ï~~/

/

NEW CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.
A
SERMON,

PREACHED AT
THE MUSIC HALL, IN BOSTON,
ON SUNDAY, JUNE 4, 1854.
BY THEODORE PARKER,
Minister of the XXVIII. Congregational Society.
WITH THE JISON OF THE DAY FOR THE PREVIOUS SUNDAY.
BOSTON:
BENJAMIN B. MIJSSEY            -I?.
1854.:;
-l                   -.;r
'




ï~~The Sermon which follows was printed in the "Boston Commonwealth," on
Monday, from the Phonographic Report of Messrs. Slack and Yerrinton.
They copied out their notes at my house, and I revised them. We did not
complete our labors till half past three o'clock Monday morning. It may
easily be imagined that some errors appeared in the print - for the perishable body weigheth down the mind, and though the Spirit be willing, the
flesh is too weak to work four-and-twenty hours continuously. Yet the
errors were surprisingly few. In this edition of the Sermon, some passages
have been added which were omitted in the Report, and some also which,
though written, were not delivered on Sunday.
BosToN, June 10, 1854,                                    T. P.
J            BOSTON:
PRESS OP PRENTISS AND SAWYER,
No. 19 Water Street.
(




ï~~GENER&A I T  R
INTRODUCTORY.
On Sunday, May 28, after the usual introductory services, Mr. PARKER
pronounced the following
LESSON FOR THE DAY.
I see by the face of each one of you, as well as by the number of all, what
is expected of me to-day. A young man, sometime since, sent me a request,
asking me, Cannot you extemporize a sermon for this day? It is easier to
do it than not. But I shall not extemporize a sermon for to-day - I shall
extemporize the scripture. I shall therefore pass by the Bible words which
I designed to read from the Old Testament and the New, and shall take the
Morning Lesson from the circumstances of the past week. The time has not
come for me to preach a sermon on the great wrong that is now enacting in
this city. The deed is not done; any counsel that I have to offer is better
given elsewhere than here, at another time than now. Neither you nor I
are quite calm enough to-day to look the matter fairly in the face, and see
entirely what it means. Before the events of the past week took place, I
had proposed to preach this morning, on the subject of WAR, taking my
theme from the present commotions in Europe, which also will reach us, and
have already. That will presently be the theme of my morning's sermon.
Next Sunday, I shall preach on THE PERILS INTO WHICH KAMIERICA IS
BROUGHT AT THIS DAY. That is the theme for next Sunday: the other is
for to-day. But before I proceed to that, I have some words to say in place
of the Scripture lesson, and instead of a selection from the Old Testament
prophets.
Since last we came together, there has been a MAN STOLEN in this
city of our fathers. It is not the first, it may not be the last. He is now in
the great slave pen in the city of Boston. He is there against the law of the
Commonwealth, which, if I am rightly informed, in such cases prohibits the
use of State edifices as United States jails. I may be mistaken. Any forcible attempt to take him from that BARRACOON of Boston, would be wholly
without use. For, besides the holiday soldiers who belong to the city of




ï~~4

THE NEW CRIME

Boston, and are ready to shoot down their brothers in a just or an unjust
cause, any day when the city government gives them its command and its
liquor, I understand that there are one hundred and eighty-four United
States marines lodged in the Court House, every man of them furnished with
a musket and a bayonet, with his side-arms, and twenty-four ball cartridges.
They are stationed, also, in a very strong building, and where five men, in a
passage-way half the width of this pulpit, can defend it against five-andtwenty, or a hundred. To keep the peace, the Mayor, who, the other day,
regretted the arrest of our brother, Anthony Burns, and declared that his
sympathies were wholly with the alleged fugitive - and of course wholly
against the claimant and the Marshal - in order to keep the peace of the
city, the Mayor must become corporal of the guard for kidnappers from
Virginia. He must keep the peace of our city, and defend these guests of
Boston over the graves, the unmonumented graves, of John Hancock and
Samuel Adams.
A man has been killed by violence. Some say he was killed by his own
coadjutors: I can easily believe it; there is evidence enough that they were
greatly frightened. They were not United States soldiers, but volunteers
from the streets of Boston, who, for their pay, went into the Court House to
assist in kidnapping a brother man. They were so cowardly that they could
not use the simple cutlasses they had in their hands, but smote right and
left, like ignorant and frightened ruffians as they were. They may have
slain their brother or not - I cannot tell. It is said by some that they killed
him. Another story is, that he was killed by a hostile hand from without.
Some say by a bullet, some by an axe, and others still by a knife. As yet,
nobody knows the facts. But a man has been killed. He was a volunteer
in this service. He liked the business of enslaving a man, and has gone to
render an account to God for his gratuitous work. Twelve men have been
arrested, and are now in jail to await their examination for wilful murder!
Here, then, is one man butchered, and twelve men brought in peril of
their lives. Why is this? Whose fault is it? Some eight years ago, a
Boston merchant, by his mercenaries kidnapped a man between this city
and old Quincy, and carried him off. Boston mechanics, the next day, beld
up the half-eagles which they received as their pay for stealing a man. The
matter was brought before the Grand Jury for the County of Suffolk, and
abundant evidence was presented, as I understand, but they found "no bill."
A wealthy merchant, in the name of trade, had stolen a black man, who, on
board a ship, had come to this city, had been seized by the mercenaries of
this merchant, kept by them for a while, and then, when he escaped, kidnapped a second time in the city of Boston. Boston did not punish the
deed.
The Fugitive Slave Bill was presented to us, and Boston rose up to welcome it. The greatest man in all the North came here, and in this city told
Massachusetts she must obey the Fugitive Slave Bill with alacrity - that we
must all conquer our prejudices in favor of justice and the rights of man.
Boston conquered her prejudices in favor of justice and the unalienable




ï~~A1GAINST      HUMANITY.                        5
tights of man. Do you not remember the meeting that was held in Faneuil
Hall, when a political soldier of fortune, sometimes called the " Democratic
Prince of the Devils," howled at the idea that there was a law of God higher
than the Fugitive Slave Bill? He sneered, and asked, "' Will you have the
SHigher Law of God' to rule over you? " and the multitude that occupied
the floor, and the multitude that crowded the galleries, howled down the
higher law of God! They treated the higher law to a laugh and a howl!
That was Tuesday night. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving day.
On that Thanksgiving day, I told the congregation that the men who howled
down the higher law of Almighty God, had got Almighty God to settle
with; that they had sown the wind, and would reap the whirlwind. At
that meeting, Mr. Choate told the people -" REMEMBER! REMEMBER!?emember!" Then nobody knew what to "remember."      Now you know.
That is the state of that case.
Then you " remember" the kidnappers came here to seize Thomas Sims.
Thomas Sims was seized. Nine days he was on trial for more than his life,
and never saw a judge - never saw a jury. He was sent back into bondage
from the city of Boston. You remember the chains that were put around the
Court House; you remember the judges of Massachusetts stooping, crouching,
creeping, crawling, under the chain of Slavery, in order to get to their own
courts. All these things you "remember." Boston was non-resistant. She
gave her "back to the smiters" - from the South; she "withheld not her
cheek "- from the scorn of South Carolina, and welcomed the " spitting "
of kidnappers from Georgia and Virginia. To-day we have our pay for that
conduct. You have not forgotten the "fifteen hundred gentlemen of property and standing," who volunteered to conduct Mr. Sims to Slavery, -
Marshal Tukey's "gentlemen."   They "remember" it. They are sorry
enough now.    Let us forgive -- we need not forget.  REMEMBER!
REMEMBER! Remember!
The Nebraska Bill has just now been passed. Who passed it? The
fifteen hundred "gentlemen of property and standing " in Boston, whO, in
1851, volunteered to carry Thomas Sims into Slavery by force of arms. They
passed the Nebraska Bill. If Boston had punished the kidnapping of 1845,
there would have been no Fugitive Slave Bill in 1850. If Massachusetts, in
1850, had declared the bill should not be executed, the kidnapper would
never have shown his face in the streets of Boston. If, failing in this, Boston had said, in 1851, " Thomas Sims shall not be carried off," and forcibly
or peacefully, by the majesty of the great mass of men, had resisted it, no
kidnapper would have come here again. There would have been no Nebraska Bill. But to every demand of the Slave power, Massachusetts has
said "Yes, yes! - we grant it all! "'.Agitation must cease!"  " Save
the Union!"
Southern Slavery is an institution which is in earnest. Northern Freedom is an institution that is not in earnest. It was in earnest in 76 and '83.
It has not been much in earnest since. The Compromises are but provisional. Slavery is the only finality. Now, since the Nebraska Bill is passed,




ï~~6

THE NEW CRIME

an attempt is made to add insult to insult, injury to injury. Last week, at
New York, a brother of Rev. Dr. Pennington, an established clergyman, of
large reputation, great character, acknowledged learning, who has his diploma
from the University of Heidelberg, in Germany, - a more honorable source
than that from which any clergyman in Massachusetts has received his, - his
brother and two nephews were kidnapped in New York, and without any trial,
without any defence, were hurried off into bondage. Then at Boston, you
know what was done in the last four days. Behold the consequences of the
doctrine that there is no "ihigher law."  Look at Boston, to-day. There are
no chains around your Court House - there are ropes around it. A hundred
and eighty-four United States soldiers are there. They are, I am told,
mostly foreigners - the scum of the earth - none but such enter into armies
as common soldiers, in a country like ours. I say it with pity - they are
not to blame for having been born where they were and what they are. I
pity the scum as well as I pity the mass of men. The soldiers are there, I
say, and their trade is to kill. Why is this so?
You remember the meeting at Faneuil Hall, last Friday, when even the
words of my friend Wendell Phillips, the most eloquent words that get
spoken in America, in this century, hardly restrained the multitude from
going, and by violence attempting to storm the Court House. What stirred
them up? It was the spirit of our fathers - the spirit of justice and liberty
in your heart, and in my heart, and in the heart of us all. Sometimes it
gets the better of a man's prudence, especially on occasions like this; and so
excited was that assembly of four or five thousand men, that even the words
of eloquent Wendell Phillips could hardly restrain them from going at once
rashly to the Court House, and tearing it to the ground.
Boston is the most peaceful of cities. Why? Because we have commonly
had a peace that was worth keeping. No city respects laws so much. Because the laws have been made by the people, for the people, and are laws
which respect justice. Here is a law which the people will not keep. It is
a law of our Southern masters, a law not fit to keep.
Why is Boston in this confusion to-day? The Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner has just now been sowing the wind, that we may reap the whirlwind. The old Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner stands back; he has gone
to look after his "personal popularity."  But when Commissioner Curtis
does not dare appear in this matter, another man comes forward, and for the
first time seeks to kidnap his man in the city of Boston. Judge Loring is a
man whom I have respected and honored. His private life is mainly blameless, so far as I know. He has been, I think, uniformly beloved. His
character has entitled him to the esteem of his fellow citizens. I have known
him somewhat. I never heard a mean word from him - many good words.
He was once the law partner of Horace Mann, and learned humanity of a
great teacher. I have respected him a great deal. He is a respectable man -
in the Boston sense of that word, and in a much higher sense; at least, I
have thought so. He is a kind-hearted, charitable man; a good neighbor;
a fast friend - when politics do not interfere; charitable with his purse; an




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

excellent husband; a kind father; a good relative. And I should as soon
have expected that venerable man who sits before me, born before your
Revolution [SAMUEL MAY,] - I should as soon have expected him to go and
kidnap Robert Morris, or any of the other colored men I see around me, as
I should have expected Judge Loring to do this thing. But he has sown
the wind, and we are reaping the whirlwind. I need not say what I now
think of him. He is to act to-morrow, and may yet act like a man. Let us
wait and see. Perhaps there is manhood in him yet. But, my friends, all
this confusion is his work. He knew he was stealing a Man born with the
same right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," as himself. He
knew the slaveholders had no more right to Anthony Burns than to his
own daughter. He knew the consequences of stealing a man. He knew
that there are men in Boston who have not yet conquered their prejudices -
men who respect the Higher Law of God. He knew there would be a
meeting at Faneuil Hall- gatherings in the streets. He knew there would
be violence.
EDwARD GREELEY LORING, Judge of Probate for the County of Suffolk, in
the State of Massachusetts, Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner of the United
States, before these citizens of Boston, on Ascension Sunday, assembled to
worship God, I charge you with the death of that man who was killed on
last Friday night. He was your fellow-servant in kidnapping. He dies at
your hand. You fired the shot which makes his wife a widow, his child an
orphan. I charge you with the peril of twelve men, arrested for murder,
and on trial for their lives; I charge you with filling the Court House with
one hundred and eighty-four hired ruffians of the United States, and alarming not only this city for her liberties that are in peril, but stirring up the
whole Commonwealth of Massachusetts with indignation, which no man
knows how to stop - which no man can stop. You have done it all!
This is my lesson for the day.




ï~~8

THE NEW CRIME

On the next Sunday, June 4, Mr. PARKS,~ read the following passages
from Scripture as the
LESSON FOR THE DAY.
Why standest thou afar off, O Lord? why hidest thou thyself in times of
trouble? The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be
taken in the devices that they have imagined. For the wicked boasteth of
his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth.
The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God
God is not in all his thoughts.
He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved: for I shall never be in
adversity. His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his
tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the lurking-places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily
set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth
in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him
into his net. He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall
by his strong ones. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he
hideth his face; he will never see it.
Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their
heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear: To judge the fatherless and the
oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.
But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose
waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the
wicked.
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their
thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their
paths. The way of peace they know not: and there is no judgment in
their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth
justice overtake us: for we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and
we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night: we
are in desolate places as dead men.
And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off:
for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. Yea, truth faileth;
and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey; and the Lord saw
it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become
as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

9

provinces, how is she become tributary! Her adversaries are the chief, her
enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her
transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.
Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward. For these things I weep: mine eye, mine eye
runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul
is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence;
they have cast up dust upon their heads: they have girded themselves with
sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.
Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee; and they have not
discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for
thee false burdens and causes of banishment. All that pass by, clap their
hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem,
saying, Is this the city that men call the Perfection of beauty, the Joy of
the whole earth? All thine enemies have opened their mouth against
thee; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her
up: certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have
seen it.
The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not
have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into
the gates of Jerusalem. For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of
her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her. They
have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves
with blood, so that men could not touch their garments. As for us, our
eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a
nation that could not save us.
Our fathers have sinned, and are not; and we have borne their iniquities.
Servants have ruled over us: there is none that doth deliver us out of their
hand.
The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his
teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him; for he seeth that his day is coming.
The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast
down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.
Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
For the arms of the wicked shall be broken; but the Lord upholdeth the
righteous.
I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green
bay-tree. Yet he passed away, and lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but
he could not be found. But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord;
he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them,
and deliver them; he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them,
because they trust in him.
Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man. O send out thy light and thy




ï~~10

THE NEW CRIME, ETC.

truth; let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy
tabernacles. Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me! hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the
health of my countenance, and my God.
Before the Sermon, a part of the following Hymn was sung: -
Lord, once our faith in man no fear could move;
Now save it from despair!
The trial comes; strengthen the might of love;
Father, thou hearest prayer!
Thou hearest; and we hear, above this din,
Thy bless6d word sound clear:
" I purge this land from Slavery and sin;
The reign of heaven draws near."
O, never falter! peace must come by pain;
Heaven is not found, but won;
Hold the dark angel till we mould again
The peace we have undone.
We know not, Lord, what storms and trials strong
Must work our world's new birth;
But we will toil, with this for working-song,"Peace to the weary earth! "
4
Peace to the weary, struggling, sin-sick earth!
Peace to the heart of man!
Storm shall bring calm; that high reward is worth
All we must bear, and can.




ï~~THE NEW CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY.




