^Iff o» ^ 
 
ADDITIONAL SPEECHES, 
 
 ADDRESSES, 
 
 OCCASIONAL SERMONS, 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 THEODORE PARKER, 
 
 MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY 
 
 VOX U ME 1. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 
 
 185 5. 
 

 39-43855 
 
 Entered accordinj; to Act of Congress, in the year 1S55, Ijy 
 THEODORE PAKlvKR, 
 
 In the Clerk's OiHce of the District Court of tlie District of JIassacliusetts. 
 
 C A 51 ]; K I D G E : 
 ALLEX AND 1 AIINIIAJI, rillXTEKS. 
 
1 
 
 in 
 
 iT) 
 
 C3 
 
 TO 
 
 WENDELL PHILLIPS, 
 
 ■\VIIOSi: JrARVELLOUS ELOQUENCE IS ONLY SL'EPASSED BY THE 
 
 HUMANITY WHICH WIELDS THAT FIERY SAVORD, 
 
 WROUGHT OF JUSTICE AND BEAUTY, 
 
 tiies!e volumes are dedicated 
 
 BY HIS FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR, 
 
 THEODORE PARKER. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Several years ago I began to write a large work on the 
 " Historical Development of Religion in the various Races 
 of Mankind," hoping to publish the first volume long before 
 this time. But during the last five years, my attention has 
 been mainly directed to quite different pursuits, less genial 
 to my nature and more foreign to my culture : events of the 
 saddest character and most dangerous tendency have forced 
 other and indispensable duties upon me. For the assaults 
 on the natural Rights of man have been so continuous, made 
 with such vigor, and so often successful, and the consequent 
 demand of resistance thereto, on the part of all friends of 
 Humanity so urgent, that I have been forced to defer the 
 welcome toil of converting the Facts of past History into 
 Ideas of present Consciousness, and therewith helping to 
 build up nobler Institutions for the future. Yes, the ene- 
 mies of American liberty have so far prevailed, that within 
 a few years, nnder federal enactments, Slavery has been 
 spread over a once free territoi-y more than twice as large 
 as the original colonies at the Revolution ; and in the " Free 
 States " themselves the great Republican Safeguards of Lib- 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 erty have been captured by the foes — who have ah-eady 
 toi-n down the Habeas Corpus and are now seekinGj to de- 
 stroy the Trial by Jury. "With the approbation of many of 
 the controlhng men of this town — '• literary," political, ju- 
 dicial, commercial, and ecclesiastical, — innocent men have 
 been seized, and without any trial before a "judicial power,'' 
 in violation of " due Process of Law," sent into eternal 
 bondage amid the gratulations of Christian ininisters, and 
 the applause of delighted officials. While I write, the 
 Supreme Court of Massachusetts, continues the staunch 
 defender of Slavery, supporting its most aggressive acts on 
 the soil of our Commonwealth ; and the Probate Judge of 
 this county — the legal guardian of Widows and Orphans — 
 is also a ■'legal*' kidna[)[)er, ^■oluntaril3^ and ostentatiously 
 holding an office which, as he publicly maintains, " requires " 
 him to send blameless men into Slavery fore^■el•. 
 
 In my own Parish I proudly number several colored fam- 
 ilies, and have also numerous other acquaintances and 
 friends among the colored citizens of Boston, some of them 
 fugitives from Slavery, their lil»erty, dearer than life to 
 them, is in continual peril. Any day, or night, by some 
 miscreant, Avith no opportunity fur defence, tliey may be 
 sworn off into eternal bondage before some willing member 
 of that family of kidna^jping Commissioners whose Nature 
 seems in preiistablished harmony with that official function 
 of stealing and enslaving innocent men. 
 
 Besides, some years ago, presently after the passage of. 
 the fugitive slave bill, and the first kidnapping in Boston, 
 consequent thereon, my fellow-citizens appointed me " Min- 
 ister at large for Fugitive SIa\es:" I could not decline the 
 honorable office at such a time ; nay, I sought its duties 
 
PREFACE. VU 
 
 well knowing their peril. IIow often must I protect my 
 own parishioners from the clutch of men seeking to en:?lave 
 them ! What scorn has been visited on me in consequence ! 
 Four years ago, a wealthy and prominent merchant of Bos- 
 ton declared to his fellows that if any men would assassinate 
 Mr. Phillips and myself, and he were called as a Grand 
 Juror to i)ass upon the act, he should "declare it a justifia- 
 ble homicide ! " 
 
 In such a time no man's liberty is safe ; — nay, the nation 
 itself is brought into imminent peril, into worse dangers than 
 War ever thundered upon our fathers' honored heads. In 
 the last five years, it has often seemed as if our Ivepublican 
 Ship must perish, and this Democracy, like so many others, 
 be whelmed uiider in the great deep of Despotism which has 
 successively swallowed down so many libei'al-mindcd and 
 fair States. But such is my certainty of the ultimate triumph 
 of the great Trutlis now fluttering about the consciousness 
 of this generation, and such my conlidencc in the mass of 
 the American Peo[)le in the Northern Stales, that I cannot 
 yet give over my fairest, deai'est earthly hope — womanly 
 and romantic thougli it seems. Else I should long since 
 have left that little company of noble men and women 
 who toil for the liberation of America, and are hitherto 
 honored chieHy with the scorn of the controlling classes in 
 this town; and should have returned from public Avrangling 
 to silent study — Scicnci', rhiloso[ihy. Letters. But with 
 such trust in the American People, I have devoted Avhat 
 powers I possess to the practical duties of the day : yet hop- 
 ing in better times to see my cherished buil bloom into some 
 Avell-[)ro[)ortioued Hower. In the last lew years I could 
 work at my i'avorite task only by snatches — learn a few 
 
VIU PKEFACE. 
 
 languages, collect books, and gather facts therefrom, or in 
 the swift walks of a minister's practical business, in nocturnal 
 railroad journeys, or other sleepless nights in stranger's 
 houses, meditate the plan of the intended work. How long 
 this will continue I know not, — only fear. 
 
 These two volumes contain some of the published results 
 of those labors of the last few years. Some of the speeches 
 were purely extemporaneous ; for some others I had but the 
 briefest time for composition. All but the opening article of 
 each volume are reprinted from phonographic reports taken 
 by my friends, — whose kindness moves them thus to da- 
 guerreotype all my Sunday sermons. The brief speech 
 before the Ministerial Conference I wrote down a few days 
 after its delivery, and have marked with brackets [ ] the 
 words since added : the " Thoughts on the Progress of Amer- 
 ica," was never delivered, — for the terrible events of that 
 period kept me in the court house during the session of the 
 Convention. If any reader will compare the date of any 
 Sermon or Speech, in these volumes with that of the occa- 
 sion thereof, he will see that often very little time was left 
 for the nicety of a work of art. But there was no special 
 reason why the Sermon of Old Age, should have been de- 
 livered at the time it was preached, having no reference to 
 any special occasion. I put it at the end of the last vol- 
 ume as a fitting termination of the book, as one day it may 
 be of the reader's, or the writer's life. 
 
 Perhaps I ought also to say that, pressed with other 
 duties, I write this Preface in the presence of the Circuit 
 Court of the United States, befox-e which I am now ar- 
 raigned as a Malefactor, charged with a " Misdemeanor," 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 committed by speaking, in Faneuil Hall and elsewhere, a 
 few words against the kidnapping of my fellow-citizens of 
 Boston, some of them also my own parishioners ; and that 
 the same man who so zealously supported the fugitive 
 slave bill, and labored by its instrumentality to enslave 
 men, is at this moment on the Bench to try me for resist- 
 ing with a word the officer who sought to reduce a Bos- 
 ton man to the condition of a Virginia Slave. 
 
