as they went down; 'no golden rule, only the statutes of men.' A man with mythologic ear might fancy that he heard a snickering laugh run round the world below, snorting, whinnying, and neighing, as it echoed from the infernal spot pressed by the fallen monsters of ill-fame, who, thousands of years ago, on the same errand, had plunged down the self-same way. What tidings the echo bore, Dante nor Milton could not tell. Let us leave that to darkness, and to silence, and to death."But spite of all this, in every city, in every town, in every college, and in each capsizing church, there were found Faithful Men, who feared not the monster, heeded not the stamping;—nay, some doctors of divinity were found living. In all their houses there was light, and the destroying angel shook them not. The word of the Lord came in open vision to their eye; they had their lamps trimmed and burning, their loins girt; they stood road-ready. Liberty and Religion turned in thither, and the slave found bread and wings. 'When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will hold me up!'"After the 7th of March, Mr. Webster became the ally of the worst of men, the forefront of kidnapping. The orator of Plymouth Rock was the advocate of slavery; the hero of Bunker Hill put chains round Boston Court House; the applauder of Adams and Jefferson was a tool of the slaveholder, and a keeper of slavery's dogs, the associate of the kidnapper, and the mocker of men who loved the right. Two years he lived with that rabble rout for company, his name the boast of every vilest thing.'Oh, how unlike the place from whence he fell!'""Do men mourn for him? See how they mourn! The streets are hung with black. The newspapers are sad colored. The shops are put in mourning. The Mayor and Aldermen wear crape. Wherever his death is made known, the public business stops, and flags drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn. The courts of Massachusetts—at Boston, at Dedham, at Lowell, all adjourn; the courts of New Hampshire, of Maine, of New York; even at Baltimore and Washington, the courts adjourn; for the great lawyer is dead, and Justice must wait another day. Only theUnited States Court, in Boston, trying a man for helping Shadrach out of the furnace of the kidnappers,—the court which executes the Fugitive Slave Bill,—that does not adjourn; that keeps on; its worm dies not, and the fire of its persecution is not quenched, when death puts out the lamp of life! Injustice is hungry for its prey, and must not be balked. It was very proper! Symbolical court of the Fugitive Slave Bill—it does not respect life, why should it death? and, scorning liberty, why should it heed decorum?"[218]
"Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through into the great hollow of practical atheism, which undergulfs the State and Church. Then what a caving in was there! The firm-set base of northern cities quaked and yawned with gaping rents. 'Penn's sandy foundation' shook again, and black men fled from the city of brotherly love, as doves, with plaintive cry, flee from a farmer's barn when summer lightning stabs the roof. There was a twist in Faneuil Hall, and the doors could not open wide enough for Liberty to regain her ancient Cradle; only soldiers, greedy to steal a man, themselves stole out and in. Ecclesiastic quicksand ran down the hole amain. Metropolitan churches toppled, and pitched, and canted, and cracked, their bowing walls all out of plumb. Colleges, broken from the chain which held them in the stream of time, rushed towards the abysmal rent. Harvard led the way, 'Christo et Ecclesiæ' in her hand. Down plunged Andover, 'Conscience and the Constitution' clutched in its ancient, failing arm. New Haven began to cave in. Doctors of Divinity, orthodox, heterodox, with only a doxy of doubt, 'no settled opinion,' had great alacrity in sinking, and went down quick, as live as ever, into the pit of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, the bottomless pit of lower law,—one with his mother, cloaked by a surplice, hid beneath his sinister arm, and an acknowledged brother grasped by his remaining limb. Fossils of theology, dead as Ezekiel's bones, took to their feet again, and stood up for most arrant wrong. 'There is no higher law of God,' quoth they, as they went down; 'no golden rule, only the statutes of men.' A man with mythologic ear might fancy that he heard a snickering laugh run round the world below, snorting, whinnying, and neighing, as it echoed from the infernal spot pressed by the fallen monsters of ill-fame, who, thousands of years ago, on the same errand, had plunged down the self-same way. What tidings the echo bore, Dante nor Milton could not tell. Let us leave that to darkness, and to silence, and to death.
"But spite of all this, in every city, in every town, in every college, and in each capsizing church, there were found Faithful Men, who feared not the monster, heeded not the stamping;—nay, some doctors of divinity were found living. In all their houses there was light, and the destroying angel shook them not. The word of the Lord came in open vision to their eye; they had their lamps trimmed and burning, their loins girt; they stood road-ready. Liberty and Religion turned in thither, and the slave found bread and wings. 'When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will hold me up!'
"After the 7th of March, Mr. Webster became the ally of the worst of men, the forefront of kidnapping. The orator of Plymouth Rock was the advocate of slavery; the hero of Bunker Hill put chains round Boston Court House; the applauder of Adams and Jefferson was a tool of the slaveholder, and a keeper of slavery's dogs, the associate of the kidnapper, and the mocker of men who loved the right. Two years he lived with that rabble rout for company, his name the boast of every vilest thing.
'Oh, how unlike the place from whence he fell!'"
"Do men mourn for him? See how they mourn! The streets are hung with black. The newspapers are sad colored. The shops are put in mourning. The Mayor and Aldermen wear crape. Wherever his death is made known, the public business stops, and flags drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn. The courts of Massachusetts—at Boston, at Dedham, at Lowell, all adjourn; the courts of New Hampshire, of Maine, of New York; even at Baltimore and Washington, the courts adjourn; for the great lawyer is dead, and Justice must wait another day. Only theUnited States Court, in Boston, trying a man for helping Shadrach out of the furnace of the kidnappers,—the court which executes the Fugitive Slave Bill,—that does not adjourn; that keeps on; its worm dies not, and the fire of its persecution is not quenched, when death puts out the lamp of life! Injustice is hungry for its prey, and must not be balked. It was very proper! Symbolical court of the Fugitive Slave Bill—it does not respect life, why should it death? and, scorning liberty, why should it heed decorum?"[218]
On the 12th of February, 1854, I preached "Some Thoughts on the new Assault upon Freedom in America."