ï~~


ï~~SERMON.
"Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests
and said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?
And they covenanted -with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that
time he sought opportunity to betray him." - MATT. 26: 14-16.
"Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to
the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed
the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to
that." - MATT. 27: 3-4.
Within the last few days, we have seen some of the results
of despotism in America, which might indeed easily astonish
a stranger; but a citizen of Boston has no right to be surprised. The condition of this town from May 24th to June
2d is the natural and unavoidable result of well known
causes, publicly and deliberately put in action. It is only
the first fruit of causes which in time will litter the ground
with similar harvests, and with others even worse.       Let us
pretend no amazement that the seed sown has borne fruit
after its kind. Let us see what warning or what guidance
we can gather from these events, their cause and consequence.
So, this morning, I ask your attention to a SERMON OF THE
NEW    CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY COMMITTED IN THE MIDST
OF us, of the LAST KIDNAPPING which has taken place in
Boston.
I know well the responsibility of the place I occupy this
morning.     To-morrow's sun shall carry my words to all




ï~~14

THE NEW CRIME

America. They will be read on both sides of the continent.
They will cross the ocean. It may astonish the minds of
men in Europe to hear of the iniquity committed in the
midst of us. Let us be calm and cool, and look the thing
fairly in the face.
Of course, you will understand, from my connection with
what has taken place, in part, that I must speak of some
things with a good deal of reserve, and others pass by entirely.
However, I have only too much to say. I have had but short
time for preparation, the deed is so recent. Perhaps I shall
trespass a little on your patience this morning, that hand
overrunning my customary hour some twenty or thirty minutes.  If some of you find your patience exhausted, and
standing too wearisome, you can retire; and if without noise,
none will be disturbed and none offended.
On Wednesday, the 24th of May, a young man, without
property, without friends - I will continue to call his name
Anthony Burns - was returning home from his usual lawful
and peaceful work in the clothing shop of Deacon Pitts, in
Brattle Street. He was assaulted by six ruffians, who charged
him with having broken into a jeweller's shop. They seized
him, forced him to the Court House, thrust 'him into an
upper chamber therein, where he was surrounded by men,
armed, it is said, with bludgeons and revolvers. There he was
charged with being a Fugitive Slave. A man from Virginia
claiming to be his owner, and -another man, likewise from
Virginia, confronted the poor victim, and extorted from him
a confession, as they allege, that he was the claimant's Fugitive Slave:-if, indeed, the confession was not purely an
invention of his foes, who had made the false charge of
burglary; for they who begin with a lie are not to be
trusted after that lie has been told. He was kept all night,
guarded by ruffians hired for the purpose of kidnapping a
man. No friend was permitted to see him; but his deadliest
foes, who clutched at what every one of us holds ten-fold




ï~~AGAINST  HUMANITY.

15

dearer than life itself, were allowed access. They came and
went freely, making their inquisition, extorting or inventing
admissions to be used for Mr. Burns's ruin.
At nine o'clock, the next morning, Thursday, (May 25th,)
the earliest hour at which the courts of Massachusetts ever
open, he was brought to the court room and arraigned before
Edward Greeley Loring, Judge of Probate, one of the Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioners of the City of Boston, and
immediately put on trial. " Intimidated" by the mob about
him, and stupefied with terror and fear, he makes no defence.
"As a lamb before his shearers is dumb, so he opened not his
mouth." How could he dare make a defence, treated as he
had been the night before? - confronted as he was by men
clutching at his liberty? - in a court room packed with
ruffians, where the Slaveholders' counsel brought pistols in
their breasts? He had been in duress all night, with inquisitors about him. His claimant was the re, with documents
manufactured in Alexandria; with a witness brought from
Richmond; with two lawyers of Boston to aid them.
What a scene it was for a Massachusetts Court! A merchant from Richmond, so Mr. Brent called himself; another
from Alexandria, who was a sheriff and member of the Virginia
Legislature - for such Col. Suttle has been - they were there
to steal a man! They had him already in jail; they went
out and came in as they liked, and shut from his presence
everybody who was not one of the minions hired to aid them
in their crime.
Further, they had two lawyers of Boston giving them the
benefit of their education and their knowledge of the law;
and in addition to that, the senior lawyer, Seth J. Thomas,
brought considerable experience, acquired on similar occasions, - for he has been the kidnappers' counsel from the
beginning. The other lawyer was a young man of good culture and amiable deportment, I think with no previous stain
on his reputation. This is his first offence. I trust it will be
also his last - that he will not bring shame on his own and




ï~~16

THE NEW CRIME

his mother's head. I know not how the Kidnapper enticed the young man to do so base a deedl; nor what motive
turned him to a course so foul as this.  He is a young man,
sorely penitent for this early treason against humanity.  Generous emotions are commonly powerful in the bosoms of the
young. A young man with only cruel calculation in his
heart is a rare and loathsome spectacle. Let us hope better
things of this lawyer; that a generous nature only sleeps in
him.   It is his first offence.  I hope he will bring forth
"fruits meet for repentance."  Judge of him as charitably as
you can. Of Mr. Thomas I have only this to add: - that he
is chiefly known in the Courts as the associate of Mr. Curtis
in attempts like this; the regular Attorney of the stealers of
men, and apparently delighted with his work. He began
this career by endeavoring to seize William and Ellen Craft.
He is a member of the Democratic party who has not yet
received his reward.
On the side of the Kidnapper there were also the District
Marshal, the District Attorney, the Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner, and sixty-five men whom I counted as the Marshal's "guard."  When the company was ordered to disperse,
and the guard to remain, I tarried late, and counted them.
I reckoned sixty-five in the court room, and five more outside.
I may have been mistaken in the count.
On the other side there was a poor, friendless negro, sitting
between two bullies, his wrists chained together by stout
hand-cuffs of steel, - a prisoner without a crime, chained;
on trial for more than life, and yet there was no charge
against him save that his mother had been a Slave!
Mr. Burns had no counsel.       The kidnapper's lawyers
presented their documents from Alexandria, claiming him as a
Slave of Col. Suttle, who had escaped from "service."  They
brought a Virginia merchant to identify the prisoner. He
was swiftly sworn and testified with speed. The claimant's
lawyers declared that Mr. Burns had acknowledged already
that he was Col. Suttle's Slave, and was willing to go back.




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

17

So they demanded a "1certificate; " and at first it seemed likely
to be granted at once. Why should a Fugitive Slave Bill
Commissioner delay?  Why does he want evidence?   Injustice is swift of foot. You know what was done in New York,
the very same week - three men were seized, carried before
a Commissioner, and, without even a mock trial, without any
defence, hurried to bondage, pitiless and forever! Only an
accident, it seems, saved Boston from that outrage.
But there came forward in the court room two young lawyers, Richard H. Dana and Charles M. Ellis, noble and
honorable men, the pride of the mothers that bore them, and
the joy of the fathers who have trained them up to piety and
reverence for the law of God.. Voluntarily, gratuitously, they
offered their services as counsel for Mr. Burns. But it was
said by the kidnappers that he did not want counsel; that he
would make no defence; that he was willing to go back.
Messrs. Dana and Ellis did not wish to speak with him, or
seem to plead that he might be their client. I spoke with
him. His fear gave him a sad presentiment of his fate. He
feared that he would be forced into Slavery. How could he
think otherwise? Arrested on a lying charge; kept in secret
under severe and strict duress; guarded by armed men;
confronted by his claimant; seeing no friends about him,
how could he do otherwise than despair?  If he went back
at all, it was natural that he should wish to go back easily,
fearing that if he resisted his claimant in Boston, he must
suffer for it in Alexandria. His "conquerer," he thought,
would take "vengeance " on him when he got him home, if
he resisted his claim. That is the best evidence which I have
seen, that the man had ever been a Slave: he knew the taste
and the strength of the Slave-driver's whip. That was not
brought forward in "evidence."  If I had been the kidnapper's counsel, I should have said, The man is doubtless a
Slave: he is afraid to go back! When I was in the court
room, as I was about to ask poor Burns if he would have
counsel, one of the "guard" said to me, "You will never get




ï~~18

THE NEW CRIME

him to say he wants a defence." Another more humanely
said, "I hope he will; at any rate, it will do no harm to try."
I asked him, and he said, "Do as you think best."
But still the counsel felt a delicacy in engaging under such
circumstances. For they thought that if, after all, he was to
be sent to bondage, and when in the hands of the Slave-master
should be tortured the more for the defence they had made
for him in Boston Court House, it would surely be better to
let the Marshal take his victim as soon as he liked, and allow
the Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner to earn his " thirty
pieces of silver" without delay. They begged for time, however, that the intimidated man might make up his mind, and
determine whether he would make a defence or not.
There is no end to human atrocity. The kidnapper's lawyers objected to the delay, and wished the "trial" to proceed
at once, "forthwith."  They said that the claimant, Col. Suttle, was here, having come all the way from Alexandria to
Boston, at great cost; that the case was clear; that Burns
made no defence; and they asked for an instant decision. The
Democratic lawyer [THOMAs] thought it was n't worth while
to delay; there was only the liberty of a man at stake - a
poor man, with no reputation, no friends, nothing but the
"natural, essential, and unalienable rights," wherewith he
was "endowed by his Creator "-nothing but that:-let
the Virginia Colonel have his Slave. That is Administration
Democracy in Massachusetts. There are two Democracies.
One, - it is the Democracy of the Beatitudes of the New
Testament and of Jesus Christ; that says, "My brother, you
are as good as I: come up higher, and let me take you by
the hand; and we will help each other."   Such Democracy
is the worship of the great God. The other, - it says, "I
am as good as you, and if you do n't let me triumph over you
I will smite you to the ground." That is the Democracy of
Caleb Cushing, the Democracy of the Administration, and of
a great many political men, Democrat and Whig, and neither
Whig nor Democrat.




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

19

Mr. Loring asked Mr. Burns if he wanted time to think of
the matter, and counsel to aid in his defence. I shall never
forget how he looked around that court room, at the Marshal,
the kidnapper's lawyers, the Commissioner, the claimant and
his witness!   Save the counsel whom   he had never seen
before, there was scarce a friendly face that his eye rested on.
At length he said timidly and catching for breath, "Yes."
Mr. Loring put off the case until Saturday. The Fugitive
Slave Bill Commisioner was to lecture at Cambridge on Friday. He is a Professor at Harvard College, and he could
not conveniently hold court on that day. He is a Judge of
Probate, and looks after widows and orphans; he must be in
the Probate Office on Monday.     Saturday was the most
convenient day for the Commissioner. So in a matter which
was to determine whether the prisoner should be a free man
or only a thing which might be sold and beaten as a beast,
the "court" allowed him forty-eight hours delay. It really
gave him time to breathe a little. Let us be grateful to the
Commissioner! He gave more favor than any Fugitive Slave
Bill Commissioners have done before, I believe.
You know the rest: He was on trial ten days. He was
never in a court; all this time he has not seen a jury; he has
not even seen a judge; the process is "summary," not
" summary in time," as Mr. Loring declares: but it is
"without due form   of law."   The Democratic charge des
affaires at Turin says, "the negro is the connecting link
between the human and brute creation." Why do you want
a court to make a negro a Slave in Boston? Surely, a Commissioner is enough in such a case. Let him proceed as
swiftly as he will: - the kidnapper's lawyers said - " forthwith;" not in a hurry, but "immediately."
You remember what followed. You have seen the streets
crowded with armed men. You have read the newspapers,
the handbills, and the posters. You remember the Faneuil
Hall meeting, when all the influence of the platform scarce
kept the multitude from tearing the Court House that night




ï~~20

THE NEW CRIME

to the ground.    You remember the attack on the Court
House - a man killed and twelve citizens in jail, charged
with crimes of an atrocious character. You recollect the conventions - Free Soil and Anti-Slavery. You call to mind
the aspect of Court Square last Monday. Boston never saw
such an Anniversary week. There were meetings of theological societies, philanthropic societies, reformatory societies,
literary societies: and Boston was in a state of siege - the
Court House full of United States soldiers - marines from
the Navy Yard, troops from the Forts, from New York,
from Portsmouth, from Rhode Island. The courts sat with
muskets at their backs, or swords at their bosoms; drunken
soldiers charged bayonet on the witnesses, on counsel, and
on strangers, who had rights where the soldier had none.
The scene last Friday you will never forget - business suspended, the shops shut, the streets blocked up, all the citizen
soldiery under arms. Ball cartridges were made for the city
government on Thursday afternoon in Dock Square, to be
fired into your bosoms and mine; United States soldiers
loaded their pieces in Court Square, to be discharged into the
crowd of Boston citizens whenever a drunken officer should
give command; a six pound cannon, furnished with forty
rounds of canister shot, was planted in Court Square, manned
by United States soldiers, foreigners before they enlisted. The
town looked Austrian. And at high change, over the spot
where, on the fifth of March, 1770, fell the first victim in the
Boston Massacre, - where the negro blood of Christopher
Attucks stained the ground, - over that spot Boston authorities carried a citizen of Massachusetts to Alexandria as a
Slave; " and order reigns in Boston "- or Warsaw, call it
which you will.
So much for a brief statement of facts.
Pause with me a moment, and look at the causes of the
fact. Here are two great forces in the nation.       One is
SLAVERY, FREEDOM is the other. The two are hostile -




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

21

deadly foes, irreconcilable. They will go on fighting till one
kills the other outright. From 1775 to 1788, Freedom generally prevailed over Slavery. It was the period of Revolution, when the nation fell back on its religious feelings, and
thence developed the great political ideas of America. But
even then Slavery was in the midst of us. It came into the
Constitution, and from the adoption of the Federal Constitution to the present time, it has advanced, and Freedom
declined. It has gone over the Alleghanies, over the Rio del
Norte, over the Cordilleras; it extends from the forty-ninth
parallel to the thirty-second, from the Atlantic to the Pacific;
it has gone into ten new States, into all the Territories except
Oregon.
Since the annexation of Texas, in 1845, Slavery has been
the obvious master, Freedom the obvious servant. It controls
all the politics of the country. It strangles all our "great
men." There is not a great Democrat, nor a great Whig,
who dares openly oppose Slavery. All the commercial towns
are on its side. There is not an Anti-Slavery governor of any
State in the Union.  The Supreme Courts are all Pro-Slavery,
save in Vermont.   The leading newspapers are nearly all on
the side of wrong - almost all the commercial, almost all the
political newspapers.  I know but few exceptions - of course
I do not include those devoted to philanthropy. The Democratic Evening Post, truly Democratic, of New York, and
the New York Tribune, which is truly Democratic, though it
hoists another banner. Many of the theological journals -
Protestant as well as Catholic - are cruelly devoted to
Slavery. But proudly above all the religious journals of the
land rises the "Independent," and bears a noble witness to the
humane spirit of Christianity. These are eminent exceptions,
which would do honor to any nation. Fidelity to Slavery is
the sine qua non for officeholders.  Slavery is the "peculiar
institution" of the industrial Democracy of America.  Slavery
is terribly in earnest as Freedom has never been since the
Revolution.