 Theodore Parker. 
 
 Boston, U. S. Circuit Court Room, 
 April 3, 1855. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PARE 
 
 Speech at the Mixistekial Coxferexce ix Bostox, 
 
 May 29, 1851 1 
 
 II. 
 
 The Boston KiDXArrixo. A Discourse to commemo- 
 rate THE ReXDITIOX OF ThOMAS SlMS, DELIVERED 
 OX THE AXXIVERSARY THEREOF, Al'RIL 12, 1852, BEFORE 
 
 THE Committee of Vigilaxce, at the Melodesx, in 
 Boston 17 
 
 III. 
 
 The Aspect of Freedom in America. A Speech at 
 the Mass Anti-Slavery Celeuration of Indepen- 
 dence AT Abington, July 5, 1852 107 
 
 IV. 
 Discourse occasioned by the Death op Daniel Web- 
 ster, preached at the Melodeon on Sunday, Oc- 
 tober 31, 1852 ^ . . .131 
 
Xir CONTENTS. 
 
 V. 
 
 The Nebeaska Question. Some Thoughts on the 
 New Assault upon Freedom in America, and the 
 General State of the Country in relation there- 
 unto, SET forth in a Discourse preached at the 
 Music Hall, in Boston, on Sunday, February 12, 
 1854 295 
 
 VI. 
 
 An Address on the Condition of America, before 
 the New York City Anti-Slavery Society, at its 
 First Anniversary, held at the Broadway Taber- 
 nacle, May 12, 1854 381 
 
SPEECH 
 
 MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 
 
 BOSTON, MAY 29, 1851 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 OCCASION OF THE SPEECH. 
 
 The subject of debate was " The Duty of Minis- 
 ters under the Fugitive Slave Law." This had 
 been brought up, by Rev. Mr. May of Syracuse, at 
 a " Business Meeting " of the American Unitarian 
 Association, and was refused a hearing. It was 
 again brought forward at the meeting of the Minis- 
 terial Conference on Wednesday. The Conference 
 adjourned to Thursday morning, at nine o'clock. 
 
 On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, a good 
 deal was done to prevent the matter from being dis- 
 cussed at all ; and done, as it seemed to me, in a dis- 
 ingenuous and unfair manner. And on Thursday 
 morning much time was consumed in mere trifles, 
 apparently with the intention of wearing away the 
 few hours which would otherwise be occupied in 
 discussing the matter at issue, before the Conference. 
 
4 SPEECH AT THE 
 
 At length the question was reached, and the debate 
 began. 
 
 Several persons spoke. Mr. Pierpont made a 
 speech, able and characteristic, in which he declared 
 that the Fugitive Slave BUI lacked all the essentials 
 of a law ; that it had no claim to obedience ; and 
 that it could not be administered with a pure heart 
 or unsullied ermine. 
 
 Several others made addresses. Rev. IVIr. Osgood 
 of New York defended his ministerial predecessor, 
 Rev. Dr. Dewey, — making two points. 
 
 1. Dr. Dewey's conduct had been misrepresented ; 
 he had never said that he would send his own 
 Mother into slavery to preserve the Union ; it was 
 only his <Sow, or Brother. [JVIr. Parker remarked that 
 the Principle was the same in all three cases, there 
 was only a diversity of Measure.] 
 
 2. Dr. Dewey's motives had been misrepresented. 
 He had conversed with Dr. Dewey ; and Dr. Dewey 
 felt very bad ; was much afflicted — even to weeping, 
 at the misrepresentations made of him. He had 
 not been understood. Dr. Dewey met Dr. Furness 
 in the street, [Dr. Furness had most manfully 
 preached against the Fugitive Slave Act, and there- 
 by drawn upon himself much odium in Philadelphia, 
 and the indignation of some of his clerical brethren 
 elsewhere,] and said, "Brother Furness — you have 
 taken the easy road to duty. It is for me to take 
 
MINISTERIAL CONFEREXCE. O 
 
 the hard and dijficuH way ! I wish it could be oth- 
 erwise. But I feared the dissolution of the Union ! " 
 etc. etc. 
 
 Mr. Osgood then proceeded to censure " one of 
 this Conference," [Mi*. Parker,] for the manner in 
 which he had preached on this matter of the Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law. " It was very bad ; it was un- 
 just I " etc. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Gannett spoke at some length. 
 
 1. He said the brethren had laughed, and shown 
 an indecorum that was painful ; it was unpardona- 
 ble. [The chairman. Rev. Dr. Farley of Brooklyn, 
 N. Y., thought otherwise.] 
 
 2. He criticized severely the statement of Rev. IVIr. 
 Pierpont that the Fugitive Slave Law " could not 
 be administered with a pure heart or unsullied er- 
 mine." [IVIi-. Pierpont affirmed it anew, and briefly 
 defended the statement. Mi*. Gannett still appeared 
 dissatisfied.] His parishioner, Mr. George T. Curtis, 
 had the most honorable motives for attempting to 
 execute the law. 
 
 3. He (Dr. Gannett) was in a minority, and the 
 majority had no right to think that he was not as 
 honest in his opinion as the rest. 
 
 4. Here Dr. Gannett made two points in de- 
 fence of the Fugitive Slave Bill, of making and 
 obeying it. 
 
 (1.) If we did not obey it the disobedience would 
 
b SPEECH AT THE 
 
 lead to the violation of all Law. There were two 
 things — Law without Liberty ; and Liberty without 
 Law. Law without Liberty ^vas only despotism ; 
 Liberty without Law only license. Law without 
 Liberty was the better of the two. If we began by 
 disobeying any one law, we should come to violating 
 all laws. 
 
 (2.) We must obey it to preserve the Union : with- 
 out the Fugitive Slave Law, the Union would have 
 been dissolved ; if it were not obeyed it would also 
 be dissolved, and then he did not know what would 
 become of the cause of Human Freedom, and Hu- 
 man Rights. 
 
 Then Rev. George E. Ellis of Charlestown spoke. 
 He would not have the Conference pass any resolu- 
 tions ; he stood on the first Principles of Congrega- 
 tionalism, — that the minister was not responsible to 
 his brothers, but to himself and his God. So the 
 brethren have no right to come here and discuss and 
 condemn the opinions or the conduct of a fellow 
 minister. We cannot bind one another; we have 
 no right to criticize and condemn. 
 
 Next he declared his hatred of the Fugitive Slave 
 Bill. If we must either keep it or lose the Union, 
 he said, " Perish the Union." He had always said 
 so, and preached so. 
 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE. 7 
 
 After Mr. Ellis, Mr. Parker also spoke as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I am one of 
 those that laughed with the rest, and incurred the 
 displeasure of Dr. Gannett. It was not from light- 
 ness however ; I think no one will accuse me of that. 
 I am earnest enough ; so much so as to be grim. 
 Still it is natural even for a grim man to laugh some- 
 times; and in times like these I am glad we can 
 laugh. 
 
 I am glad my friend, Mr. Ellis, said the brethren 
 had no right here to criticize and condemn the opin- 
 ions of one of their members: but I wish he and 
 they had come to this opinion ten years ago. I 
 should have been a gainer by it ; for this is the first 
 time for nine years that I have attended this Confer- 
 ence without hearing something which seemed said 
 with the intention of insulting me. I will not say 
 I should have been in general a happier man if Mr. 
 Ellis's advice had been followed ; nay if he had 
 always followed it himself; but I should have sat with 
 a little more comfort in this body if they had thought 
 I was not responsible to them for my opinions. 
 