ï~~THE NEW CRIME

The friends of Freedom appeal religiously to the souls and
consciences of men: piety and justice demand that all be
free; the appeal immediately touches a few. They address
also the reason and the understanding of men: Freedom is
the great idea of politics; it is self-evident that "all men are
created equal."  That argument touches a few more. But
the religious, who reverence God's higher law, and the intellectual, who see the great ideas of politics, they are few.
Slavery addresses the vulgar interests of vulgar men. It
gives political power, pecuniary power, to the Slaveholder;
and here is an argument which the dullest can understand,
and the meanest appreciate. Able and cunning men feel
this, and avail themselves of Slavery to secure money and
political power. These arc the objects of most intense desire
in America. They are our highest things - marks of our
"great men."   Office is transient nobility; money is permanent, heritable nobility.  Accordingly, Slavery is the leading
idea of America - the great American institution. I think
history furnishes no instance of one section of a country submitting so meanly to another as we have seen in America.
The South is weak in numbers and in money - the North
strong in both. The South has no schools, no commerce, few
newspapers, no large mass of intelligent men, wherein the
North abounds. But the most eminent Southern men are devoted to politics, while the Northern turn to trade: and so
the South commands the North. I am only translating facts
into ideas, and bringing the condition of America to the consciousness of America. Some men know these things before,
but the mass of men know them not.
So much for the General Causes.
Now look at some of the Special Causes. I shall limit
myself chiefly to those which Massachusetts has had a share
in putting into activity.
In 1826, on the ninth of March, Mr. Edward Everett
made a speech in Congress. He was the Representative of




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

Middlesex County. Once he was the minister of the church
where John Hancock used to worship, and as clergyman
officially resided in the house which John Hancock gave to
that church. Next, he was a Professor in Harvard College,
where the Adamnses - the three Adamses, Samuel, John, and
John Quincy, - were educated, and where John Hancock
had graduated.   He represented Lexington, and Concord,
and Bunker Hill, and in his speech he said: -
"Neither am I one of those citizens of the North who
would think it immoral and irreligious to join in putting
down a servile insurrection at the South. I am no soldier,
Sir. My habits and education are very unmilitary; but there
is no cause in which I would sooner buckle a knapsack to my
back, and put a musket to my shoulder, than that."  "Domestic Slavery.... is not, in my judgment, to be set down
as an immoral or irreligious institution." " Its duties are
pre-supposed by religion."  "The New     Testament says,
' Slaves, obey your masters.' "
The Daily Advertiser defended Mr. Everett, declaring
that it was perfectly right in him to justify the continuance
of the relation between the master and his slaves, and added,
- I am now quoting from the Daily Advertiser of March
28, 1826: - "We hold that it is not time, and never will
be, that we should be aroused to any efforts for their redemption."  That was the answer which the "respectability of
Boston" gave to Mr. Everett's speech. True, some Journals
protested against the iniquitous statement; the Christian
Register was indignant. But Middlesex County sent him
again. Lexington, and Concord, and Bunker Hill, returned
their apostate representative a second, a third, a fourth, and a
fifth time. And when he was weary of that honor, the State
of Massachusetts made him her Governor, and he carried to
the State House the same proclivities to despotism which he
had evinced in his maiden speech.
In 1835, the Anti-Slavery men and women were mobbed in
Boston by an assembly of "respectable gentlemen;" the




ï~~THE NEW CRIME

Mayor did not stop the tumult, the destruction of property,
and the peril to life! There were no soldiers in the streets,
then; nobody, I think, was punished.
The next winter, the General Assemblies of several Southern States sent resolutions to the Massachusetts General
Court, whereof this is one from South Carolina: -
"The formation of abolition societies, and the acts and
doings of certain fanatics, calling themselves abolitionists, in
the non-slaveholding States of this confederacy, are in direct
violation of the obligations of the compact of the Union."
South Carolina requested the Government "promptly and
effectually to suppress all those associations," and would consider "the abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia as
a violation of the rights of,citizens, and a usurpation to be at
once resisted." Georgia asked Massachusetts "to crush the
traitorous designs of the abolitionists."  Virginia required
the non-slaveholding States "to adopt penal enactments, or
such other measures as will effectually suppress all associations
within their respective limits, purporting to be, or having the
character of, abolition societies;" and that they "will make
it highly penal to print, publish, or distribute newspapers,
pamphlets, or other publications, calculated or having a tendency, to incite the Slaves of the Southern States to insurrection and revolt." How do you think Massachusetts answered?
The resolutions of the Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature declared that "the agitation of the question of domestic
Slavery had already interrupted the friendly relations between
the several States of the Union;" expressed its "entire disapprobation of the doctrines and speeches of such as agitate the
question," and advised them "to abstain from all such discussion as might tend to disturb and agitate the public mind."
That was the voice of a Committee        appointed  by   the
Massachusetts Legislature. True, it was not accepted by the
House of Representatives, but the Report was only too
significant. What followed?
In 1844, one of the most eminent lawyers of this State




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

25

was sent by Massachusetts to the city of Charleston, to
proceed legally and secure the release of Massachusetts colored
citizens from the jails of Charleston, where they were held
without charge of crime, and contrary to the Constitution of
the United States. Mr. Hoar was mobbed out of Charleston
by a body of respectable citizens, the High Sheriff aiding in
driving him out.
Mr. Hoar made his report to the Governor of Massachusetts, and said:"Has the Constitution of the United States the least
practical validity or binding force in South Carolina, excepting when she thinks its operation favorable to her?   She
prohibits the trial of an action in the tribunals established
under the Constitution for determining such cases, in which
a citizen of Massachusetts complains that a citizen of South
Carolina has done him an injury; 'saying that she has herself
already tried that cause, and decided against the plaintiff."
The evil complained of continues unabated to this day.
South Carolina imprisons all the free colored citizens of the
North who visit her ports in our ships.
In 1845, Texas was admitted, and annexed as a Slave
State, with the promise that she might bring imÂ~ four other
Slave States.
In 1847 and '48, came the Mexican War, with         the
annexation of an immense territory as Slave soil. Many of
the leading men of Massachusetts favored the annexation of
Texas. New England might have stopped it; Massachusetts
might have stopped it; Boston might have stopped it. But
Mr. Webster said "she could not be aroused."    The politicians of Massachusetts favored the Mexican War. It was a
war for Slavery. Boston favored it. The newspapers came
out in its defence. The Governor called out the soldiers,
and they came. From the New England pulpit we heard but
a thin and feeble voice against the war.
But there were men who doubted that wrong was right,
and said, "Beware of this wickedness!"  The sober people




ï~~26

THE NEW CRIME

of the country disliked the war: they said, "No! let us have
no such wicked work as this!"   Governor Briggs, though
before so deservedly popular, could never again get elected
by the people. He had violated their conscience by issuing
his proclamation calling for volunteers.
In 1850 came the Fugitive Slave Bill. You all remember
Mr. Webster's speech on the Seventh of March. Before that
time he had opposed all the great steps of the Slave Power -
the Missouri Compromise, the annexation of Texas, the
Mexican War, the increase of Slave territory. He had voted,
I think, against the admission of every Slave State. He was
opposed to the extension of American Slavery, "at all times,
now and forever." He claimed the Wilmnot Proviso as his
"thunder."   He could stand on the Buffalo platform   in
1848. But in 1850, he proffered his support to the Fugitive
Slave Bill, "with all its provisions, to the fullest extent."
He volunteered the promise that Massachusetts would "obey,"
and that "with alacrity."  You remember his speech at the
Revere House - discussion must be suppressed, in Congress
and out; Massachusetts must "conquer her prejudices" in
favor of the unalienable rights of man, which she had fought
the Revolution to secure. You have not forgotten his speeches
at Albany, at Syracuse, at Buffalo; nor his denial of the
higher law of God, at Capron Springs, in Virginia - " The
North Mountain is very high; the Blue Ridge higher still;
the Alleghanies higher than either; yet this ' Higher Law'
ranges an eagle's flight above the highest peak of the Alleghanies."  What was the answer from the crowd? "Laughter."  The multitude laughed at the higher law. There is
no law above the North Mountain, above the Blue Ridge,
above the peaks of the Alleghany - is there?
Men of property and standing all over New England
supported the apostacy of Mr. Webster. You remember the
letters from Maine, from New Hampshire, and the one from
Newburyport. I am sure you have not forgotten the letter
of the nine hundred and eighty-seven prominent men in and




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

27

about Boston, telling him that he had "convinced the understanding and touched the conscience of a nation." Good men
whom I have long known and tenderly loved put their names
to that letter. Did they think the "Union in danger?"  A
man of great understanding beguiled them.
You remember the tone of the newspapers, Whig and
Democratic. With alacrity they went for kidnapping to the
fullest extent.  They clasped hands in order to seize the
black man. When the time came, Mr. Eliot gave the vote
of Boston for the Fugitive Slave Bill. When he returned to
his home, some of the most prominent men of the city went
and thanked him for his vote. They liked it. I believe no
eminent man of Boston spoke against it. They "strained
their consciences," as Mr. Walley has just said, "to aid in
the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act."  Boston fired a
hundred guns on the Common, at noon-day, in honor of that
event.
I know there was opposition -earnest and fierce opposition; but it did not come from the citizens of "eminent
gravity," whom Boston and Massachusetts are accustomed to
follow. You know what hatred was felt in Boston against
all men who taught that the natural law of God was superior
to the Fugitive Slave Bill, and Conscience above the Constitution.
You have not forgotten the "Union meeting " in Faneuil
Hall. I never saw so much meanness and so little manhood
on that platform.  The Democratic Herods and the Whig
Pilates were made friends that day that they might kidnap
the black man. You recollect the howl of derision against
the higher law of God, which came from that ignoble stage,
and was echoed by that ignoble crowd above it and below -
speakers fit for fitting theme.
When the Fugitive Slave Bill was proposed, prominent
men said " It cannot pass: the North will reject it at once;
and even if it were passed, it would be repealed the next day.
We will petition for its repeal." After it was passed, they




ï~~28

THE NEW CRIME

said: "It cannot be executed, and never will be."      But
when asked to petition for its repeal, the same men refused -
"No, it would irritate the South." I received the petitions
which our fellow citizens sent from more than three hundred
towns in Massachusetts. I took the smallest of them all, and
sent it to the Representative of Boston, Mr. Eliot, with a
letter, asking him to present it to the House. He presented
it - to me! It was not " laid on the table; " he put it in
the post office. I sent it back to Washington, to some
Southern or Western member, and he presented it in Congress.
The next Congress reaffirmed the Fugitive Slave Bill.
STwice they routed all their foes,
And twice they slew the slain."
The new Representative from Boston, Mr. Appleton, gave
the vote of Boston for it. He was never censured for that
act. He was approved, and re-elected. You remember the
conduct of the Boston newspapers. Almost all of them went
for the Fugitive Slave Bill. They made Atheism the first
principle in American politics -" There is no higher law."
The instinct of commerce is adverse to the natural rights of
labor: so the chief leaders in commerce wish to have the
workingman but poorly paid; the larger gain falls into their
hands; their laborer is a mill, they must run him as cheap as
they can. So the great cities of the North were hostile to the
Slave - hostile to freedom. The wealthy capitalists did not
know that in denying the Higher Law of God they were
destroying the rock on which alone their money could rest
secure. The mass of men in cities, servants of the few, knew
not that in chaining the black man they were also putting
fetters on their own feet. Justice is the common interest of
all men! Alas, that so few know what God writes in letters
of fire on the World's high walls!
You have not forgotten the general tone of the pulpit -
"Conscience and the Constitution," at Andover.   Mr. Stuart




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

29

says, Keep the laws of men, come what may come of the Higher
Law of God. One minister of Boston said, "I would drive the
Fugitive from my own door." The most eminent Doctor of
Divinity in the Unitarian ranks declared he would send his
own mother into Slavery. He says he said brother. Give him
the benefit of the ethical distinction: he would send back his
own brother. What had Andover and New Haven to say, in
their collegiate churches? What the churches of commerce
in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Albany, Buffalo? They
all went for kidnapping. "Down with God and up with
iniquity." That was the short of the lower law religion
which littered the land. The ecclesiastical teachers did more
to strengthen infidelity then, than all the infidels that ever
taught. What else could you expect from lower law divines?
All at once this blessed Bible seemed to have become a treatise
in favor of kidnapping. Kidnapping arguments were strewn
all the way through from Genesis to Revelation. These were
the reverend gentlemen who called me "infidel," or "atheist."
Nothing has so weakened the Church in America as this conduct of these "leading ministers" at that time. I mean
ministers of churches that are rich in money, which lead the
fashion and the opinion of the day. What defences of
kidnapping have I heard from clerical lips! " No matter
what the law is - it must be executed. The men who made
the Fugitive Slave Bill, and those who seek to execute it are
Christian men, very conscientious!" Turn back and read
the newspapers of 1850 and 1851. Nay, read them not -
they are too bad to read!
When the Fugitive Slave Bill was before Congress, some
of the Northern politicians said to the people, " Let it pass;
it will ' save the Union,' and we will repeal it at the next
session of Congress."  After it had passed they, said, "Do
not try to repeal it; that would irritate the South, and ' dissolve the Union;' it will never be executed; it is too bad to
be." But when the Kidnapper came to Boston, and demanded William and Ellen Craft, the same advisers said,




ï~~THE NEW CRIME

" Of course the negroes must be sent back; the law must be
enforced because it is law!"
At length the time came to execute the act. Morton was
busy in New York, Kane in Philadelphia, the Boston Commissioner was also on his feet. William and Ellen Craft fled
off from the stripes of America to the lion of England. Shadrach -he will be remembered as long as Daniel - sang his
psalm of deliverance in Canada. Taking him out of the Kidnappers' Court was high treason. It was " levying war."
Thomas Sims will not soon be forgotten in Boston. Mayor
Bigelow, Commissioner Curtis, and Marshal Tukey, they will
also be remembered; they will all three be borne down to
posterity, riding on the scourged and bleeding shoulders of
Thomas Sims. The government of Boston could do nothing
for the Fugitive but kidnap him. The officers of the County
nothing; they were only cockade and vanity. The Supreme Court could do nothing; the Judges crouched, and
crawled, and went under the chain. The Governor could do
nothing, the Free Soil Legislature nothing.  The Court
House was in chains. Faneuil Hall was shut. A thousand
able-bodied men sat in Tremont Temple all day in a Free
Soil Convention, and --- went home at night. The victim was
on trial. Most of the newspapers in the city went for kidnapping. The greater part of the Clergy were for returning
the Fugitive:-" Send back our brother."   Some of the
towns held meetings, and passed resolutions against the rendition of the Fugitive - Lynn, New Bedford, Worcester.
And, in consequence, the leading commercial papers of Boston threatened to cut off all trade with New Bedford; they
would not buy its oil: would have no dealings with Lynn;
they would not tread her shoes under their feet: they would
starve out Worcester. In Boston, wealthy traders entertained
the kidnappers from the South. Merchants and Railroad
Directors withdrew their advertising from newspapers which
opposed the stealing of men. More than one minister in New




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY

31

England was driven from his pulpit for thinking the Golden
Rule was superior to the Fugitive Slave Bill.
When Judge Woodbury decided not to grant the writ of
habeas corpus, and thus at one spurt of his pen cut off Mr.
Sims's last chance for liberty and life, the Court House rang
with plaudits, and the clapping of hands of "gentlemen" who
had assembled there. Fifteen hundred "gentlemen, of property and standing," volunteered to escort the poor Fugitive
out of the State, and convey him to bondage forever. It was
not necessary. When he stepped from Long Wharf on board
of John H. Pearson's brig, - the owner is sorry for it now,
and has repented, and brings forth fruits meet for repentance;
let that be remembered to his honor, - When Thomas Sims
stepped on board the "Acorn," these were his words, "And
this is Massachusetts liberty!"  There was the great stone
finger pointing from Bunker Hill towards heaven; and this
was "Massachusetts liberty!"  " Order reigned in Warsaw."
But it was some comfort that he could not be sent away till
soldiers were billeted in Fanueil Hall; then.ly in the
darkest hour of the night!
Boston sent back the first man she ever stole since the
Declaration of Independence. Thomas Sims reached Savannah
on the nineteenth of April, seventy-six years after the first
battle of the Revolution, fought on the soil of Lexington. He
was sent back on Saturday, and the next Sunday the "leading
ministers " of the city - I call them leading, though they
lead nobody - gave God thanks. They forgot Jesus. They
took Iscariot for their exemplar. "The Fugitive Slave Bill
must be kept," they said, " come what will come to justice,
liberty, and love; come what may come of God."   I know
there were noble ministers, noble men in pulpits, whose
hearts bled in them, and who spoke brave warning words of
liberty, some were in the country, some in town. I know one
minister, an " orthodox man," who in five months helped
ninety-and-five fugitives flee from American stripes to the
freedom of Canada! I dare not yet tell his name! Hum



ï~~32

THE NEW CRIME

ble churches in the country towns - Methodist, Baptist,
Unitarian - of all denominations save that of Commerce -
dropped their two mites of money into the alms-box for the
Slave, and gave him their prayers and their preaching too.
But the "famous churches" went for " law " and stealing
men.
Slavery had long been master at Washington: the "Union
meeting" proved that it was master at Boston; proved it by
words. The capture and sending back of Thomas Sims
proved it by deeds. No prominent Whig openly opposed
the Fugitive Slave Bill or its execution.  No prominent
Democrat opposed it. Not a prominent clergyman in Boston
spoke against it. I mean a clergyman of a "rich and fashionable church "- for in these days the wealth and social standing
of the church make the minister "prominent."  Intellectual
Power, Eloquence, Piety, - they do not make a "prominent
minister" in these days. Not ten of the rich men of Massachusetts gave the weight of their influence against it. Slavery
is mastery  issachusetts is one of the inferior counties of
Virginia; Boston is only a suburb of Alexandria. Many of
our lawyers, ministers, merchants, politicians, were negrodrivers for the South. They proved it by idea before; then
by deed. Yet there were men who hated Slavery - alas!
they had little influence.
Let me not pass by the Baltimore Conventions, and the
two platforms. The Fugitive Slave Bill was the central and
topmost plank in them both.   Each confessed Slavery to be
master; it seemed that there was no North; Slave soil all
the way from the South of Florida to the North of Maine.
All over the land Slavery rules.
You cannot forget Mr. Pierce's Inaugural Address, nor
the comments of the Boston press thereon.   He says the
Fugitive Slave Bill is to be "unhesitatingly carried into
effect; " "not with reluctance," but "cheerfully and willingly."  The newspapers of Boston welcomed the sentiment;
and now Mr. Pierce's organ, the Washington Union, says it




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

33

is very proper this Bill should be enforced at Boston, for
" Boston was among the first to approve of this emphatic
declaration." So let the promise be executed here till we
have enough of it.
You know the contempt which has been shown towards
everybody that opposed    Slavery here in   Massachusetts.
Horace Mann - there is not a man in the State more hated
than he by the prominent politicians - or more loved by the
people - because he opposed Slavery with all his might;
and it is a great might. Robert Rantoul, though a politician and a party man, fought against Slavery; and when he
died, though he was an eminent lawyer, the members of the
Suffolk Bar, his brother lawyers, took no notice of him. They
wore no crape for Robert Rantoul. He had opposed Slavery;
let him die unnoticed, unhonored, unknown.   Massachusetts
sent to the Senate a man whose chief constitutional impulse
is the instinct of decorum - Mr. Everett, who had been
ready to buckle on his knapsack, and shoulder his musket,
to put down an insurrection of Slaves; a Cambridge professor
of Greek, he studied the original tongue of the Bible to learn
that the Scripture says "slaves," where the English Bible
says only " servants."
Then came the Nebraska Bill. It was at once a Measure
and a Principle. As a measure, it extends the old curse of
Slavery over half-a-million square miles of virgin soil, and
thus hinders the growth of the Territory in population, riches,
education, in moral and religious character. It makes a South
Carolina of what might else be a Connecticut, and establishes Paganism in the place of Christ's piety. As a principle,
it is worse still - it makes Slavery national and inseparable
from the national soil; for the principle that is covertly
endorsed by the Nebraska Bill might establish Slavery in
Massachusetts - and ere long the attempt will be made.
In the House of Representatives, forty-four Northern men
voted for the enslavement of I braska. They are all Democrats - it is an administration measure. Mr. Everett, the




ï~~34

THE NEW CRIME

Senator from Boston, did not know exactly what to do. The
thing was discussed in Committee, of which he was a member; but when it came up in public, it "took him       by
surprise." He wrote, I am told, to eleven prominent Whig
gentlemen of Massachusetts, and asked their advice as to
what he should do. With singular unanimity, every man of
them said, Oppose it with all your might. But he did not.
Nay, his vote has not been recorded against it yet. I am
told his vote was in favor of prohibiting aliens from voting
in that territory; his name against the main question has
never been recorded yet. Nay, he did not dare to present
the remonstrance which three thousand and fifty of his fellow
clergymen manfully sent to their clerical brother, and asked
him to lay before the Senate. Did any one suppose that he
would dare do it?  None who knew his antecedents.
There was an Anti-Nebraska meeting in Boston, at Faneuil
Hall. It was Arctic in its coldness - it was a meeting of
icebergs. The platform was Siberian. There seemed to be
no heart in the speeches. It must have been an encouragement to the men at Washington who advocated the Bill. I
suppose they understood it so. I am   sure I should. The
mass of the people in Massachusetts who think at all, are
indignant; but so far as I can learn, the men who control
the politics of Boston, or who have controlled them until the
last week, feel no considerable interest in the matter. In
New York, men of great property and high standing came
together and protested against this iniquity. New York has
been, for once, and in one particular, morally in advance of
Boston.   Such a meeting could not have been held here.
The platform there was not Arctic, not even Siberian.
Now, put all these things together, and you see the causes
which bore the fruits of last week; -in general, the triumph
of Slavery over Freedom, and in special, the indifference of
Massachusetts, and particularly of Boston, to the efforts which
are made for Freedom; her zeal to promote Slavery and




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY

35

honor its defenders.  Men talk of dividing the Union. I
never proposed that. Before last week I should not have
known where to begin. I should have had to draw the line
somewhere North of Boston.
Last week Massachusetts got part of her pay for obeying
the Fugitive Slave Bill with alacrity; for suppressing discussion; for conquering her prejudices; - pay for putting
cowardly, mean men in the place of brave, honorable men;
pay for allowing the laws of Massachusetts to be trodden
under foot, and her Court House of Northern granite to be
surrounded by Southern chains. Thomas Sims was scourged
on the 19th of April, when he was carried back to Savannah.
Boston did not feel it then. She felt it last week - felt it
sorely.  In September, 1851, we heard the hundred guns
fired on Boston Common, in honor of the Fugitive Slave Bill
--fired by men of "eminent gravity."  Last Friday you saw
the cannon!  One day you will see it again grown into many
cannons. That one was only a devil's grace before a devil's
meat!   No "higher law," is there?  Wait a little longer,
and you shall find there is a "lower law," a good deal lower
than we have yet come to! Sow the wind, shall we? When
the whirlwind comes up therefrom, it has a course of its own,
and God only can control the law of such storms as those.
We have not yet seen the full consequences of sowing atheism with a broad hand among the people of this continent.
We have not seen the end yet. These are only the small early
apples that first fall to the earth. There is a whole tree
full of them. When some autumnal storm shakes the boughs,
they will cover the ground - sour and bitter in our mouths,
and then poison.
Yet this triumph of Slavery does not truly represent the
wishes of the Northern people. Not a single Pro-Slavery
measure has ever been popular with the mass of men in New
England or Massachusetts. The people disliked the annexation of Texas in that unjust manner: they thought the Mexican War was wicked.    They were opposed to the extension




ï~~36

THE NEW CRIME

of Slavery; they hated the Fugitive Slave Bill, and rejoiced
at the rescue of Shadrach. The kidnapping of Thomas Sims
roused a fierce indignation. Only one town in all New England has ever returned a Fugitive - all the rest hide the
outcasts, while Boston bewrays him that wandereth. The
Nebraska act is detested by the people.
A few editors have done a manly duty in opposing all
these manifold iniquities. A few ministers have been faithful
to the spirit of this Bible, and to their own conscience, heedless of law and constitution. Manly preachers of all denominations - save the commercial - protested against kidnapping,
against enacting wickedness by statute. From humble pulpits their voices rang out in Boston and elsewhere.  But
what were they among so many? There were Theological
Journals which stoutly resisted the wickedness of the prominent men, and rebuked the mammon-worship of the churches
of commerce. The "Independent" at New York, the Congregationalist at Boston, not to mention humbler papers, did most
manly service - now with eloquence, now with art, then
with satyric scorn, - always with manly religion. Even in
the cities, there were editors of secular prints who opposed
the wicked law and its execution.
No man in New England, within the last few years, has
supported Slavery without at the same time losing the confidence of the best portion of the people - sober, serious,
religious men, who believe there is a law of God writ in
the nature of things. Even Mr. Webster quailed before the
Conscience of the North: the Supreme Court of Massachusetts no longer enjoys the confidence of the people; the most
prominent clergymen of New England - pastors I mean of
the richest churches - are not looked up to with the same
respect as before.
The popularity of "Uncle Tom's Cabin " showed how
deeply the feelings of the world were touched by this great
outrage. No one of the encroachments of Slavery could have
been sustained by a direct popular vote. I think seven out




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

37

of every ten of all the New England men would have voted
against the Fugitive Slave Bill; nine out of ten against
kidnapping.  But alas! we did not say so - we allowed
wicked men to rule over us. Now behold the consequences
Men who will not love God must fear the devil.
Boston is the test and touchstone of political principles
and measures. Faneuil Hall IS "the Cradle of Liberty,"
and therein have been rocked the great ideas of America -
rocked by noble hands.
Well, if Boston had said, "No Texan annexation in that
wicked way!" we might have had Texas on fair conditions.
If Boston had opposed the Mexican War, all New England
would have done the same - almost all the North. We
might have had all the soil we have got, without fighting a
battle, or taking or losing a life; at far less cost; and have
demoralized nobody. If, when the Fugitive Slave Bill was
before Congress, Boston had spoken against that iniquity, all
the people would have risen, and there would have been no
Fugitive Slave Act. If, after that Bill was passed, she had
said "no kidnapping," there would have been none. Then
there would have been no Nebraska Bill, no repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, no attempt to seize Cuba and Saint
Domingo. If the fifteen hundred gentlemen of "property and
standing" in Boston, who volunteered to return Mr. Sims
to bondage, or the nine hundred and eighty-seven who
thanked Mr. Webster for the Fugitive Slave Bill, had come
forward, they might have made every Commissioner swear
solemnly that he would not execute that Act. Thus the
"true Sons of Liberty," on the seventeenth of December,
1765, induced Commissioner Oliver to swear solemnly, at
noon-day, in "presence of a great crowd," and in front of the
Liberty Tree, that he would not issue a single stamp. Had
that been done, there would have been no man arrested.
There are only eight Commissioners, and public opinion
would have kept them all down. We should have had no
kidnappers here.




ï~~38

THE NEW CRIME

Boston did not do so; Massachusetts did no such thing,
She did just the       opposite.   In   1828, the     Legislature of
Georgia passed resolutions relative to the Tariff, declaring
that the general Government had no right to protect domestic
manufactures, and had been guilty of a "flagrant usurpation."
She will insist on her construction of the Constitution, and
" will submit to no other."     Georgia carried her point.        The
Tariff of 1828 went to the ground!           South Carolina imprisons our colored citizens: we bear it with a patient shrug,
- and pay the cost -      Massachusetts is non-resistant; New
England is a Quaker -when a blustering little State undertakes to ride over us. Georgia offers a reward of five thousand
dollars for the head of a non-resistant in Boston - and Boston
takes special pains to return Ellen Craft to a citizen of Georgia, who wished to sell her as a harlot for the brothels of
New Orleans!       Northern clergymen defended the character
of her "owner "-        a man "of unquestionable piety."          You
know what denunciations were uttered in this city against the
men and women who sheltered her. Boston could not allow
the poor woman to remain. Did the churches of commerce
" put up a prayer" for her?       "Send back my own mother!"
Not a Northern minister lost his pulpit or his professional
respectability by that form      of practical atheism.     Not one!
At the South not a minister dares preach against Slavery; at
the North-      think of the preaching of so many "eminent
divines "!
* My friend, the Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, thinks I have been unjust to the clergy -judging
from the Sermon as reported in the Commonwealth. So he published the following article in
that paper on Friday, June 9. I gladly insert it below. It comes from a powerful and noble
man. I wish he had made out a stronger case against me.
" THEODORE PARKER AND THE MINISTRY.
Mr. Editor: - In his Sermon last Sabbath, Mr. Parker seems to charge the clergy of the
country with a general, if not universal delinquency in the cause of freedom, with respect to the
Fugitive Slave Law. Hle says, "You all remember the tone of the pulpit." As if on that subject the pulpit had been a unit. Ile adds, " What had Andover and New Haven to say in their
collegiate churches? What the churches (of commerce) of New York, of Boston, of Philadelphia, of Albany, of Buffalo? They all went for kidnapping. 'Down with God and up with
kidnapping.' That was the short of the lower law religion that littered the land. The ecclesi



ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY

39

My friends, we deserve all we have                suffered.      We are the
scorn    and   contempt of the         South.       They     are  our    masters,
and treat us as Slaves. It is ourselves who made the yoke.
We     offer our back      to   the   Slave-driver's whip.          A   Western
man travels all through Kentucky-he was in Boston three
days ago - and hears only this rumor: "the Yankees are
cowards; they dare not resist us. We will drive them just
where we like. We will force the Nebraska Bill down their
astical teachers did more to strengthen infidelity than all the infidels that ever taught." Ile
does not say that these charges are true of a part only of the ministry. Ilis language would
convey to any reader ignorant of the fact, the opposite impression. le says that when Thomas
Sims was sent back, "the clergy were for returning the Fugitive. ' Send back our brother.'
"The next Sunday the leading ministers of the city - I call them leading- though they lead
nobody- gave God thanks."
Speaking of the Slave Bill and its execution, he says, " Not a prominent clergyman spoke
against it."
And when he speaks of the Nebraska Bill, he scarcely mentions the petition of the three thousand and fifty ministers. And then, not as if he desired to give them due praise, he merely
mentions it incidentally, in dealing with Mr. Everett - "lie did not dare to present the remonstrance which three thousand and fifty of his fellow clergymen sent to their clerical brother, and
asked him to lay before the Senate." And again, "The cowardice of Mr. Everett has excited
the clergy of New England - of all the North; they are stung with the reproach of the people,
and ashamed of their past neglect." Just as if they had not been self-moved by their own
honorable impulses. The bearing of all these passages, considered in the general drift of the
Sermon, is undeniably to implicate THE CLERGY as a whole, in the delinquencies charged.
Now, if Mr. Parker were to be represented, on both continents, as an advocate of kidnapping,
and of the Fugitive Slave Law, he would probably regard it as unjust. But he does not seem
to be sufficiently alive to the idea, that it is unjust to convey the idea that this is true of clergymen who have from the first opposed these measures as earnestly and decidedly as he himhnself.
He seems to be fully convinced that to rob even one Slave of his liberty is a crime. IHe does not
seem as deeply to feel that it is a crime to rob even our ministers of that reputation which in his
own case he prizes so highly. Even if the cases of fidelity were few, for that very reason they
should receive from a lover of the cause the more careful and particular notice and praise. In
cases like these, if ever, discriminations and truthful statements of facts are a sacred duty. Let
those be censured who deserve censure, and let those be commended who deserve praise.
Allow me, then, to state some of the facts of the case chiefly concerning the Orthodox Congregational pastors and churches, leaving to other denominations, if they see fit, to state similar
facts, more at large, in their own case. From my own knowledge, I am assured that it would
not be difficult to multiply them, especially if a full account were to be given of all the unpublished sermons of the times.
It is not true, as Mr. P.'s statements imply, that Mr. Parker was the only one who preached
and wrote and prayed against the Fugitive Slave Law.
The Congregationalist, then edited by Rev. II. M. Dexter, Rev. Mr. Storrs, and myself, devoted
all its energies to a conflict with the Fugitive Slave Bill, and a vindication of the claim of the
higher law. Some of its articles were considered of such importance as to be honored with
special attention and censure, by Mr. Choate, at the Boston Union Saving meeting. Our articles, if collected, would make a large volume.
The law was also most earnestly opposed from the pulpit, by many ministers, Mr. Stone, Mr.
Dexter, and myself among the number. The same thing was true of a large number of the
clergymen of New England and the Middle States. I have before me published Sermons or other
Addresses to this effect from Storrs and Spear, of Brooklyn, N. Y.; Becher, of Newark, N. J.;




ï~~40                         THE NEW            CRIME
throats, and then force Saint Domingo and Cuba after it."
That is public opinion in Kentucky.                  My brothers, it is very
well deserved.
The     North      hated     the Missouri Compromise.                  Daniel
Webster fought against it with all his manly might; and
then it was very manly and very mighty. When he collects
his speeches, in 1850, for electioneering purposes - a political
pamphlet in six octavos - he leaves out all his speeches and
writings against the Missouri Compromise. His friend, Mr.
Everett, writes his memoir, and there is nothing about Mr.
Webster's opposition to the extension of Slavery; about the
Missouri Compromise not one single word, my friends.
Thompson and Cheever, of New York; Bacon, of New Haven, Conn.; Colver, of Boston;
Walcott, now of Providence; Leavitt, then of Newton, Mass.; Withington, of Newbury, Mass.;
Whitcomb, of Stoneham, Mass.; Thayer, of Ashland, Mass.; Arvine, of West Boylston, Mass.;
and others. Nothing can be more able and eloquent than their defence of God's law, as opposed
to the infamous Slave Bill. Others also were published which I have not on file, and I know of
several very able discourses against the law which were not published. If a true report could
be made of all the Sermons then preached, and of the influence then exerted in other ways by
the ministry of the North, there is reason to believe that a very large majority would be found
to have set themselves decidedly against the law, and to have advocated its entire disobedience.
The fact is that undue importance has been given to those of the ministry who favored obedience to that law, and they have been made to overshadow its more numerous opponents.
In relation to Andover the facts are these: -Professor Stuart, who for some years had ceased
to act as Professor in the Seminary, published his views, greatly to the regret of a large portion
of his brethren. That the body of the Professors of the Institution did not sympathise in these
views, is evident from the fact that when a paper approving the compromise was circulated there,
Professors PARK, PHELPS, and EDWARDs refused to sign. Only one acting Professor did sign,
much to his own subsequent regret. This does not justify the sweeping affirmation.
" Andover went for kidnapping." Mr. Parker ought to be more careful, and less free in the
use of such wholesale charges. Moreover, the positions of Professor Stuart were thoroughly
exposed by members of his own denomination.
The Rev. Rufus Clark, now of East Boston, published in the columns of the Atlas a thorough
refutation of his pamphlet, in a series of very able articles, which were subsequently republished
in a pamphlet form.
Rev. George Perkins of Connecticut, performed a similar service in that State. Rev. Mr.
Dexter, of Boston, exposed himself to an excited retort from Professor Stuart, for his keen and
able exposure of his course on the Compromises.
That there was a sad failure on the part of too many of the clergy of Boston and other commercial cities, cannot be denied; nor do I desire to avert from them merited censure. But
ought the labors of such men as the clerical editors and contributors of the Independent to be
passed by in silence, in speaking of the prominent clergy of the city of New York?
As to the other cities named, if there were but one exception in each, it ought to have been
prominently named and honored. I do not doubt that there were more.
As to the countr y churches and pastors of New England, I have already stated my opinion
that the vast majority were opposed to the Fugitive Slave Law. It is not just to regard the
Nebraska protest as a virtual confession and reparation of past neglect, but rather as a development of the real feeling of the clergy of New England. Charity thinketh no evil, and there is no