 Lam glad also to hear Dr. Gannett say we have 
 no right to attribute improper motives to any one 
 who differs from us in opinion. It was rather gra- 
 tuitous, however ; no man has done it here to-day. 
 But it is true, no man has a right thus to "judge 
 another." But I will remind Dr. Gannett that a 
 
. SPEECH AT THE 
 
 few years ago, he and I differed in opinion on a cer- 
 tain matter of considerable importance, and after 
 clearly expressing om- difference, I said : " Well, 
 there is an honest difference of opinion between us," 
 and he said : " Not an honest difference of opinion, 
 Brother Parker," for he called me " Brother " then, 
 and not " ]VIr." as since, and now, when he has pub- 
 licly said he cannot take my hand fraternaUi/. Still 
 there was an honest difference of opinion on his part 
 as well as mine. 
 
 ]\Ir. Osgood apologizes for Dr. Dewey ; — that is, 
 he defends his motives. I am glad he does not un- 
 dertake to defend his conduct, only to deny that he 
 [Dr. Dew^ey] uttered the words alleged. But I am 
 sorry to say that I cannot agree with Mr. Osgood in 
 his defence. I do not believe a word of it to be 
 true : I have evidence enough that he said so. 
 
 Mr. Gannett in demanding obedience to the 
 Fugitive Slave Law made two points, namely ; if 
 it be not obeyed, first, we shall violate all human 
 laws ; and next, there will be a dissolution of the 
 Union. 
 
 Let me say a word of each. But first let me say 
 that I attribute no unmanly motive to Mr. Gannett. 
 
 1 thought him honest when he denied that I was ; I 
 think him honest now. I know him to be conscien- 
 tious, laborious, and self-denying. I think he would 
 sacrifice himself for another's good. I wish he could 
 now sink through the floor for two or three minutes. 
 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE. \) 
 
 that I might say of him absent yet more of honora- 
 ble praise, which I will not insult him with or ad- 
 dress to him while before my face. Let me only say 
 this, that if there be any men in this Conference who 
 honor and esteem Dr. Gannett, I trust I am second 
 to none of them. But I do not share his opinions 
 nor partake of his fears. His arguments for obeying 
 the Fugitive Slave Law, (ab inconvenienti) I think 
 are of no value. 
 
 If we do not obey this law, he says, we shall diso- 
 bey all laws. It is not so. There is not a country 
 in the world where there is more respect for human 
 laws than in New England ; nowhere more than in 
 Massachusetts. Even if a law is unpopular, it is 
 not popular to disobey it. Our courts of justice are 
 popular bodies, nowhere are Judges more respected 
 than in New England. No officer, constable or 
 sheriff, hangman or jail-keeper, is unpopular on ac- 
 count of his office. Nay, it is popular to inform 
 against your neighbor when he violates the law of 
 the land. This is not so in any other country of the 
 Christian world ; but the informer is infamous every- 
 where else. 
 
 Why are we thus loyal to law ? First, because 
 we make the laws ourselves, and for ourselves ; and 
 next, because the laws actually represent the Con- 
 science of the People, and help them keep the laws 
 of God. The value of human laws is only this — 
 to conserve the Great Eternal Law of God ; to ena- 
 
10 SPEECH AT THE 
 
 ble US to keep that ; to hinder us from disobeying 
 that. So long as laws do this we should obey 
 them ; New England will be loyal to such laws. 
 
 But the fuo^itive slave law is one which contradicts 
 the acknowledged precepts of the Christian religion, 
 universally acknowledged. It violates the noblest 
 instincts of humanity ; it asks us to trample on the 
 Law of God. It commands what Nature, Religion, 
 and God alike forbid ; it forbids what Nature, Relig- 
 ion, and God alike command. It tends to defeat 
 the object of all just human law; it tends to annihi- 
 late the observance of the Law of God. So faith- 
 ful to God, to Religion, to Human Nature, and in 
 the name of Law itself, we protest against this par- 
 ticular statute, and trample it under our feet. 
 
 Who is it that oppose the fugitive slave law? 
 Men that have always been on the side of " law and 
 order," and do not violate the statutes of men for 
 their own advantage. This disobedience to the fu- 
 gitive slave law is one of the strongest guaranties 
 for the observance of any just law. You cannot 
 .trust a people who will keep law, because it is latu ; 
 nor need we distrust a people that will only keep a 
 law when it is just. The fugitive slave law itself, 
 if obeyed will do more to overturn the power of hu- 
 man law, than all disobedience to it — the most 
 complete. 
 
 Then as to dissolution of the Union. I [have] 
 thought if any State wished to go, she had a natural 
 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE. 11 
 
 right to do so. But what States wished to go ? 
 Certainly not New England : by no means. Massa- 
 chusetts has always been attached to the Union, — 
 has made sacrifices for it. In 1775, if she had said, 
 " There shall be no Revolution," there would have 
 been none. ^ But she furnished nearly half the 
 soldiers for the war, and more than half of the 
 money. In '87, if Massachusetts had said, " Let 
 there be no Union ! " there would have been none. 
 It was with difficulty that Massachusetts assented 
 to the Constitution. But that once formed, she has 
 adhered to it; faithfully adhered to the Union. When 
 has Massachusetts failed in allegiance to it? No 
 man can say. There is no danger of a dissolution 
 of the Union ; the men who make the cry know 
 that it is vain and deceitful. You cannot drive us 
 asunder; — just yet. 
 
 But suppose that was the alternative : that we 
 must have the fugitive slave law, or dissolution. 
 Which were the worst ; which comes nearest to the 
 law of God which we all are to keep. It is very 
 plain. Now for the first time since '87, many men 
 of Massachusetts calculate the value of the Union. 
 What is it worth ? Is it worth to us so mvich as 
 Conscience ; so much as Freedom ; so much as alle- 
 giance to the Law of God? let any man lay his 
 hand on his heart and say, " I will sacrifice all these 
 for the union of the thirty States ? For my own 
 part, I would rather see my own house burnt to the 
 
12 ' SPEECH AT THE 
 
 ground, and my family thrown, one by one, amid the 
 blazing rafters of my own roof, and I myself be 
 thrown in last of all, rather than have a single fugi- 
 tive slave sent back as Thomas Sims was sent 
 back. Nay, I should rather see this Union " dis- 
 solved," till there was not a territory so large as the 
 county of Suffolk I Let us lose every thing but 
 fidelity to God. 
 
 Mr. Osgood reflects on me for my sermons ; they 
 are poor enough. You know it if you try to read 
 such as are in print. I know it better than you. 
 But I am not a going to speak honeyed words and 
 prophesy smooth things in times like these, and say, 
 " Peace ! Peace I when there is no peace I " 
 
 A little while ago we were told we must not 
 preach on this matter of slavery, because it was " an 
 abstraction ; " then because the " North was all 
 right on that subject ; " and then because " we had 
 nothing to do with it," "we must go to Charleston 
 or New Orleans to see it." But now it is a most 
 concrete thing. We see what public opinion is on 
 the matter of slavery ; what it is in Boston ; nay, 
 what it is with members of this Conference. It 
 favors slavery and this wicked law I We need not 
 go to Charleston and New Orleans to see slavery; 
 our own Court House was a barracoon ; our officers 
 of this city were slave hunters, and members of Uni- 
 tarian churches in Boston are kidnappers. 
 