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.                                       41
The South treat us as we deserve. They make compromises, and then break them.              They say we are cowards.             Are
they mistaken?          They    put our      seamen     in  jail for no crime,
but their     complexion.          We    allow    it.   Then     they    come    to
New    England, and in         Boston     steal our fellow      citizens-      no!
our fellow subjects, our fellow Slaves. We call out the soldiers to help them!           Go   into a bear's den, and steal a young
cub, and if you take only one, all the full-grown bears in the
den will come after you and follow till you die, or they die,
or their strength fails and they must give up the pursuit.
"O, Justice! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!"
The Nebraska Bill has hardly got back to the Senate
again, when a Virginian comes here to see how much Boston
gain at this time in depreciating the merits of any earnest opponents of the aggressions of
Slavery.
As Mr. Parker expects to be read in all parts of this nation and on both sides of the Atlantic,
I will not doubt that his strongly avowed appreciation of what is just and honorable in action,
will induce him to revise and correct his statement of facts, and instead of such sweeping and
indiscriminate censure, to give honor where honor is due.
EDWARD BEECHER."
I have repeatedly and in the most public manner done honor to the ministers who have opposed this great iniquity, and did not suppose that any one would misunderstand the expressions
which Dr. Beecher considers as "sweeping."  When he reads in the Bible that "Jerusalem and
all Judea went out," I suppose he thinks that some persons staid at home. But I am sorry he
could not make out a stronger case for his side. I know nothing of what was said privately, or
in sermons which never get spoken of out of the little parish where they were written. He mentions sixteen Orthodox ministers who published matter in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Bill.
It is not a very large number for all the churches in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode
Island, and Massachusetts to furnish. I can mention more.
These are the facts in respect to Andover: Professor Stuart, the most distinguished clergyman
in all New England, wrote an elaborate defence of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and of Mr. Webster's
conduct in defending it. He was induced to do this by Mr. Webster himself. The work is well
known-" conscience and the Constitution," -and it is weak and doting as it is wicked. Professor Stuart, and two other Andover Professors - Rev. Ralph Emerson, D. D., and Rev. Leonard
Woods, D. D.- signed the letter to Mr. Webster expressing their " deep obligations for what
this speech has done and is doing; " thanking him "for recalling us to our duties under the
Constitution and for the broad, national, and patriotic views" it inculcates, and desiring to " express to you our entire concurrence in the sentiments of your speech." It seems three other
Professors -Messrs. Park, Phelps, and Edwards,- did not sign it, and one of the signers - Dr.
Woods or Dr. Emerson -did it much to his own subsequent regret. But did he make his
regret public? did Andover in public say anything against the conduct of the signers?
At the Annual Conference of Unitarian ministers in May, 1851, long and public defences of
kidnapping were made by " the most eminent men in the denomination."  One Doctor of Di6




ï~~42                         THE NEW           CRIME
will bear.      He brings letters to       "eminent citizens of Boston,"
lodges at the Revere House, and bravely shows himself to
the public in the streets.          He   walks upon        the Common, and
looks at the eclipse - the eclipse of the sun, I mean; not
the eclipse of Boston; that he needs no glass to look at, as
there is none smoked dark enough to hinder it from dazzling
his eyes.      He gets two       Boston     lawyers to     help   him    kidnap
a man.      He finds a Commissioner, a Probate Officer of Masvinity vindicated the attempt of his parishioners to kidnap mine, whom I took to my house for
shelter.  Dr. Dewey's promise to send back his own mother or brother got the heartiest
commendation from more than one "prominent minister." Dr. Dewey was compared with
c' faithful Abraham; " his declaration was " imputed to him for righteousness."  Many of the
country ministers were of a different opinion. Some of them declared his conduct " atrocious."
Of course there were noble men in the Unitarian denomination, who were faithful to the great
principles of Christianity. I have often spoken in their praise, and need not now mention their
names; too well known to require honor from me.
But I am sorry to say that I can retract nothing from what I have said in general respecting
the conduct of the clergy of all denominations at that time. At a large public meeting in Boston, a Vigilance Committee was appointed to look after the Fugitives and furnish them aid. The
Committee sent a Circular to every church in Massachusetts, asking for the Fugitives donations
of money and clothes; and received replies from eighty-seven churches, which gave us $1,484 56!
Here is my letter in reply to Dr. Beecher, from the Commonwealth of June 10, 1854: -
DR. EDWARD BEECHER AND THEODORE PARKER.
Rev. Edward Beecher, D. D.:-My dear Sir, I have just read your letter in the Commonwealth of this morning, in which you maintain that the statements in my last sermon, respecting
the delinquency of the Northern clergy were too sweeping, and that I did injustice to the ministers who stoutly resisted the Fugitive Slave Bill and its execution. Perhaps the language of the
sermon would seem to warrant your opinion. But I have so many times, and in so public a
manner, expressed my respect and veneration for those noble men who have been found faithful
in times of peril, that I cannot think I am in general at all obnoxious to the charge you make
against me.
In respect to the special sermon of last Sunday, I beg leave to inform you that the whole
was neither printed nor preached; the entire sermon is now in press, and when you see it I
think you will find that I do no injustice to the men you speak of. As I spoke, Sunday, I did
not suppose any one would misunderstand my words, or think I wished to be regarded as the
only one found faithful. Certainly I have many times done honor to the gentlemen you mention, and to the journals you refer to- with others you do not name. And, allow me to say,
the conduct of yourself and all your family has not only been a strong personal encouragement
to me, but a theme of public congratulation, which I have often brought forward in lectures
and sermons and speeches. I am a little surprised that you should suppose that by the
churches of commerce in New York, Boston, &c., I mean all the churches of these towns. I still
think that from 1850 to 1852, the general voice of the New England churches, so far as it was
heard through the press, was in favor of the Fugitive Slave Bill and its execution. This was
especially true of the rich and fashionable churches in the great commercial towns. Surely
you cannot forget the numerous clerical eulogies on the late Mr. Webster, which sought to justify all his political conduct. I do not think you have made out a very strong case for Andover.
I am sorry to have given pain to a man whose life is so noble and his character so high; but
believe me,                  Respectfully and truly yours,
THEODORE PARKER.




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

43

sachusetts, ready to violate the tenure of his own trust,
prepared for the work; a Marshal anxious to prove his
Democracy by stealing a man; he finds newspapers ready to
sustain him: the Governor lets him    go unmolested; the
Mayor lends him all the police of the city; and then, illegally
and without any authority, against the protestations of the
Aldermen, calls out all the soldiers among a hundred and
sixty thousand people, in order to send one innocent negro
into bondage, and give, them orders, it is said, to shoot down
any citizen who shall attempt to pass their lines! The soldiers, half-drunk, present their horse-pistols at the heads of
women - their thumb on the hammer! They stab horses,
and with their sabres slash the heads of men!
When Mr. Burns was first seized by the kidnappers, nearly
all the daily newspapers took sides against the Fugitive. The
city was full of ministers all the week; two Anti-Slavery
conventions were held, one of them two thousand men
strong; the Worcester "Freedom   Club" came down here
to visit us: they all went home, and "order reigns in Warsaw." In South Carolina, there is a public opinion stronger
than the law. Let Massachusetts send an honored citizen to
Charleston, to remonstrate against an iniquitous statute, and
most respectable citizens drive him away. Colored citizens
of Massachusetts rot in the jails of Charleston. Northern
merchants pay the costs.   Boston merchants remonstrated
years ago, and the Boston Senator did not dare to offer their
paper in Congress. A Boston Senator did not dare present
the remonstrances of Boston merchants. The South despises
us. Do you wonder at the treatment we receive?   I wonder
not at all.
Now, let me say another word - it must be a brief one,of this particular case. When Mr. Burns was kidnapped, a
public meeting was called in Faneuil Hall. Who went there?
Not one of the men who are accustomed to control public
opinion in Boston.   If ten of them had appeared on that




ï~~44

THE NEW CRIME

platform, Mr. Phillips and myself would not have troubled
the audience with our speech. We would have yielded the
place - to citizens of "eminent gravity" giving their counsel,
and there would have been no man carried out of Boston. I
could mention ten men, known to every man here, who, if
they had been there, would have so made such public opinion,
that the Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner never would have
found "evidence" or "law" enough to send Anthony Burns
back to Alexandria. There was not one of them there. They
did not wish to be there. They cared nothing for Freedom!
In general, the blame of this wickedness rests on the City
of Boston, much of it on Massachusetts, on New England, and
all the North. But here I must single out some of the individuals who are personally responsible for this wickedness.
I begin with the Commissioner. He was the prime mover.
Now, as a general thing, the Commissioners who kidnap
men in America have had a proclivity to wickedness. It has
been structural, constitutional.  Man-stealing was in their
bones.  It was an osteological necessity.  A  phrenologist,
examining their heads, would have said: "Beware of this
man. He is ' fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils.'"
It seems natural that Mr. Kane should steal men in Philadelphia. His name is warrant to bear out the deed. In
Boston, the former kidnapper lost no "personal popularity"
by the act. His conduct seems alike befitting the disposition
he was born with, and the culture he has attained to; and so
appears equally natural and characteristic.  But I thought
Mr. Loring of a different disposition. His is a pleasant face
to look at, dignified, kindly - a little weak, yet not without
sweetness and a certain elevation. I have seen him sometimes in the Probate Office, and it seemed to me a face fit to
watch over the widow and the fatherless. When a bad man
does a wicked thing, it astonishes nobody. When a man
otherwise noble and generous is overtaken in a fault, we
"weep to record, and blush to give it in," and in the spirit
of meekness seek to restore such an one. But when a good




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

45

man deliberately, voluntarily does such a deed as this, words
cannot express the fiery indignation which it ought to stir up
in every man's bosom. It destroys confidence in humanity.
The wickedness began with the Commissioner. He issued
the writ.  It was to end with him.  He is sheriff, judge, jury.
He is paid twice as much for condemning as for acquitting
the innocent.
He was not obliged to be a Commissioner.      He was not
forced into that bad eminence. He went there voluntarily
fifteen years ago, as United States Commissioner to take affidavits and acknowledgments. Slave-catching was no part of
his duty. The soldiers of Nicholas execute their master's
tyranny, because they are forced into it. The only option
with them is to shoot with a musket, or be scourged to death
with the knout. If Mr. ILoring did not like kidnapping, he
need not have kept his office. But he liked it.    He wrote
three articles, in the Daily Advertiser, defending the Fugitive
Slave Bill.
But if he kept the office he is not officially obliged to do
the work. The District Attorney is not suspected of being
so heavily fraught with conscience that he cannot trim his
craft to sail with any political wind which offers to carry him
to port; but even Mr. Hallett refused to kidnap Ellen Craft.
He did not like the business. It was not a part of Mr. Loring's official obligation. A man lets himself to a sea-captain
as a mariner to go a general voyage. He is not obliged to
go privateering or pirating whencver the captain hoists the
black flag.  He can leave at the next port. A laborer lets
himself to a farmer to do general farm-work. By-and-by his
employer says, " I intend to steal sheep."   The man is not
obliged by his contract to go and steal sheep because his
employer will.  This is an illegal act, no doubt.  But suppose the general government has made a law, authorizing
every farmer to steal all the black sheep he can lay his hands
on; nay, commanding the felony.     Is this servant, who is
hired to do general farm-work, obliged, in his official capacity,




ï~~46

THE NEW CRIME

to go and steal black sheep?  I do not look at it so. I do
not think any man does. A lawyer turns off many a client.
A constable refuses many a civil job. He does not like the
business. The Commissioner took this business because he
liked to take it. I do not say he was not "conscientious."
I know nothing of that. I only speak of the'act. Herod was
"conscientious," for aught I know, and Iscariot and Benedict
Arnold and Aaron Burr. I do not touch that question. To
their own master they stand or fall. The torturers of the
Spanish Inquisition may have been "conscientious."
It was entirely voluntary for Mr. Loring to take this case.
There was no official obligation, no professional honor, that
required him to do it. He had a "great precedent," even, in
Mr. Hallett, to decline it.
In 1843, Massachusetts enacted a law prohibiting any
State officer from acting as Slave-catcher, for fear of abuse
of our own law. Since that, Mr. Loring has become Judge of
Probate. There was a chance for a good man to show his
respect for the law of the State which gives him office.
Now see how the case was conducted. I am no lawyer,
and shall not undertake to judge the technical subtleties of
the case.  But look at the chief things which require no
technical skill to judge.  The Commissioner spoke very
kindly, and even paternally, when he consulted Burns. I
confess the tear started to my eye when he looked so fatherly
toward the man, like a Judge of Probate, and asked him -
Would you like a little time to prepare to make a defence?
And when Burns replied, " Yes," he honorably gave him
time, forty-eight hours, to decide whether he would make a
defence on Saturday, May 27.   He also honorably gave Mr.
Burns and his counsel time to make ready for trial.  He gave
them from Saturday until Monday! True it was only twentyfour hours; Sunday intervened, and lawyers, like other laymen, and ministers, are supposed to be at meeting on Sunday.
That twenty-four hours - it was not very much time to allow
for the defence of a man whose liberty was in peril. If Mr.




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

47

Burns had been arraigned for murder, he would have had
several months to make ready for his trial, the purse and the
arm of Massachusetts to summon witnesses for his defence.
But as he was charged with no crime, only with being the involuntary Slave of one of our Southern masters - as the Fugitive Slave Act'was not designed to establish justice but its
opposite, or to ensure the blessings of liberty but the curse
of bondage - he may have twenty-four hours to make ready
for his defence: his counsel and a minister may visit him -
others are excluded.
If Mr. Burns had been arraigned for stealing a horse, for
slander, or anything else, not twenty-four hours, or days, but
twenty-four weeks would have been granted him to make
ready for trial. A common lawsuit, for a thousand dollars,
in the Supreme Court of Suffolk, is not ordinarily tried within
a year, and if any questions of law are to be settled, not disposed of within two years. Here, however, a man was on
trial for more than life, and but twenty-four hours were
granted him. I accept that thankfully, and tender Mr. Loring my respect for that!  It is more than I looked for from
any Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner, except him. I never
thought him capable of executing this wickedness. Honor
him for this with due honor - no more, no less.
When the hearing began, the Kidnapper's counsel urged
that the testimony taken at first, when Burns was brought up,
was in the case. The Commissioner held to this monstrous
position; and it was only after the urgent opposition of the
prisoner's counsel that he consented it should be put in
de novo.
But after the kidnapping lawyers put in their evidence,
the counsel for Mr. Burns asked time for conference and consultation, as the most important questions of law and fact
came up; they were weary with long service and exhausting
labor - and they begged the Commissioner to adjourn for an
hour or two. It was already almost three o'clock. When hard
pressed, he granted them thirty minutes to get up their law




ï~~48

THE NEW CRIME

and their evidence, take refreshment, and come back to court.
At length he extended it to forty minutes. Much of that time
was lost to one of the counsel by the troops, who detained
him at the door. But the next day, after Mr. Burns's counsel
had brought in evidence to show that he was in Boston on
March first - which nobody expected, for Brenit alleges that he
saw him in Virginia on the nineteenth of March, and that he
escaped thence on the twenty-fourth, - then, after a conference with the Marshal, he grants the Kidnapper's lawyers an
hour and a quarter to meet this new and unexpected evidence.
Of course he knew that in granting them this, he really gave
them all night to get up their evidence, prepare their defence, and come into Court the next morning, and rebut what
had been said.  Is that fair?  Consider what a matter there
was at stake - a man's liberty forever and ever on earth!
Consider that Mr. Loring was judge and jury; - that it was
a court without appeal; that no other court could pass upon
his verdict, and reverse it, if afterwards it was shown to be
suspicious or proved to be wrong.     He grants Mr. Burns
thirty minutes, and the other side at once, an hour and a
quarter, virtually all night! That is not all.
His decision was limited to one point, viz.: the identity of
the prisoner. If Burns answered the description of the Fugitive given in the record, he took it for granted, first, that he
was a Slave, there was no proof: second, that he had escaped
into another State, that was not charged in the record, nor
proved by testimony: third, that he owed service and labor
to Suttle, not to the lessee, who had a limited fee in his services, nor to the mortgagee, who had the conditional fee of
his person; but to Col. Suttle, the reversioner, the original
claimant of his body.
Now the statute leaves the party claimant his choice
between two processes; one under its sixth Section, the other
under the tenth.
The sixth Section obliges the claimant to prove three points,
1, That the person claimed owes service; 2, That he has