 I have in my church black men, fugitive slaves. 
 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE. 13 
 
 They are the crown of my apostleship, the seal of 
 my ministry. It becomes me to look after their bod- 
 ies in order to " save their souls." This law has 
 brought us into the most intimate connection with 
 the sin of slavery. I have been obliged to take my 
 own parishioners into my house to keep them out of 
 the clutches of the kidnapper. Yes, gentlemen, I 
 have been obliged to do that; and then to keep my 
 doors guarded by day as well as by night. Yes, I 
 have had to arm myself. I have written my ser- 
 mons with a pistol in my desk, — loaded, a cap on 
 the nipple, and ready for action. Yea, with a drawn 
 sword within reach of my right hand. This I have 
 done in Boston ; in the middle of the nineteenth 
 century ; been obliged to do it to defend the [inno- 
 cent] members of my own church, women as well 
 as men I 
 
 You know that I do not like fighting. I am no 
 non-resistant, "that nonsense* never went down 
 with me." But it is no small matter which will 
 compel me to shed human blood. But what could I 
 do ? I was born in the little town where the fight 
 and bloodshed of the Revolution began. The bones 
 of the men who first fell in that war are covered by 
 the monument at Lexington, it is " sacred to Liberty 
 
 * Mr. May of Syracuse afterwards objected to the word non- 
 sense as applied to non-resistance. The phrase was quoted from 
 another member of the Conference, whose eye caught mine 
 while speaking, and suggested his own language. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
14 SPEECH AT THE 
 
 and the Rights of Mankind : " those men fell " in 
 the sacred cause of God and their country." This 
 is the first inscription that I ever read. These men 
 were my kindred. My grandfather drew the first 
 sword in the Revolution ; my fathers fired the first 
 shot ; the blood which flowed there was kindred to 
 this which courses in my veins to-day. Besides that, 
 when I write in my library at home, on the one side 
 of me is the Bible which my fathers prayed over, 
 their morning and their evening prayer, for nearly a 
 hundred years. On the other side there hangs the 
 firelock my grandfather fought with in the old French 
 war, which he carried at the taking of Quebec, 
 which he zealously used at the battle of Lexington, 
 and beside it is another, a trophy of that war, the 
 first gun taken in the Revolution, taken also by my 
 grandfather. With these things before me, these 
 symbols ; with these memories in me, when a parish- 
 ioner, a fugitive from slavery, a woman, pursued by 
 the kidnappers, came to my house, what could I do 
 less than take her in and defend her to the last ? 
 But who sought her life — or liberty ? A parishioner 
 of my Brother Gannett came to kidnap a member 
 of my church ; Mr. Gannett preaches a sermon to 
 justify the fugitive slave law, demanding that it 
 should be obeyed ; yes, calling on his church mem- 
 bers to kidnap mine, and sell them into bondage for- 
 ever. Yet all this while Mr. Gannett calls himself 
 " a Christian," and me an " Infidel ; " his doctrine is 
 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE. 15 
 
 " Christianity," mine is only " Infidelity," " Deism, 
 at the best ! " 
 
 O, my Brothers, I am not afraid of men, I can 
 offend them. I care nothing for their hate, or their 
 esteem. I am not very careful of my reputation. 
 But I should not dare to violate the Eternal Law of 
 God. You have called me " Infidel." Surely I differ 
 widely enough from you in my theology. But 
 there is one thing I cannot fail to trust ; that is the 
 Infinite God, Father of the white man, Father 
 also of the white man's slave. I should not dare vi- 
 olate his Laws come what may come ; — should you ? 
 Nay, I can love nothing so well as I love my 
 God. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 TO COMMEMORATE THE 
 
 RENDITION OF THOMAS SIMS, 
 
 DELIVEKED ON THE FIKST ANNIVERSARY THEREOF, 
 APRIL 12, 1852, 
 
 BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OF VIGILANCE, 
 
 AT THE MELODEON, IN BOSTON. 
 
discourse; 
 
 There are times of private, personal joy and 
 delight, when some good deed has been done, or 
 some extraordinary blessing welcomed to the arms. 
 Then a man stops, and pours out the expression of 
 his heightened consciousness ; gives gladness words ; 
 or else, in manly quietness, exhales to heaven his 
 joy, too deep for speech. Thus the lover rejoices in 
 his young heart of hearts, when another breast beats 
 
 * Rev. Theodore Parker : — 
 
 Dear Sir, — We know that we express the earnest and unan- 
 imous wish of all who listened to your appropriate and eloquent 
 address last Monday, in asking a copy of it for the press. 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Wendell Phillips, 
 Henry I. Bowditch, 
 Timothy Gilbert, 
 John P. Jewett, 
 M. P. Hanson, 
 John M. Spear, 
 Boston, April 15, 1852, 
 
 Committee 
 
 of 
 Arrangements. 
 
20 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 in conscious unison with his own, and two souls are 
 iirst made one ; so a father rejoices, so a mother is 
 filled with delight, her hour of anguish over, when 
 their gladdened eyes behold the new-born daughter 
 or the new-born son. Henceforth the day of newly 
 Tivelcomed love, the day of newly welcomed life, is 
 an epoch of delight, marked for thanksgiving with a 
 white stone in their calends of time, — their day of 
 Annunciation or of Advent, a gladsome anniversary 
 in their lives for many a year. 
 
 When these married mates are grown maturely 
 wed, they rejoice to live over again their early loves, 
 a second time removing the hindrances which once 
 strewed all the way, dreaming anew the sweet pro- 
 phetic dream of early hope, and bringing back the 
 crimson mornings and the purple nights of golden 
 days gone by, which still keep " trailing clouds of 
 glory " as they pass. At their silver wedding, they 
 are proud to see their children's manlyfying face, and 
 remember how, one by one, these olive plants came 
 up about their ever-widening hearth. 
 
 When old and full of memories of earth, their 
 hopes chiefly of heaven now, they love to keep 
 the golden wedding of their youthful joy, chil- 
 dren and children's children round their venerable 
 board. 
 
 Thus the individual man seeks to commemorate 
 his private personal joy, and build up a monument 
 of his domestic bliss. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 21 
 
 So, in the life of a nation, there are proud days, 
 when the people joined itself to some great Idea of 
 Justice, Truth, and Love ; took some step forward 
 in its destiny, or welcomed to national baptism some 
 institution born of its great idea. The anniversa- 
 ries of such events become red-letter days in the al- 
 manac of the nation ; days of rejoicing, till that peo- 
 ple, old and gray with manifold experience, goes the 
 way of all the nations, as of all its men. 
 
 Thus, on the twenty-second of December, all New 
 England thanks God for those poor Pilgrims whose 
 wearied feet first found repose in this great wilder- 
 ness of woods, not broken then. Each year, their 
 children love to gather on the spot made famous 
 now, and bring to mind the ancient deed ; to honor 
 it with speech and song, not without prayers to God. 
 That day there is a springing of New England blood, 
 a beating of New England hearts ; not only here, 
 but wherever two or three are gathered together in 
 the name of New England, there is the memory of 
 the Pilgrims in the midst of them; and among the 
 prairies of the West, along the rivers of the South, 
 far off where the Pacific waits to bring gold to our 
 shores of rock and sand, — even there the annual 
 song of gladness bursts from New England lips. 
 
 So America honors the birth of the nation with a 
 holiday for all the people. Then we look anew at 
 the national idea, reading for the six and seventieth 
 time the programme of our progress, — its first part a 
 
22 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 revolution ; we study our history before and since, 
 bringing back the day of small things, when our 
 fathers went from one kingdom to another people ; 
 we rejoice at the wealthy harvest gathered from the 
 unalienable rights of men, sown in new soil. On 
 that day the American flag goes topmast high ; and 
 men in ships, far off in the silent wilderness of the 
 ocean, celebrate the nation's joyous day. In all the 
 great cities of the Eastern World, American hearts 
 beat quicker then, and thank their God. 
 