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

49

escaped; and 3, That the party before the court is the identical one alleged to be a Slave.
The tenth Section makes the claimant's certificate conclusive
as to the first two points, and only leaves the identity to be
proved.
In this case, the claimant, by offering proof of service and
escape, made his election to proceed under the sixth Section.
Here he failed; failed to prove service; failed to prove
escape. Then the Commissioner allowed him to swing round
and take refuge in the tenth Section, leaving identity only
to be proved; and this he proved by the prisoner's confession
made under duress and in terror, if at all; wholly denied by
him; and proved only by the testimony of a witness of
whom we know nothing, but that he was contradicted by
several witnesses as to the only point to which he affirmed,
capable of being tested.
So, then, the Commissioner reduced the question precisely
to this:  Is the prisoner at the bar the same Anthony Burns
whom Brent saw in Virginia on the nineteenth day of March
last, and who the claimant swears in his complaint escaped
from Virginia on the twenty-fourth of March?
One man, calling himself " William Brent, a merchant of
Richmond," testified as to the question of identity -" This is
Burns."   He was asked, When did you see him in Virginia?
and he answered, On the nineteenth of March last. But
nobody in court knew Mr. Brent, and Mr. Loring himself
confessed that he stood " under circumstances that would
bias the fairest mind." He had come all the way from Richmond to Boston to make out the case. Doubtless he expected
his reward - perhaps in money, perhaps in honor. For it is
an honor in Virginia to support the institutions of that State.
But, on the other side, many witnesses testified that Burns
was here in Boston on the first of March, and worked several
days at the Mattapan Iron Works, at South Boston. Several
men, well known in Boston - persons of unimpeached integrity,- testified to the fact.  No evidence rebutted their
7




ï~~50

THE NEW CRIME

testimony.  Nothing was urged to impugn their integrity.
The Commissioner says their "integrity is admitted," and
"no imputation of bias could be attached" to them. So, to
decide between these two, Mr. Loring takes the admissions
of the Fugitive, alleged to have been made under duress, in
the presence of his "master," made in jail; when he was
surrounded by armed ruffians; when he was "intimidated "
by fear - admissions which Mr. Burns denied to the last,
even after the decision. This was the proof of identity!
The record called Burns a man with "dark complexion."
The prisoner is a "full-blooded negro."  His complexion is
black almost as my coat. The record spoke of Burns as
having a scar on his right hand. The right hand of this man
had been broken; it was so badly injured that when it was
opened, he could only shut it by grasping it with his left.
The bone stuck out prominent.     The kidnapper's witness
testified that Burns was in Virginia on the nineteenth of
March. Several witnesses - I know not how many,- testified that he was in Boston nineteen days before.
Mr. Brent stated nothing to show that he had ever had
any particular knowledge of Mr. Burns, or particularly observed his person. Some of the witnesses for the prisoner
did not testify merely from general observation of his form or
features, but they stated that they had noted especially the
scar on his cheek, and his broken hand, and they knew him
to be the man. Besides, this testimony is of multiplied force,
not being that of so many to one fact; that of each stands
by itself. There was a cloud of witnesses to prove that
Mr. Burns was in Boston from the first of March. If their
evidence could be invalidated, it was not attacked in court.
Their fairness was admitted.
Not many years ago, a woman was on trial in Boston for
the murder of her own child. At first she plead guilty, and
weeping stated the motives which led to the unnatural crime.
But the court interfered, induced her to retract the plea, and
to make a defence. And in spite of her voluntary admissions




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

51

made in court, she was acquitted - for there was not evidence
to warrant a legal conviction.
Mr. Loring seemed to regard Slavery as a crimen exceptum;
and when a man is charged with it he is pre-supposed to be
guilty, and must be denied the usual means of defence. So out
of the victim's own mouth he extorts the proof that this is
the man named in the record.
A man not known to anybody in court brings a paper from
Alexandria claiming Burns as his Slave; the paper was
drawn up five hundred miles off; in the absence of Mr. Burns;
by his enemies, who sought for his liberty and more than his
life.  He brought one witness to testify to the identity of
the man, who says that, in his fear, Burns said, I am the
mlan. But seven witnesses, whose veracity was not impeached
in the court, testify that the prisoner was in Boston in the
early part of March; and therefore it appears that he is not
the Burns who was in Virginia on the nineteenth of March.
To decide between the two testimonies - that of one Virginian under circumstances which would bias the fairest mind,
and seven Bostonians free from all bias,- the Commissioner
takes the words put into the mouth of Mr. Burns.
Now, the Fugitive Slave Bill provides that the testimony
of the Fugitive shall not be received as evidence in the case.
Mr. Loring avoids that difficulty. He does not call it "testimony" or "evidence."   He calls it "admissions;" accepts
it to prove the " identity," and decides the case against him.
But who proves that Mr. Burns made the admissions?  There
are two witnesses: 1, a man hired to kidnap him, one of
the marshal's "guard," a spy, a hired informer, set to watch
the prisoner and make inquisition. Of what value was his
testimony?  2, Mr. Brent, who had come five hundred miles
to assist in catching a runaway Slave, and claimed Mr. Burns
as the Slave. This was the only valuable witness to prove
the admission. So the admission is proved by the testimony
of Mr. Brent, and the testimony of Mr. Brent is proved by
the admission! Excellent Fugitive Slave Bill "' evidence "!




ï~~52

THE NEW CRIME

Brent confirms Brent!    There is, I think, a well-known
axiom  of the common law, that "admissions shall go in
entire "- all that the prisoner said. Now, Mr. Loring rules
in just what serves the interest of the claimant, and rules out
everything that serves Burns's interest. And is that Massachusetts Justice?
Remember, too, that Mr. Loring is the whole court - a
judge, not known to the Constitution; a jury, only known in
the inquisition. There is no appeal from his decision. The
witness came from Virginia to swear away the freedom of a
citizen of Massachusetts, charged with no crime. When the
Marshal, and the men hired to kidnap, are about the poor
black man, it is said he makes an admission that he is the
Fugitive; and on that evidence Mr. Loring decides that he is
to go into bondage forever. It was evidence worthy of the
Inquisition of Spain! Let doubts weigh for the prisoner, is
a rule as old as legal attempts at justice. Here, they weigh
against him.  The Case is full of doubts - doubts on every
side. He rides over them  all. He takes the special words
he wants, and therewith strikes down the prisoner's claim to
Liberty.
Suppose, in the present instance, the man had been described
as a man of light complexion, blue eyes, and golden hair:
then, suppose some white man, you or I, answered the
description, and some man swore to the identity. By that
form of law, any man, any woman, in the city of Boston,
might have been taken and carried off into bondage straightway, irredeemable bondage, bondage forever.
Mr. Loring had no better ground for taking away the
liberty of Anthony Burns than in the case I have just supposed.
Suppose Col. Suttle had claimed the Mayor and Aldermen
of Boston as his Slaves; had brought a "record" from Alexandria reciting their names, and setting forth the fact of their
owing service, and their escape from it; had them kidnapped
and brought before Mr. Loring.     According to his own




ï~~AGAINST THUMANITY.

ruling, the only question he has to determine is this: "the
identity of the persons." A witness testifies that the Mayor
and Aldermen of Boston are the parties named in the record
as owing service and having escaped therefrom. The Commissioner says, "the facts to be proved by the claimant are
three.
"1. That the parties charged owed him service in Virginia.
"2. That they escaped from that service.
"These facts he has proved by the record which the statute,
(Sec. 10,) declares ' shall be held, and taken to be full and
conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the service
or labor of the person escaping is due to the party in such
record mentioned.'
"Thus 'these two facts are removed entirely and absolutely
from my jurisdiction, and I am entirely and absolutely precluded from applying evidence to them; if, therefore, there
is in the case evidence capable of such application, I cannot
make it.
"3. The third fact is the identity of the parties before
me, with the parties mentioned in the record.
"This identity is the only question I have a right to consider. To this, and to this alone, I am to apply the evidence.
"And then, on the whole testimony, my mind is satisfied
beyond a reasonable doubt of the identity of the respondents
with the parties named in the record.
"On the law and facts of the case, I consider the claimant
entitled to the certificate from me which he claims."
The Mayor and Aldermen go into bondage forever. The
liberty of all this audience might be thus sworn away by a
Commissioner and a kidnapper.
But the " ruling" is not the worst thing in the case. The
Commissioner had prejudged it all.   He had prejudged it
entirely before he had even begun this mock trial; before
he heard the defence; before the prisoner had any counsel to
make a defence. Here is my proof. On Friday, (May 26,)
Wendell Phillips went to Cambridge to see Mr. Loring. He




ï~~54

THE NEW CRIME

is a Professor of Law in Harvard College, teaching law and
justice to the young men who go up thither to learn law and
justice. Mr. Phillips went there to get permission to visit
Mr. Burns, and see if he would make a defence and have
counsel. Mr. Loring advised Mr. Phillips to make no defence.
He said: "Mr. Phillips, I think the case is so clear that you
would not be justified in placing any obstructions in the way
of the man's going back, as he probably will."
So, as the matter was decided beforehand, it was to be only
a mock trial, and might just as well be dispensed with. It
keeps up some hollow semblance to the form of the Fugitive
Slave Bill; but it was all prejudged before Mr. Burns had
selected his counsel or determined to have any. Place no
"obstructions in the way of the man's going back, as he
probably will."
Nor is that all. Before any defence had been made, on
Saturday night, Mr. Loring drew up a BILL OF SALE
OF ANTHONY BURNS. Here it is, in his own handwriting:
"Know all men in these Presents - That I, Charles F.
Suttle, of Alexandria, in Virginia, in consideration of twelve
hundred dollars, to me paid, do hereby release and discharge,
quitclaim and convey to Antony Byrnes, his liberty; and I
hereby manumit and release him from all claims and services
to me forever, hereby giving him his liberty to all intents and
effects forever.
"In testimony whereof, I have hereto set my hand and
seal, this twenty-seventh day of May, in the year of our Lord
eighteen hundred and fifty-four."
What should you say of a Judge of the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts who should undertake to negotiate a note of
hand which was a matter of litigation before him in court?
What if the Chief Justice, before he had heard a word of the
case of the last man tried for murder; before the. prisoner
had any counsel, -   had told some humane man taking
an interest in the matter, "You would not be justified in




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY         5

55

placing any obstructions in the way of the man's being hanged
as he probably will"? Add this, also: here Mr. Loring is
Justice to draw the writ, Judge, Jury, all in one! Do the
annals of judicial tyranny show a clearer case of Judgment
without a hearing?
This is not yet the end of the wickedness. Last Wednesday night the kidnapper's court adjourned till Friday morning
at nine o'clock. Then the " decision" was to be made. But
the Kidnapper and his assistants, the Marshal, &c., knew it
on Thursday night. How long before, I know not. The
men who hired Mr. Loring to steal a man, with the Fugitive
Slave Bill for his instrument, they knew the decision at least
fourteen hours before it was announced in court - I think
twenty hours before.
First, he judged the case before he heard it; second, he
judged it against evidence when he heard it; third, he clandestinely communicated the decision to one of the parties half
a day before he declared it openly in Court. Could Kane or
Curtis do worse? I do not find that they have ever done so
bad. Does Boston teem with Empsons and Dudleys, the
vermin of the law?   Does New England spawn Jeffreyses
and Scroggses, whom we supposed impossible      fictitious
characters too bad to be?
Look at the Marshal's conduct. Of his previous character
I know nothing. But his agents arrested Burns on a false
charge; threatened violence if he should cry out; they kept
him in secret. Nobody came nigh unto him.
The trial was unfairly conducted on the Marshal's part.
The public was excluded from the Court House. His servants
lined the stairways, insulting the people. Southerners were
freely admitted, but Northern gentlemen kept out. Rude,
coarse, and insolent fellows found no check. Clergymen and
lawyers were turned back, and Southern students of law let
in. Two gentlemen were refused admission; but when one
declared he was from Virginia, the other from South Carolina,




ï~~56

THE NEW CRIME

they were both admitted on the instant. The whole Court
House seemed to be the property of the Slave power.
He crowded the Court House with soldiers. Some of them
were drunk, and charged bayonet upon the counsel and witnesses for Burns, and thrust them   away.   He employed base
men for his guard. I never saw such a motley crew as this
kidnapper's gang collected together, save in the darkest
places of London and Paris, whither I went to see how low
humanity might go down and yet bear the semblance of man.
He raked the kennels of Boston. He dispossessed the stews,
bawding the Courts with unwonted infamy. He gathered
the spoils of brothels; prodigals not penitent, who upon harlots had wasted their substance in riotous living; pimps,
gamblers, the succubus of Slavery; men that the gorged jails
had cast out into the streets scarred with infamy; fighters,
drunkards, public brawlers; convicts that had served out
their time, waiting for a second conviction; men whom the
subtlety of counsel, or the charity of the gallows had left
unhanged.    "No eye hath     seen  such   scarecrows."   The
youngest of the Police Judges found ten of his constituents
there. Jailor Andrews, it is said, recognized forty of his
customers among them.     It is said that Albert J. Tirrell was
invited to move in that leprous gang and declined ~!     "The
wicked walk on every side when the vilest men are exalted!"
The publican who fed these locusts of Southern tyranny, said
that out of the sixty-five, there was but one respectable man, and
he kept aloof from all the rest. I have seen courts of justice
in England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, and
Switzerland, and I have seen just such men. But they were
always in the dock, not the servants of the Court.  The Marshal was right; "the Statute is so cruel and wicked that it
should not be executed by good men." He chose fit tools
for fitting work. I do not think Herod sent the guardian of
* While these sheets are passing through the press I learn that three of the Marshal's guard
have been arrested for crimes of violence committed within twenty-four hours after the rendition.
Set a thief to serve a thief.