 But a few days ago, the Hebrew nation commem- 
 orated its escape out of Egypt, celebrating its Pass- 
 over. Though three and thirty hundred years have 
 since passed by, yet the Israelite remembers that his 
 fathers were slaves in the land of the stranger ; that 
 the Pyramids, even then a fact accomplished and 
 representing an obsolete idea, were witnesses to the 
 thraldom of his race ; and the joy of Jacob trium- 
 phant over the gods of Egypt lights up the Hebrew 
 countenance in the melancholy Ghetto of Rome, as 
 the recollection of the hundred and one Pilgrims 
 deepens the joy of the Calif ornian New Englanders 
 delighting in the glory of their nation, and their own 
 abundant gain. The pillar of fire still goes before 
 the Hebrew, in the long night of Israel's wandering ; 
 and still the Passover is a day of joy and of proud 
 remembrance. 
 
 Every ancient nation has thus its calendar filled 
 with joyful days. The worshippers of Jesus delight 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 23 
 
 in their Christmas and their Easter; the Mahome- 
 tans, in the Hegira of the Prophet. The year-book 
 of mankind is thus marked all the way through with 
 the red-letter days of history. And most beautifully 
 do those days illuminate the human year, commem- 
 orating the victories of the race, the days of triumph 
 which have marked the course of man in his long 
 and varied, but yet triumphant, march of many a^ 
 thousand years. Thereby Hebrews, Buddhists, Chris- 
 tians, Mahometans, men of every form of religion ;; 
 English, French, Americans, men of all nations, — 
 are reminded of the great facts in their peculiar story ;, 
 and mankind learns the lesson they were meant to 
 teach, writ in the great events of the cosmic life of 
 man. 
 
 These things should, indeed, be so. It were wrong^ 
 to miss a single bright day from the story of a man,, 
 a nation, or mankind. Let us mark these days, and 
 be glad. 
 
 But there are periods of sorrow, not less than joy> 
 There comes a shipwreck to the man ; and though 
 he tread the waters under him, and come alive to. 
 land, yet his memory drips with sorrow for many a 
 year to come. The widow marks her time by dat- 
 ing from the day which shore off the better portion 
 of herself, counting her life by years of widowhood, 
 Marius, exiled, hunted after, denied fire and water, a 
 price set on his head, just escaping the murderers and 
 
24 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 the sea, " sitting a fugitive on the ruins of Carthage " 
 which he once destroyed, himself a sadder ruin now, 
 folds his arms and bows his head in manly grief. 
 
 These days also are remembered. It takes long 
 to efface what is written in tears. Forever the father 
 bears the annual wound that rent his child away : 
 fifty years do not fill up the tomb which let a mortal 
 through the earth to heaven. The anniversaries of 
 grief return. At St. Helena, on the eighteenth of 
 every June, how Napoleon remembered the morning 
 and the evening of the day at Waterloo, the begin- 
 ning and the ending of his great despair ! 
 
 So the nations mourn at some great defeat, and 
 hate the day thereof. How the Frenchman detests 
 the very name of Waterloo, and wishes to wipe off 
 from that battle field the monument of earth the 
 allies piled thereon, commemorative of his nation's 
 loss! Old mythologies are true to this feeling of 
 mankind, when they relate that the spirit of some 
 great man who died defeated comes and relates 
 that he is sad : they tell that — 
 
 " Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow, 
 And Scipio's ghost walks unrevenged amongst us." 
 
 An antique nation, with deep faith in God, looks 
 on these defeats as correction from the hand of 
 Heaven. In sorrow the Jew counts from the day of 
 his Exile, mourning that the city sitteth solitary that 
 was full of people ; that among all her lovers she 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 25 
 
 hath none to comfort her ; that she dwelleth among 
 the heathen and hath no rest. But, he adds, the 
 Lord afflicted her, because of the multitude of her 
 transgressions ; for Jerusalem had greatly sinned. 
 How, in the day of her miseries, the Jew remembers 
 her pleasant things that she had in the days of old ; 
 how her children have swooned from their wounds 
 in the streets of their city, and have jDoured out their 
 soul into their mother's bosom; Jerusalem is ruined, 
 and Judah is forsaken, because their tongue and their 
 doings were against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of 
 his glory ! 
 
 It is well that mother and Marius should mourn 
 their loss ; that Napoleon and the Hebrew should 
 remember each his own defeat. Poets say, that, on 
 the vigil of a fight, the old soldier's wounds smart 
 afresh, bleeding anew. The poet's fancy should be 
 a nation's fact. 
 
 But sometimes a man commits a wrong. He is 
 false to himself, and stains the integrity of his soul. 
 He comes to consciousness thereof, and the shame 
 of the consequence is embittered by remorse for the 
 cause. Thus Peter weeps at his own denial, and 
 Judas hangs himself at the recollection of his treach- 
 ery ; so David bows his penitent forehead, and lies 
 prostrate in the dust. The anniversary of doing 
 wrong is writ with fire on the dark tablets of mem- 
 ory. How a murderer convicted, yet spared in jail, 
 
 VOL. I. 3 
 
26 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 — or, not convicted, still at large, — must remember 
 the day when he first reddened his hand at his broth- 
 er's heart ! ' As the remorseless year brings back the 
 day, the hour, the moment and the memory of the 
 deed, what recollections of ghastly visages come back 
 to him I 
 
 I once knew a New England man who had dealt 
 in slaves ; I now know several such ; but this man 
 stole his brothers in Guinea to sell in America. He 
 was a hard, cruel man, and had grown rich by the 
 crime. But, hard and cruel as he was, at the men- 
 tion of the slave-trade, the poor wretch felt a torture 
 at his iron heart which it was piteous to behold". 
 His soul wrought within him like the tossings of 
 the tropic sea about his ship, deep fraught with hu- 
 man wretchedness. He illustrated the torments of 
 that other " middle passage," not often named. 
 
 Benedict Arnold, successful in his treason, safe, — 
 only Andre hanged, not he, the guilty man, — pen- 
 sioned, feasted, rich, yet hated by all ingenuous 
 souls, not great enough to pity, hateful to himself; 
 how this first great public shame of New England 
 must have remembered the twenty-fifth September, 
 and have lived over again each year the annual trea- 
 son of his heart I 
 
 It is well for men to pause on such days, the an- 
 niversary of their crime, and see the letters which 
 sin has branded in their consciousness come out 
 anew, and burn, even in the scars they left behind. 
 
THE BOSTOiSr KIDNAPPING. 27 
 
 111 sadness, in penitence, in prayers of resolution, 
 should a man mark these days in his own sad calen- 
 dar. They are times for a man to retire within him- 
 self, to seek communion with his God, and cleanse 
 him of the elephantine leprosy his sin has brought 
 upon his soul. 
 
 There are such days in the life of a nation, when 
 it stains its own integrity, commits treason against 
 mankind, and sin against the most high God ; when 
 a proud king, or wicked minister, — his rare power 
 consorting with a vulgar aim, — misled the people's 
 heart, abused the nation's strength, organized ini- 
 quity as law, condensing a world of wicked will into 
 a single wicked deed, and wrought some hideous 
 Bartholomew massacre in the face of the sun. The 
 anniversary of such events is a day of hoiTor and of 
 shivering to mankind ; a day of sorrow to the guilty 
 State which pricks with shame at the anniversary of 
 the deed. 
 
 The twelfth of April is such a day for Boston 
 and this State. It is the first anniversary of a 
 great crime, — a crime against the majesty of Mas- 
 sachusetts law, and the dignity of the Consti- 
 tution of the United States : of a great wrong, — 
 a wrong against you and me, and all of us, 
 against the babe not born, against the nature of 
 mankind ; of a great sin, — a sin against the Law 
 God wrote in human nature, a sin against the Infi- 
 
28 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 nite God. It was a great crime, a great wrong, a 
 great sin, on the side of the American government, 
 which did the deed : on the people's part it was a 
 great defeat ; your defeat and mine. 
 
 Out of the iron house of bondage, a man, guilty 
 of no crime but love of liberty, fled to the people of 
 Massachusetts. He came to us a wanderer, and 
 Boston took him in to an unlawful jail ; hungry, and 
 she fed him with a felon's meat ; thirsty, she gave 
 him the gall and vinegar of a slave to drink ; naked, 
 she clothed him with chains ; sick and in prison, he 
 cried for a helper, and Boston sent him a marshal 
 and a commissioner ; she set him between kidnap- 
 pers, among the most infamous of men, and they 
 made him their slave. Poor and in chains, the gov- 
 ernment of the nation against him, he sent round to 
 the churches his petition for their prayers ; — the 
 churches of commerce, they gave him their curse : 
 he asked of us the sacrament of freedom, in the 
 name of our God; and in the name oi their Trinity, 
 the Trinity of money, — Boston standing as god- 
 mother at the ceremony, — in the name of their God 
 they baptized him a slave. The New England 
 church of commerce said, " Thy name is Slave. I 
 baptize thee in the name of the gold eagle, and of 
 the silver dollar, and of the copper cent." 
 
 This is holy ground that we stand on : godly men 
 laid here the foundation of a Christian Church ; laid 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 29 
 
 it with prayers, laid it with tears, laid it in blood. 
 Noble men laid here the fou]idation of a Christian 
 State, with all the self-denial of New England men ; 
 laid that with prayers, with tears, laid that in 
 blood. They sought a church without a bishop, a 
 state without a king, a community without a lord, 
 and a family without a slave. Yet even here in 
 Massachusetts, w^hich first of American colonies 
 sent forth the idea of "inherent and unalienable 
 rights," and first offered the conscious sacrament of 
 her blood ; here, in Boston, which once was full of 
 manly men who rocked the Cradle of Liberty, — 
 even here the rights of man were of no value and 
 of no avail. Massachusetts took a man from the 
 horns of her altar, — he had fled to her for protection, 
 — and voluntarily gave him up to bondage without 
 end ; did it with her eyes wide open ; did it on pur- 
 pose ; did it in notorious violation of her own law, 
 in consciousness of the sin ; did it after " fasting and 
 prayer." * 
 
 It is well for us to come together, and consider 
 the defeat which you and I have suffered when the 
 rights of man "were thus cloven down, and look at 
 the crime committed by those whom posterity will 
 rank among infidels to Christianity, among the ene- 
 
 * Thg annual day of " fasting and prayer," came between the 
 seizure of Mr. Sims and his rendition ! Boston fasted and made 
 long prayers, and devoured a man's liberty ! 
 
 3* 
 
30 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 mies of man ; it is \vell to commemorate the event, 
 the disgrace of Boston, the perpetual shame and 
 blot of Massachusetts. Yet it was not the People 
 of Massachusetts who did the deed : it was only 
 their government. The officers are one thing; and 
 the people, thank God, are something a little dif- 
 ferent. 
 
 If a deed which so outraged the people had been 
 done by the government of Massachusetts a hundred 
 years ago, there would have been a " Day of Fasting 
 and Prayer," and next a muster of soldiers : one day 
 the people would have thought of their trust in God, 
 and the next looked to it that their powder was dry. 
 Now nobody fasts, save to the eye ; he prays best 
 who, not asking God to do man's work, prays peni- 
 tence, prays resolutions, and then prays deeds, thus 
 supplicating with heart and head and hands. This 
 is a day for such a prayer. The twelfth of last 
 April issued the proclamation which brings us here 
 to-day. 
 
 We have historical precedent for this commemora- 
 tion, if men need such an argument. After the Bos- 
 ton Massacre of the fifth of March, 1770, the people 
 had amuially a solemn commemoration of the event. 
 They had their great and honored men to the pulpit 
 on that occasion : Lovell, child of a tory father, — 
 the son's patriotism brought him to a British jail ; 
 Tudor and Dawes, honorable and honored names ; 
 Thacher, "the young Elijah" of his times; Warren, 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 31 
 
 twice called to that post, but destined soon to perish 
 by a British hand ; John Hancock, — his very name 
 was once the pride and glory of the town. They 
 stood here, and, mindful of their brothers slain in the 
 street not long to bear the name of " King," taught 
 the lesson of liberty to their fellow men. The men- 
 ace of British officers,' their presence in the aisles of 
 the church, the sight of their weapons on the pulpit- 
 stairs, did not frighten Joseph Warren, — not a hire- 
 ling shepherd, though he came in by the pulpit-win- 
 dow, while soldiers crammed the porch. Did they 
 threaten to stop his mouth ? It took bullet and bay- 
 onet both to silence his lips. John Hancock was of 
 eyes too pure to fear the government of Britain. 
 Once, when Boston was in the hands of the enemy 
 of freedom, — I mean the foreign enemy, — the dis- 
 course could not be delivered here; Boston adjourned 
 to Watertown to hear "the young Elijah" ask 
 whether " the rising empire of America shall be an 
 empire of slaves or of free men." But on that day 
 there was another commemoration held hard by ; 
 " one George Washington " discoursed from the 
 " Heights of Dorchester ; " and, soon after, Israel 
 Putnam marched over the Neck, — and there was not 
 a " Red-coat" south of the North End. The March 
 of '76 was not far from the July of '76, when yet 
 another discourse got spoken. 
 
 For twelve years did our fathers commemorate 
 the first blood shed here by soldiers " quartered 
 
32 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 among us without our consent; " yes, until there was 
 not a " Red-coat " left in the land ; and the gloom 
 of the Boston Massacre was forgot in the blaze of 
 American independence ; the murder of five men, in 
 the freedom of two millions. 
 
 The first slave Boston has officially sent back 
 since 1770 was returned a year ago. Let us com- 
 memorate the act, till there is not a kidnapper left in 
 all the North ; not a kidnapper lurking in a lawyer's 
 office in all Boston, or in a merchant's counting- 
 room ; not a priest who profanes his function by 
 flouting at the Higher Law of God ; till there is not 
 a slave in America ; and sorrow at the rendition of 
 Thomas Sims shall be forgotten in the freedom of 
 three million men. Let us remember the Boston 
 Kidnapping, as our fathers kept the memory of the 
 Boston Massacre. 
 
 It is a fitting time to come together. There was 
 once a "dark day" in New England, when the vis- 
 ible heavens were hung with night, and men's faces 
 gathered blackness, less from the sky above than 
 from the fears within. But New England never saw 
 a day so black as the twelfth of April, 1851 ; a day 
 whose Egyptian darkness will be felt for many a 
 year to come. 
 
 New England has had days of misfortune before 
 this, and of mourning at the sin of her magistrates. 
 In 1761, a mean man in a high place in the British 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 33 
 
 Island, thinking that "discussion must be sup- 
 pressed," declared that citizens " are not to demand 
 the reasons of measures ; they must, and they easily 
 may, be taught better manners." The British min- 
 istry decided to tax the colonies without their con- 
 sent. Massachusetts decided to be taxed only with 
 her own consent. The Board of Trade determined 
 to collect duties against the will of the people. The 
 Government insisted ; the mercenaries of the Cus- 
 tom-House in Boston applied for " Writs of Assist- 
 ance," authorizing them to search for smuggled 
 goods where and when they pleased, and to call on 
 the people to help in the matter. The mercenary 
 who filled the Governor's chair favored the outrage. 
 The Court, obedient to power, and usually on the 
 side of prerogative and against the right, seemed 
 ready to pervert the law against Justice. Massa- 
 chusetts felt her liberties in peril, and began the War 
 of Ideas. James Otis, an irregular but brilliant and 
 powerful man from Barnstable and an acute lawyer, 
 resigned his post of Advocate to the Admiralty ; 
 threw up his chance of preferment, and was deter- 
 mined " to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, 
 and even life, to the sacred calls of my country," 
 and in opposition to that kind of power " which cost 
 one King of England his head, and another his 
 throne." 
 