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY

57

orphans to massacre the innocents of Bethlehem. I doubt
that Pontius Pilate employed a Judge of Probate to crucify
Jesus between two thieves.
There was an unfairness about the offer to sell Mr. Burns.
I do not know whose fault that was. His claimant pretended
that he would sell; but when the money was tendered, his
agents delayed, equivocated, wore out the time, till it was
Sunday; and         the   deed    could    not legally     be   done.     It was
the man, and not the money they wanted.                    He offered to sell
the man for twelve hundred dollars. The price was exorbitant, he would not bring eight hundred at Alexandria.*
* " MR. ATTORNEY HIALLETT'S INTERFERENCE WITH THE PURCHASE OF THE FUGITIVE.
BOSTON, Saturday, June 3, 1854.
To the Editors of the Atlas: -You have called my attention to an article in your paper this
morning, signed L., and to a contradiction of its statement in the Journal of this evening, by
authority of the United States District Attorney. I know nothing of the origin of either of these
articles, but will, at your request. give you a narrative of my own connection with the recent
negotiation for the freedom of " Byrnes," believing that such a narrative will be altogether pertinent to the fact which you seek to establish, namely, the interference of the United States
District Attorney in the negotiation above referred to.
On Saturday afternoon last, the Rev. Mr. Grimes called upon me and said that the owner of
Byrnes had offered to sell him for twelve hundred dollars, and that he (Grimes) was anxious to
raise the money at once. He desired my advice and assistance in the matter, and requested me
to draw up a suitable subscription paper for that purpose, which I did in these words: -
" BOSTON, May 27, 1854.
" We, the undersigned, agree to pay to Anthony Byrnes, or order, the sum set against our
respective names, for the purpose of enabling him to obtain his freedom from the United States
Government, in the hands of whose officers he is now held as a Slave.
" This paper will be presented by the Rev. L. A. Grimes, pastor of the 12th Baptist Church."
Upon this paper Mr. Grimes obtained signatures for six hundred and sixty-five dollars, and
with the aid of Col. Suttle's counsel, Messrs. Parker and Thomas, who interested themselves in
this matter, four hundred dollars more was got in a check, conditionally, and held by Mr. Parker. It was agreed by muse that I should be near at hand on Saturday night, to assist and
advance the money, which was accordingly done, and my check for eight hundred dollars, early
in the night, was placed in the hands of the United States Marshal for this purpose. About
eleven o'clock, all parties being represented, we met at Mr. Commissioner Loring's office. This
gentleman, with commendable alacrity, prepared necessary papers.
At this juncture the actual money was insisted on, which threatened for a time the completion of the negotiation; but anticipating this contingency, which, under all circumstances, was
not an unreasonable demand, we adjourned to the Marshal's office, and I prepared myself with
the needful tender. The United States Attorney, Mr. Hallett, was in attendance, and the respective parties immediately discussed the mode of procedure. The hour of twelve was rapidly
approaching, after which no action could be taken. Mr. Grimes was prepared to receive Byrnes,
and anxious to take him as he might peacefully. The matter lingered, and official action ceased.
I am not disposed to charge any one with designedly defeating the desired end on that occasion. The business was new, the questions raised novel. But when we had proceeded thus far,
and were ready in good faith to make good the sum requisite on Monday, in view also of the




ï~~THE NEW CRIME

There was another trick. At one time it was thought the
evidence would compel the reluictant Commissioner to free his
victim. Then it was proposed that he should be seized in
the Court, and either summarily declared a Slave by some
other Commissioner, or else carried off with no further mock
trial.   I think    it would      have   been done; but Commissioner
Loring was ready to do the work demanded of him, and earn
his twofold pay.
The conduct of the Governor requires some explanation.
The law of Massachusetts was cloven down by the sword of
the Marshal; no officer could be found to serve the writ of
personal replevin, designed by the Massachusetts Legislature
friendly understanding had after midnight with all parties in interest, we had a right to expect
Byrnes' liberation on Monday. When that day came, the owner refused to treat. Learning
from rumor only, that four thousand dollars had been named as the sum then asked for, I
on Monday addressed Col. Suttle, then in Court, a respectful note, reminding him of the position of things on Saturday night, and urging that Mr. Grimes had the right to expect the
original agreement to be carried out, but further asking him, if any additional sum was required:
to which he replied, that the "case is before the Court, and must await its decision."
Tuesday morning, I had an interview with Col. Suttle in the U. S. Marshal's Office. He
seemed disposed to listen to me, and met the subject in a manly way. He said he wished to
take the boy back, after which he would sell him. Hie wanted to see the result of the trial, at
any rate. I stated to him that we considered his claim to Burns clear enough, and that he
would be delivered over to him, urging particularly upon him that the boy's liberation was not
sought for except with his free consent, and his claim being fully satisfied. I urged upon him
no consideration of the fear of a rescue, or possible unfavorable result of the trial to him, but
offered distinctly, if he chose, tohave the trial proceed, and whatever might be the result, still
to satisfy his claim.
I stated to him that the negotiation was not sustained by any Society or Association whatsoever,
but that it was done by some of our most respectable citizens, who were desirous not to obstruct
the operation of the law, but in a peaceable and honorable manner sought an adjustment of
this unpleasant case; assuring him that this feeling was general among the people. I read to
him a letter, addressed to me by a highly esteemed citizen, urging me to renew my efforts to
accomplish this, and placing at my disposal any amount of money that I might think proper for
the purpose.
Col. Suttle replied that he appreciated our motives, and that he felt disposed to meet us. He
then stated what he would do. I accepted his proposal at once; it was not entirely satisfactory
to me, but yet, in view of his position, as he declared to me, I was content. At my request, he
was about to commit our agreement to writing, when Mr. B. F. IIallett entered the office, and
they two engaged in conversation apart from me. Presently CoL Suttle returned to me, and
said: "I must withdraw what I have done with you." We both immediately approached Mr.
Hallett, who said, pointing to the spot where Mr. Batchelder fell, in sight of which we stood,
"That blood must be avenged." I made some pertinent reply, rebuking so extraordinary a
speech, and left the room.
On Friday, soon after the decision had been rendered, finding Col. Suttle had gone on board
the Cutter at an early hour, I waited upon his counsel, Messrs. Thomas and Parker, at the
Court House, and there renewed my proposition. Both these gentlemen promptly interested




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.                                        59
to meet exactly such cases, and bring Mr. Burns before a
Massachusetts court. The Governor could not be induced to
attend to it: Monday he was at the meeting of the Bible
Society; Thursday at the meeting                of the Sunday Schools.           If
the United States Marshal had invaded the sovereignty of
South Carolina, where do you think her Governor would
have been?
The conduct of the Mayor of Boston deserves to be remembered. He had the police of the city in Court Square, aiding
the kidnapper.         It was not their fault.           They served against
their will. Captain Hayes, of the Police, that day magnanimously      resigned     his   charge.*       The    Mayor      called    out   the
themselves in my purpose, which was to tender the claimant full satisfaction, and receive the
surrender of Byrnes from him, either there, in State Street, or on board the Cutter, at his own
option. It was arranged between us that Mr. Parker should go at once on board the Cutter,
and make an arrangement, if possible, with the Col.
I provided ample funds, and returned immediately to the Court House, when I found that there
would be difficulty in getting on board the Cutter. Application was made by me to the Marshal,
he interposed no objection, and I offered to place Mr. Parker alongside the vessel. Presently
Mr. Parker took me aside and said these words: " Col. Suttle has pledged himself to Mr. Hallett
that he will not sell his boy until he gets him home." Thus the matter ended.
In considering, Mr. Editor, whose interference was potent in thus defeating the courteous
endeavors of citizens of Boston, peacefully and with due respect to the laws of the land, to put
to rest the painful scenes of the past week, it must be borne in mind that the United States
Marshal, who, throughout this unfortunate negotiation, has conducted himself towards us with
great consideration, consented, individually, to hold the funds, as a party not in interest, thus
early acquiescing in the success of our plan; the owner himself was willing to release his claim;
his counsel, Messrs. Thomas and Parker, volunteered their aid in raising the money, urged it
and interested themselves in its speedy accomplishment - even in the latest moment when it
could be effected, with commendable alacrity, they offered their assistance; the United States
Commissioner himself consented to be at his post until midnight cf Saturday, to give his official
service for the object - I repeat, in view of all these considerations, the conclusion must come
home irresistibly to every candid mind, that there was one personage, who, officially or individually, in this connection, either did do, or left undone, something whereby his interference
became essential to a less painful termination of this case. Respectfully,
HAMILTON WILLIS.
* Here is the note of Mr. Hayes to the City Authoriti; one day his children will deem it a
noble trophy.
BOSTON, JUNE 2, 1854.
To His Honor the Mayor and the Aldermen of the City of Boston:
Through all the excitement attendant upon the arrest and trial of the Fugitive, by the U. S.
Government, I have not received an order which I have conceived inconsistent with my duties
as an officer of the Police, until this day, at which time I have received an order, which, if performed, would implicate me in the execution of that infamous "Fugitive Slave Bill."
I therefore resign the office which I now hold as a Captain of the Watch and Police, from this
hour, 11 A. M.                   Most respectfully yours,
JOSEPH K. HAYES.




ï~~60

THE NEW CRIME

soldiers at great cost, to some one. He did this on his own
responsibility. Five Aldermen have publicly protested against
the breach of honor and justice. After the wicked deed was
over, he attended a meeting of Sunday School children in
Faneuil Hall. When he was introduced to the audience,
"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings" came a hiss! At
night, the "citizen soldiery" had a festival. The Mayor was
at the supper, and toasted the military - eating and drinking
and making merry. What did they care, or he, that an
innocent citizen of Boston was sent into bondage forever, and
by their hands! The agony of Mr. Burns only flavored their
cup. So the butcher's dog can enjoy himself in the shambles, while the slaughter of the innocent goes on around him,
"battening on garbage "!
Thus, on the Second of June, Boston sent into bondage
her second victim. It ought to have been fifteen days later -
the Seventeenth of June. What a spectacle it was! The
day was brilliant; there was not a cloud; all about Boston
there was a ring of happy, summer loveliness; the green
beauty of June; the grass, the trees, the heaven, the light;
and Boston itself was the theatre of incipient, civil war!
What a day for Boston! Citizens applauding that a man
was to be carried into bondage! Drunken soldiers, hardly
able to stand in the street, sung their ribald song-" Oh!
carry me back to old Virginia! "
Daniel Webster lies buried at Marshfield; but his dead
hand put the chain on Anthony Burns. Last winter it was
proposed to build him a monument. He needs it not. Hancock has none; Samuel  dams sleeps in a nameless grave;
John Adams has not a sTone. We are their monuments; the
homage of the people is their epitaph. Daniel Webster also
had his monument last Friday. It was the Court House,
crowded with two hundred and twenty United States soldiers
and flanked with a cannon. His monument reached all the
way from John Hancock's house, in Court Street, to the T




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

61

wharf; nay, it went far out to sea in the Revenue Cutter,
and is borne seaward or shoreward. Conquer your prejudices! No Higher Law! On the brass cannon you could
read, I STILL LIVE.
Mr. Burns was seized on that day which the Christian
church has consecrated to two of the Martyrs, Saints DONATIAN and ROGATIAN. They seem to have been put to death
by Rictius Varus, the Commissioner of Belgic and Celtic
Gaul. They suffered death at Nantes. They were impeached
for professing themselves Christians. Simple death was not
torment enough for being a Christian in the year 287. They
were put to the rack first. Their bodies, still held in great
veneration, now sleep their dusty slumber in the great Cathedral of the town. The antiquarian traveller wonders at the
statues of those two martyrs still standing at the corner of the
Money Changers' Street, and telling the tale of times when
the Christians only suffered persecution. St. Rogatian's day
was not an unfitting time for Puritanic Boston to steal a man.
The day on which Mr. Burns was sent from Boston into
Alexandrian Bondage, is still more marked in the Christian
church. It is consecrated to a noble army of martyrs who
tasted death at Vienna, in Gaul  now Vienne, in the South
of France - in the year 178 after Christ. I shall never forget
the little town, once famous and eminent, where the dreadful
event took place. A letter written, it is said, by St. Irenseus
himself details the saddening history. It begins, "We the
Servants of Christ, [Mr. Everett might translate it ' Slaves,']
dwelling at Vienna and Lyons in Gaul to the Brethren in
Asia and Phrygia who have the same faith and hope with us,
Peace and Grace and Glory from God the Father and from
our Lord Jesus Christ." The whole letter is a most touching
memorial of the faithful piety of the Christians in days when
it cost life to be religious. Anybody may read what remains
of it in Eusebius. Here is the story in short.
A law was passed forbidding Christians to appear out of
their own houses "in any place whatsoever."     The most




ï~~62

THE NEW CRIME

cruel punishments were denounced against all persons who
professed the Christian religion.
The Governor, who was also a Commissioner appointed for
persecuting and murdering the Christians, had the most
prominent members of the Church arrested and brought
before him. In the " examination" they were treated with
such cruelty that Vettius Epagathus, a Christian of distinguished family, undertook their defence, a man so exactly
virtuous, that though young he won the honor of old Zacharias -" walking in all the commandments and ordinances of
the Lord blameless."  The Commissioner asked him, "Art
thou also a Christian? "  Epagathus made his "admission"
in a loud voice, and shared the fate of the martyrs. The
Christians called him the Comforter of Christians,-" for he
had the Comforter, the Spirit, in him, more than Zacharias
himself; "- a title as hateful then as Friend of the Slave
now is in the Court or the Church of Kidnappers in Boston.
Sanctus, the Deacon; Maturus, a new    convert; Attalus,
from Asia Minor, one of the pillars of the Church; Blandina,
a female Slave; Pothinus, ninety years old and Bishop of
Lyons, hard by, were put to the most cruel tortures. Four
of them were exposed to the wild beasts in the Amphitheatre
to divert the spectators! Blandina was fastened to a post to
be eaten up by the beasts, and when they left her untouched,
the Marshal haled her to prison again.  "But last of all St.
Blandina, like a well-born mother who has nursed her children and sent them victorious to the King, hastened after
them, rejoicing and leaping for joy at her departure; thrown
indeed to the wild beasts she went as if invited to a bridal
feast, and after scourging, after exposure to wild beasts, after
the chair of fire, she was wrapped in a net, and tossed by a
bull - and at last killed." Others fell with them: Ponticus,
a boy of fifteen; Alexander the Phrygian, and many more.
They were tortured with cudgels, with whips, with wild
beasts, and red-hot plates of iron; at last they died, one by
one. The tormentprs threw their dead bodies to the dogs;




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

63

some raged and gnashed their teeth over the dead, seeking to
take yet more abundant vengeance thereon; others laughed
and made mockery thereof. And others more gentle, seeming
to sympathise as much as they dared, made grievous reproaches, and said, "Where is now their God, and of what
profit is their piety which they loved better even than their
own life? Now we will see if they will ever rise from the
dead, and if their God can help and deliver them out of our
hands!"
So things went at Allobrogian Vienna on the second of
June, sixteen hundred and seventy-six years ago last Friday.
The murder of those Christians was just as "legal" as the
rendition of Anthony Burns. It would be curious to know
what the "respectable" men of the town said thereupon: to
see the list of fifteen hundred citizens volunteering their aid;
to read the letter of nine hundred and eighty-seven men
thanking the Commissioner for touching their conscience.
The preaching of the priests must have been edifying: - " I
would drive a Christian away from my own door! I would
murder my own mother!"
Doubtless some men said, The statute which commands
the torturous murder of men, women, and children for no
crime but piety, "if constitutional, is wicked and cruel."
And doubtless some Heathen "Chief Justice Parker" choked
down the rising conscience of mankind, and answered:
"Whether the statute is a harsh one or not, it is not for us
to determine."  No! it is not for the blood-hound to ask
whether the victim he rends to quivering fragments is a sinner or a saint; the blood-hound is to bite, and not consider;
he has teeth, not conscience. The Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner is not to do justly, and love mercy, and walk
humbly with his God; he is to kidnap men in Boston at ten
dollars a head! The Pagan murder of Christians at Vienna
under Aurelian, did not differ much frbm the Christian kidnapping of Mr. Burns in Boston, under Pierce. But alas for
these times - it is not recorded of the Romans that any




ï~~64

THE NEW CRIME

Heathen Judge of Probate came forward and volunteered to
butcher the widows and orphans of the early church. Then
the tormentor worshipped Mars and Bellona, now in the
church of Jesus Christ.
Boston chose a fit day to consummate her second kidnapping. St. Pothinus was a Christian minister, so was Anthony
Burns -" a minister of the Baptist denomination," "regularly
ordained"!    Commissioner Loring could     not have done
better than select this day to execute his " decision." On St.
Pothinus's day, let Anthony Burns be led to a martyrdom
more atrocious! The African churches of Boston may write
a letter to-day, which three or four thousand years hence will
sound as strange as now the Epistle of St. Irenaeus.  Sixteen
hundred and seventy-six years hence, it may be thought the
Marshal's "guard" is a fair match for the bullies who tortured Blandina.    In the next world, the District Marshal
may shake hands with the Heathen murderer who put the
boy Ponticus to cruel death. I make no doubt there were
men at the corners of the streets who clapped hands, as one
by one the lions in the public square rent the Christian maiden's limb from limb, and strewed the ground with human
flesh yet palpitating in its severed agony. Boston can furnish
mates for them. But the Judge of Probate, the Teacher of a
Sunday School, the member of a church of Christ,- he may
wander through all Hades peopled thick with Roman tormentors, nor never meet with a Heathen guardian of Orphans
who can be his match.    Let him pass by.   Declamation can
add nothing to his deed.
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess."
No doubt the Commissioner for murdering the Christians
at Vienna reasoned.as "legally" and astutely in the second




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

65

century as the Fugitive Slave Bill Commissioner at Boston in
the nineteenth.    Perhaps the "argument" was after this
wise:"This statute has been decided to be constitutional by the
unanimous opinion of the Judges of the Supreme Court of
the Province of Gaul after, the fullest argument and the
maturest deliberation to be the law of this Province as well
as, and because it is a constitutional law of the Roman Empire,
and the wise words of our revered Chief Justice may well be
repeated now, and remembered always. The Chief Justice
says:
"The torture, persecution, and murder of Christians was
not created, established, or perpetuated by the Constitution;
it existed before; it would have existed if the Constitution
had not been made. The framers of the Constitution could
not abrogate the custom of persecuting, torturing, and murdering Christians, or the rights claimed under it. They took
it as they found it, and regulated it to a limited extent. The
Constitution, therefore, is not responsible for the origin or
continuance of this custoin of persecuting, torturing, and
murdering Christians - the provision it contains was the best
adjustment which could be made of conflicting rights and
claims to persecute, torture, and murder, and was absolutely
necessary to effect what may now be considered as the general
pacification by which harmony and peace should take the
place of violence and war. These were the circumstances,
and this the spirit in which the constitution was made - the
regulation of persecution, torture, and murder of Christians so
far as to prohibit Provinces by law from harboring fugitive
Christians was an essential element in its formation, and the
union intended to be established by it was essentially necessary
to the peace and happiness and highest prosperity of all the
Provinces and Towns. In this spirit, and with these views
steadily in prospect, it seems to be the duty of all judges and
magistrates to expound and apply these provisions in the
Constitution and laws of the Roman Empire, and in this spirit
9




ï~~66

THE NEW CRIME

it behooves all persons bound to obey the laws of the Roman
Empire to consider and regard them."
"Therefore Christianos ad Leones - Let the Christians be
torn to pieces by the wild beasts."
Wednesday, the twenty-fourth of May, the city was all
calm and still. The poor black man was at work with one of
his own nation, earning an honest livelihood. A Judge of
Probate, Boston born and Boston bred, a man in easy circumstances, a Professor in Harvard College, was sitting in his
office, and with a single spurt of his pen he dashes off the
liberty of a man - a citizen of Massachusetts. He kidnaps a
man endowed by his Creator with the unalienable right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He leaves the
writ with the Marshal, and goes home to his family, caresses
his children, and enjoys his cigar. The frivolous smoke curls
round his frivolous head, and at length he lays him down to
sleep, and, I suppose, such dreams as haunt such heads. But
when he wakes next morn, all the winds of indignation,
wrath, and honest scorn, are let loose. Before night, they
are blowing all over this Commonwealth - ay, before another
night they have gone to the Mississippi, and wherever the
lightning messenger can tell the tale.  So have I read in an
old mediaeval legend that one summer afternoon, there came
up a "shape, all hot from Tartarus," from hell below, but
garmented and garbed to represent a civil-suited man, masked
with humanity.    He walked quiet and decorous through
Milan's stately streets, and scattered from his hand an invisible dust. It touched the walls; it lay on the streets; it
ascended to the cross on the minster's utmost top. It went
down to the beggar's den.    Peacefully he walked through
the streets, vanished and went home. But the next morning,
the pestilence was in Milan, and ere a week had sped half
her population were in their graves; and half the other half,
crying that hell was clutching at their hearts, fled from the
reeking City of the Plague.