 It was a dark day in Massachusetts when the 
 Writs of Assistance were called for ; when the tal- 
 
34 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 eiits, the fame, the riches, and the avarice of Chief- 
 Justice Hutchinson, the respectability of venerable 
 men, the power of the crown and its officers, were 
 all against the right ; but that brave lawyer stood up, 
 his words " a flame of fire," to demonstrate " that 
 all arbitrary authority was unconstitutional and 
 against the law." His voice rung through the land 
 like a war-psalm of the Hebrew muse. Hutchinson, 
 rich, false, and in power, cowered before the " great 
 incendiary " of New England. John Adams, a 
 young lawyer from Quincy, who stood by, touched 
 by the same inspiration, declared that afterwards he 
 could never read the Acts of Trade without anger, 
 nor " any portion of them without a curse." If the 
 Court was not convinced, the people were. It was 
 a dark day when the Writs of Assistance were called 
 for; but the birthplace of Franklin took the light- 
 ning out of that thundering cloud, and the storm 
 broke into rain which brought forth the green glories 
 of Liberty-tree, that soon blossomed all over in the 
 radiance of the bow of promise set on the departing 
 cloud. The seed from that day of bloom shall sow 
 with blessings all the whole wide world of man. 
 
 There was another dark time when the Stamp 
 Act passed, and the day came for the use of the 
 Stamps, Nov. 1st, 1765. The people of Boston 
 closed their shops ; they muffled and tolled the bells 
 of the churches ; they hung on Liberty-tree the 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPINa. 35 
 
 effigy of Mr. Huske, a New Hampshire traitor of 
 that time, who had removed to London, got a seat 
 in Parliament, and was said to have proposed the 
 Stamp Act to the British minister. Beside him they 
 hung the image of Grenville, the ministerial author 
 of the Act. [n the afternoon, the public cut down 
 the images ; carried them in at cart, thousands fol- 
 lowing to the Town-House, where the Governor 
 and Council were in session ; carried the effigies sol- 
 emnly through the building, and thence to the gal- 
 lows, where, after hanging a while, they were cut 
 down and torn to pieces. All was done quietly, or- 
 derly, and with no violence. Tt was All- Saints- 
 Day : two hundred and forty-eight years before, Mar- 
 tin Luther had* pilloried the Papacy on a church- 
 door at Wittenberg, not knowing what would fall at 
 the sound of his hammer nailing up the Ninety-five 
 Theses. 
 
 Nobody would touch the hated stamps. Mr. Oli- 
 ver, the Secretary of the Province, and " distributor 
 of stamps," had been hanged in effigy before. His 
 stamp-office had already given a name to the sea, 
 " Oliver's Dock " long commemorating the fate of 
 the building. Dismayed by the voice of the people, 
 he resigned his office. Not satisfied with that, the 
 people had him before an immense meeting at Lib- 
 erty-tree ; and at noonday, under the very limb 
 where he had been hung in effigy, before a Justice 
 of the Peace he took an oath that he never would 
 
36 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 take any measures .... for enforcing the Stamp Act 
 in America. Then, with three cheers for liberty, Mr. 
 Oliver was allowed to return home. He ranked as 
 the third crown-officer in the Colony. Where could 
 yon find " one of his Majesty's Justices of the 
 Peace " to administer such an oath before such a 
 " town-meeting " ? A man was found to do that 
 deed, and leave descendants to be proud of it; for, 
 after three generations have passed by, the name of 
 Richard Dana is still on the side of liberty. 
 
 No more of stamps in Boston at that time. In 
 time of danger, it is thought " a good thing to have 
 a man in the house." Boston had provided herself. 
 There were a good many who did not disgrace the 
 name. Amongst others, there was one of such " ob- 
 stinacy and inflexible disposition," said Hutchinson, 
 " that he could never be conciliated by any office or 
 gift whatever." Yet Samuel Adams was " not rich, 
 nor a bachelor." There was another, one John 
 Adams, son of a shoemaker at Quincy, not a whit 
 less obstinate or hard to conciliate with gifts. When 
 he heard Otis in that great argument, he felt "ready 
 to take up arms against the Writs of Assistance." 
 One day, the twenty-second of December of that 
 year, he writes in his journal: " At home with my 
 family, thinking." In due time, something came of 
 his thinking. He wrote, " By inactivity we discover 
 cowardice, and too much respect for the Act." 
 
 The Stamp Act was dead in New England and 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 37 
 
 in all America. Very soon the Ministry were glad 
 to bury their dead. 
 
 It was in such a spirit that Boston met the Writs 
 of Assistance and the Stamp Act. What came of 
 the resistance ? When Parliament came together, 
 the " great commoner " said, — every boy knew the 
 passage by heart when I went to school, — "I re- 
 joice that America has resisted. Three millions of 
 people so dead to all the feelings of liberty as volun- 
 tarily to be slaves, would have been fit instruments 
 to make slaves of all the rest." The Ministry still 
 proposed to put down America by armies. Mr. Pitt 
 said : " America, if she fell, would fall like the strong 
 man. She would embrace the pillars of the state, 
 and pull down the Constitution along with her. But 
 she would not fall." " I would advise," said he, 
 " that the Stamp Act be repealed, absolutely, totally, 
 and immediately ; " " that the reason for the repeal 
 be assigned ; that it was founded on an erroneous 
 principle." Repealed it was, "absolutely, totally, 
 and immediately." 
 
 But the British Ministry still insisted on taxation 
 without representation. Massachusetts continued 
 her opposition. There was a Merchants' Meeting in 
 Boston in favor of freedom. It assembled from time 
 to time, and had a large influence. Men agreed not 
 to import British goods : they would wear their old 
 clothes till they could weave new ones in America, 
 
 VOL. I. 4 
 
38 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 and kill no more lambs till they had abundance of 
 wool. Boston made a non-importation agreement. 
 Massachusetts wrote a " circular letter " to the other 
 colonies, asking them to make common cause with 
 her, — a circular which the king thought " of the 
 most dangerous and factious character." On the 
 seventeenth of June, 1768, the town of Boston in- 
 structed its four representatives, Otis, Gushing, 
 Adams, and Hancock : " It is our unalterable resolu- 
 tion at all times to assert and vindicate our dear and 
 invaluable rights, at the utmost hazard of our lives 
 and fortunes." * This seemed to promise another 
 " seventeenth of June," if the IVIinistry persisted in 
 their course. 
 
 On the fifteenth of May, 1770, she again issued 
 similar instructions. "James I." says the letter of 
 instruction, " more than once laid it down, that, as 
 it was atheism and blasphemy in a creature to dis- 
 pute what the Deity may do, so it is presumptuous 
 and sedition in a subject to dispute what a king may 
 do in the height of his powers." " Good Christians," 
 said he, " will be content with God's will revealed 
 in his word, and good subjects will rest in the king's 
 will revealed in his law." That was the " No Higher 
 Law Doctrine" of the time. See how it went down 
 at Boston in 1770. " Surely," said the people of 
 Boston, in town-meeting assembled, "nothing except 
 
 * Town Kecords of that date. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 39 
 
 the ineffable contempt of the reigning monarch di- 
 verted that indignant vengeance which would other- 
 wise have made his illustrious throne to tremble, and 
 hurled the royal diadem from his forfeit head." * 
 Such was the feeling of Boston towards a govern- 
 ment which flouted at the eternal law of God. 
 