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

67

Why did he do all this? He knew the consequences that
must follow.   He knew what Boston was. We have no
monument to Hancock and Adams; but still we keep their
graves; and the dear old mother that bore them yet in her
bosom hides the honored bones of men whom armies could not
terrify, nor England bribe. Their spirit only sleeps. Tread
roughly, tread roughly on the spot - their spirit rises from
the ground! He knew that here were men who never will
be silent when wrong is done.   lie knew Massachusetts;
he knew Boston; he knew that the Fugitive Slave Bill had
only raked the, ashes over fires which were burning still, and
that a breath might scatter the ashes to the winds of heaven,
and bid the slumbering embers flame. Had he determined
already what should happen to Anthony Burns? He knew
what had befallen Thomas Sims.     Did he wish another
inhabitant of Boston whipped to death?
I have studied the records of crime - it is a part of my
ministry. I do not find that any College Professor has ever
been hanged for murder in all the Anglo-Saxon family of
men, till Harvard College had that solitary shame. Is not
that enough? Now she is the first to have a Professor that
kidnaps men. "The Athens of America" furnished both!
I can understand how a man commits a crime of passion,
or covetousness, or rage,-nay, of revenge, or of ambition.
But for a man in Boston, with no passion, no covetousness,
no rage, with no ambition nor revenge, to steal a poor negro,
to send him into bondage,- I cannot comprehend the fact.
I can understand the consciousness of a lion, not a kidnapper's
heart. Once Mr. Loring defined a lawyer to be "a human
agent for effecting a human purpose by human means." Here
the Commissioner seems an inhuman agent for effecting an
inhuman purpose by inhuman means!
I belong to a school that reverences the infinite perfection
of God, if, indeed, there be such a school. I believe, also, in
the nobleness of man; but last week my faith was somewhat
sorely tried. As I looked at that miscreant crew, the kid



ï~~68

THE NEW CRIME

napper's body-guard, and read in their faces the record and the
prophecy of many a crime,
" Felons by the hand of nature marked,
Quoted and signed to do a deed of shame,"
I could explain and not despair. They were tools, not agents.
But as I looked into the Commissioner's face, mild and amiable, a face I have respected not without seeming cause; as I
remembered his breeding and his culture, his social position,
his membership of a Christian church, and then thought of the
crime he was committing against humanity with no temptation, I asked myself, can this be true? Is man thus noble,
made in the dear image of the Father, God?  Is my philosophy a dream, or are these facts a lie?
But there is another court. The Empsons and the Dudleys have been summoned there before; Jeffreys and Scroggs,
the Kanes, and the Curtises, and the Lorings, must one day
travel the same unwelcome road. Imagine the scene after
man's mythologic way. "Loring, where is thy brother, Anthony Burns?"   " I know not; am  I my brother's keeper,
Lord?"   " Loring, where is thy brother, Anthony Burns?"
"Oh, Lord, he was friendless, and so I smote him; he was
poor, and I starved him of more than life. He owned nothing but his African body. I took that away from him, and
gave it to another man! "
Then listen to the voice of the Crucified-" Did I not tell
thee, when on earth, ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy understanding and thy heart?' "  " But I thought thy
kingdom was not of this world."
" Did I not tell thee thou shouldst love thy neighbor as
thyself?  Where is Anthony Burns, thy brother?  I was a
stranger, and you sought my life; naked, and you rent away
my skin; in prison, and you delivered me to the tormentors
- fate far worse than death. Inasmuch as you did it to
Anthony Burns, you did it unto me."




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

69

The liberty of America was never in greater peril than
now. Hessian bayonets were not half so dangerous as the
gold of the National treasury in the hands of this Administration.  Which shall conquer, Slavery or Freedom?    That
is the question. The two cannot long exist side by side.
Think of the peril; remember the rapacity of this Administration; its reckless leaders; think of Douglass, Cushing, and
the rest.  They aimed at the enslavement of Nebraska.  The
Northern majority in Congress yielded that.
Now they aim at Hayti and Cuba. Shall they carry that
point?  Surely, unless we do our duty.    Shall Slavery be
established at the North, at the West, and the East, in all the
free States? Mr. Toombs told Mr. Hale -" Before long the
master will sit down at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument
with his Slaves."  Will do it?   He has done it already, and
not an officer in the State of Massachusetts made the least
resistance. Our laws were trod down by insolent officials,
and Boston ordered out her soldiers to help the disgraceful
deed. Strange that we should be asked to make the fetters
which are to chain us.  Mr. Suttle is only a feeler.   Soon
there will be other Suttles in Boston.  Let them come!
It is not only wicked, it is costly. The kidnapping of Mr.
Burns must have cost in all at least one hundred thousand
dollars, including the loss of time and travelling expenses of
our friends from the country. The publican's bill for feeding
the Marshal's crew is already more than six thousand dollars!
Consider the demoralization of the people produced by
such a deed. Mr. Dana was knocked down in the street by
one of the Marshal's posse - as it is abundantly proved. The
blow might easily have been fatal. It is long since a bully
has attacked a respectable citizen in Boston before.  Hereafter I fear it will be more common. You cannot employ
such a body-guard as the Marshal had about him in such
business without greatly endangering the safety of the persons
and the property of the town. We shall hear from them
again. What a spectacle it was; the army of the United States,




ï~~70

THE NEW CRIME

the soldiers of Boston sending an innocent man into Slavery!
What a lesson to the children in the Sunday Schools - to the
vagrant children in the streets, who have no school but the
sights of the city! What a lesson of civilization to the Irish
population of Boston! Men begin to understand this. There
never was so much Anti-Slavery feeling in Boston before -
never so much indignation in my day. If a law aims at justice, though it fail of the mark we will respect the law - not
openly resist it or with violence; wait a little, and amend it
or repeal it. But when the law aims at INJUSTICE, open,
manifest, palpable wickedness, why, we must be cowards and
fools too, if we submit.
Massachusetts has never felt so humiliated before. Soldiers
of the Government enforcing a law in peaceful Boston, the
most orderly of Christian cities! We have had no such thing
since the Declaration of Independence! The rendition of Mr.
Burns fills New England with sorrow and bitter indignation.
The people tolled the bells at Plymouth. The bones of the
Forefathers gave that response to the kidnappers in Boston.
At Manchester and several other towns they did the same.
To-day, ministers are preaching as never before. What will it
all come to? Men came to Boston peacefully last week.
Will they always come "with only the arms God gave?"
One day in the seventeenth century five thousand country
gentlemen rode into London with a petition to the King -
with only the arms God gave them. Not long after they went
thither with Oliver Cromwell at their head and other "arms "
which God also had given. May such times never return in
New England!
We want no rashness, but calm, considerate action, deliberate, prudent, far-seeing. The Fugitive Slave Bill is a long
wedge, thin at one end, wide at the other; it is entered
between the bottom planks of our SHIp OF STATE; a few blows
thereon will "enforce " more than the South thinks of. A
little more,- and we shall go to pieces. Men talk wildly
just now, and I do not credit what cool men say in this heat.




ï~~AGAINST HUMANITY.

71

But I see what may come - what must come, if a few more
blows be struck in that quarter. It was only Mr. Webster's
power to manufacture public opinion by his giant will
and immense eloquence, which made the North submit at
all to the Fugitive Slave Bill.  He strained his power to
the utmost - and died! Now there is no Webster or Clay;
not even a Calhoun; not a first rate man in the Pro-Slavery
party, North or South. Slavery is not well manned - many
hands, dirty, cunning, stealthy, - not a single great, able
head.
The cowardice of Mr. Everett has excited the clergy of
New England; of all the North. They are stung with the
reproach of the people, and ashamed of their own past neglect. The Nebraska Bill opens men's eyes. Agitation was
never so violent as at this day. The prospect of a war with
Spain is not inviting to men who own ships, and want a clear
sea and open market. Pirates, privateers, - Algerine, Greek,
Spanish, Portuguese, West Indian, -are not welcome to the
thoughts of men. The restoration of the Slave Trade is not
quite agreeable to the farmers and mechanics of the North.
This attempt to seize a man in Boston; the display of force;
the insolence of the officials; the character of the men concerned in this iniquity - all is offensive. Then there was
insult, open and intentional. Mr. Burns was carried through
State Street at "1high change." Boston merchants feel as they
never did before. All Massachusetts is incensed. The wrath
of Massachusetts is slow, but she has wrath, has courage,
"perseverance of the saints."
Let us do nothing rashly. What is done hastily must be
done over again - it is not well done. This is what I would
recommend.
1. A convention of all Massachusetts, without distinction
of party, to take measures to preserve the rights of Massachusetts. For this we want some new and stringent laws for the
defence of personal liberty, for punishing all who invade it




ï~~72

THE NEW CRIME, ETC.

on our soil. We want powerful men as Officers to execute
these laws.
2. A general Convention of all the States to organize for
mutual protection against this new master.
It is not speeches that we want- but action; not rash,
crazy action, but calm, deliberate, systematic action - organization for the defence of personal liberty and the State Rights
of the North.   Now    is a good time; let us act with cool
energy. By all means let us do something, else the liberties
of America go to ruin - then what curses shall mankind
heap upon us!
" And deep, and more deep - as the iron is driven,Base slaves, will the whet of our agony be,
When we think,- as the damned haply think of the Heaven
They had once in their reach,- that we might have been free."
"But, my friends, out of all this dreadful evil we can bring
relief. The remedy is in our hearts and hands. God works
no miracles. There is power in human nature to end this
wickedness.     God appointed     the  purpose, provided    the
means - a divine purpose, human means. Only be faithful,
and in due time we shall triumph over the Destroyer. Every
noble quality of man works with us; each attribute of God.
We are His instruments. Let us faithfully do the appointed
work!    Darkness is about us!     Journey forward!    Light is
before us!
"Oh God, who in thy dear still heaven
Dost sit and wait to see
The errors, sufferings, and crimes
Of our humanity;
How deep must be thy Causal love,
How Whole thy final care,
Since Thou who rulest all above
Canst see, and yet canst bear!"




ï~~APPENDIX.
BILL OF SALE OF AN AMERICAN CLERGYMAN.
REV. DR. PENNINGTON.
It may be interesting to many persons to see a copy of the
documents which enable a " chattel personal" to become a
man. A friend at Hartford has kindly procured them for
me.
[COPY.]
Know all men by these presents: That I, William B. Clarke of
Washington County in the State of Maryland, Administrator of Frisby
Tilghman, deceased, late of said County and State, in pursuance of
my power as said Administrator, and in obedience to an order of the
Orphan's Court (1) of said County, passed on the twentieth day of
May, 1851, and also for and in consideration of the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars current money to me in hand paid by John
Hooker of Hartford, Hartford County, in the State of Connecticut, at
or before the sealing and delivery and of these presents, the receipt
whereof I, the said William B. Clarke do hereby acknowledge, have
bargained and sold, transferred and assigned, and by these presents do
bargain and sell, transfer and assign unto the said John Hooker, his
executors, administrators, and assigns, a negro man, Slave for life,
10




ï~~APPENDIX.

called and known by the name of James Pembroke, now about forty
years of age, of middling height, pretty stoutly built, and a full blooded
negro, together with all my right, title, interest, claim, and demand as
Administrator as aforesaid, of, in, and to the said negro man, Slave for
life, to have and to hold the said negro Slave above bargained and
sold, or intended so to be, to the said John Hooker, his executors,
administrators, and assigns forever.
In witness whereof, the said William B. Clarke, Administrator as
aforesaid, hath hereunto set his hand and seal on this twentieth day of
May, 1851.
W. B. CLARKE,       (L. S.)
Administrator of Frisby Tilghman, deceased.
Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of
C. SHEPPARD.
State of Maryland, Washington County, set.
Be it remembered, and it is hereby certified, that on the day and
year above written, before the subscriber, a Justice of the Peace of
the State of Maryland, in and for Washington County aforesaid, personally appears the within named William B. Clarke, he being known
to me, of my own knowledge, to be the person who is named and described as and professing to be a party to the foregoing bill of sale,
and doth acknowledge the said instrument of writing to be his free act
and deed.
In testimony whereof, I hereunto subscribed my name on the day
and year aforesaid.
C. SHEPPARD, J. P.
Recorded in Liber I. N., No. 5, folios 720 & 721, Land Records
of Washington County, Maryland.




ï~~APPENDIX.

75

[coPY.]
Know all men by these presents: That I, John Hooker, of Hartford, in the County of Hartford and State of Connecticut, in consideration of one dollar received to my full satisfaction of James Pembroke,
formerly the Slave of Frisbie Tilghman, of Hagerstown, in the State of
Maryland, more commonly known as the
REV. DR. JAMES W. 0. PENNINGTON,
of the city and State of New York, -- the said James Pembroke having been recently purchased by me of the Administrator of the estate
of said Frisbie Tilghman, and by said Administrator transferred to me,
as appears by bill of sale recorded in the Land Records of Washington County in said State of Maryland, Liber I. N., No. 5, folios 720,
721, which purchase was made at the instance of said James Pembroke, and for the purpose of manumitting him, - and in further consideration of the inherent and indefeasible right of the said James to
his freedom, have manumitted, and do hereby manumit and set
FoR. '_REE FROM SLAVERY
the said James Pembroke, and do hereby release all right, title, and
claim, in and to the person, labor, and servid of him the said James,
and him the said James do give, grant, and transfer to himself as his
own forever.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal this
third day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.
JoHN  HOOKER. (L. S.)
Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of
JOSEPH R. HAWLEY.
HEaRY FRANCIS.




ï~~APPENDIX

State of Connecticut,       H
aCounty of      d, ss.      HARTFORD, June 3d, A. D. 1851.
Personally appeared John hooker, signer and sealer of the foregoing instrument, and acknowledged the same to be his free a ct.~d
deed, before me,
JoSEi    I. IHAWLEY, Justice of the Peace.
Received for Record, June 3d, 1S51, and entered on Hartford
Town Records, Vol. 76, Page 356, by
IlENRY FRANCIS, Town Clerk.
I have carefully compared the foregoing copies with the originals,
and find them correct.
J. R. HAWLEY.