 The people claimed that law was on their side ; 
 even Sir Henry Finch having said, in the time of 
 Charles I., " The king's prerogative stretcheth not to 
 the doing of any wrong." But, Boston said, " Had 
 the express letter of the law been less favorable, and 
 were it possible to ransack up any absurd, obsolete 
 notions which might have seemed calculated to pro- 
 pagate slavish doctrines, we should by no means 
 have been influenced to forego our birthright ; " for 
 " mankind will not be reasoned out of their feelings 
 of humanity." " We remind you, that the further 
 nations recede and give way to the gigantic strides 
 of any powerful despot, the more rapidly will the 
 fiend advance to spread wide desolation." " It is now 
 no time to halt between two opinions." " We enjoin 
 you at all hazards to deport . . . like the faithful rep- 
 resentatives of a free-born, awakened, and deter- 
 mined people, who, being impregnated with the spirit 
 of liberty in conception, and nurtured in the princi- 
 ples of freedom from their infancy, are resolved to 
 breathe the same celestial ether, till summoned to 
 
 * Town Records. 
 
40 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 resign the heavenly flame by that omnipotent God 
 who gave it." That was the language of Boston in 
 in 1770.* 
 
 True there were men who took the other side; 
 some of them from high and honorable convictions ; 
 others from sordid motives ; some from native big- 
 otry and meanness they could not help. But the 
 mass of the people went for the rights of the people. 
 It was not a mere matter of dollars and cents that 
 stirred the men of Massachusetts then. True the 
 people had always been thrifty, and looked well to 
 the " things of this world." But threepence duty on 
 a pound of tea, six farthings on a gallon of molasses, 
 was not very burdensome to a people that had a 
 school before there was any four-footed beast above 
 a swine in the colony, — a people that once taxed 
 themselves thirteen shillings and eight pence in a 
 pound of income ! It was the principle they looked 
 at. They would not have paid three barley-corns on 
 a hogshead of sugar, and admit the right of Parlia- 
 ment to levy the tax. This same spirit extended to 
 the other colonies : Virginia and Massachusetts 
 stood side by side ; New York with Boston. 
 
 It was a dark day for New England when the 
 Stamp Act became a law ; but it was a much darker 
 day w^hen the Fugitive Slave Bill passed the Con- 
 
 * Town Records. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 41 
 
 gress of the United States. The Acts of Trade and 
 the Stamp Act were the work of foreign hands, of 
 the ministers of England, not America. A traitor 
 of New Hampshire was thought to have originated 
 the Stamp Act ; but even he did not make a speech 
 in its favor. The author of the Act was never within 
 three thousand miles of Boston. But the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill was the work of Americans ; it had its 
 great support from another native of New Hamp- 
 shire ; it got the vote of the member for Boston, who 
 faithfully represented the money which sent him 
 there ; though, God be thanked, not the men ! 
 
 When the Stamp Act came to be executed in 
 Boston, the ships hung their flags at half-mast ; the 
 shops were shut, the bells were tolled ; ship, shop, 
 and church all joining in a solidarity of affliction, in 
 one unanimous lament. But, when the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill came to Boston, the merchants and poli- 
 ticians of the city fired a hundred guns at noonday, 
 in token of their joy I How times have changed! 
 In 1765, when Huske of New Hampshire favored 
 the Stamp Act, and Oliver of Boston accepted the 
 office of distributor of stamps, the people hung their 
 busts in effigy on Liberty-tree ; Oliver must ignomin- 
 iously forswear his office. After two of the Massa- 
 chusetts delegation in Congress had voted for the 
 Missouri Compromise in 1819, when they came back 
 to Boston, they were hissed at on ' Change, and were 
 both of them abhorred for the deed which spread 
 4* 
 
42 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 slavery west of the great river. To this hour their 
 names are hateful all the way from Boston to Lanes- 
 boro'. But their children are guiltless : let us not 
 repeat the fathers' name. But what was the Stamp 
 Act or the Missoviri Compromise to the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill ! One was looking at a hedge, the other 
 stealing the sheep behind it. Yet when the repre- 
 sentative of the money of Boston, who voted for 
 the bill, returned, he was flattered and thanked by 
 two classes of men ; — by those whom money makes 
 " respectable " and prominent ; by those whom love 
 of money makes servile and contemptible. When 
 he resigned his place, Boston sent another, with the 
 command, " Go thou and do likewise ; " and he has 
 just voted again for the Fugitive Slave Bill, — he 
 alone of all the delegation of Massachusetts. 
 
 The Stamp Act levied a tax on us in money, and 
 Boston would not pay a cent, hauled down the flags, 
 shut up the shops, tolled the church-bells, hung its 
 authors in effigy, made the third officer of the crown 
 take oath not to keep the law, cast his stamp-shop 
 into the sea. The Slave Act levied a tax in men, 
 and Boston fired a hundred guns, and said, " We 
 are ready; we will catch fugitives for the South. It 
 is a dirty work, too dirty for any but Northern hands ; 
 but it will bring us clean money." Ship, shop, and 
 church seemed to feel a solidarity of interest in the 
 measure ; the leading newspapers of the town were 
 full of glee. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 43 
 
 The Fugitive Slave Bill became a law on the 
 eighteenth of September, 1850. Eighty-five years 
 before that date, there was a town-meeting in Bos- 
 ton, at which the people instructed their representa- 
 tives in the General Assembly of Massachusetts. It 
 was just after the passage of the Stamp Act. Bos- 
 ton told her servants " by no means to join in any 
 measures for countenancing and assisting in the exe- 
 cution of the same [the Stamp Act] ; but to use 
 your best endeavors in the General Assembly to have 
 the inherent and unalienable rights of the people of 
 this Province asserted, vindicated, and left upon the 
 public record, that posterity may never have reason 
 to charge the present times with the guilt of tamely 
 giving them away." * 
 
 It was " voted unanimously that the same be 
 accepted." This is the earliest use of the phrase 
 "inherent and unalienable rights of the people" 
 which I have yet found. It has the savor of .Tames 
 Otis, who had " a tongue of flame and the inspiration 
 of a seer." It dates from Boston, and the eighteenth 
 day of September, eighty-five years before the pas- 
 sage of the Fugitive Slave Bill. In 1850 where was 
 the town-meeting of '65? James Otis died without 
 a son ; but a different man sought to " fence in " the 
 Slave Act, and fence men from their rights.f 
 
 * Town Records. f Hon. Harrison Gray Otis. 
 
44 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 The passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill was a sad 
 event to the colored citizens of the State. At that 
 time there were 8,975 persons of color in Massachu- 
 setts. In thirty-six hours after the passage of the 
 bill was known here, fiv^ and thirty colored persons 
 applied to a well-known philanthropist in this city for 
 counsel.* Before sixty hours passed by, more than 
 forty had fled. The laws of Massachusetts could not 
 be trusted to shelter her own children : they must 
 flee to Canada. " This arm, hostile to tyrants," says 
 the motto of the State, " seeks rest in the enjoyment 
 of liberty." Then it ought to have been changed, 
 and read, " This arm, once hostile to tyrants, confed- 
 erate with them now, drives off her citizens to for- 
 eign climes of liberty." 
 
 The word " commissioner " has had a traditional 
 hatred ever since our visitation by Sir Edmund 
 Andros ; it lost none of its odious character when 
 it became again incarnate in a kidnapper. With 
 Slave Act commissioners to execute the bill, with 
 such " ruling " as we have known on the Slave Act 
 bench, such swearing by " witnesses " on the slave 
 stand, any man's freedom is at the mercy of the kid- 
 napper and his "commissioned" attorney. The one 
 can manufacture " evidence " or " enlarge " it, the 
 other manufacture "law;" and, wdth such an admin- 
 
 * Mr. Francis Jackson. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 45 
 
 istration and such creatures to serve its wish, what 
 colored man was safe ? Men in peril have a keen 
 instinct of their danger; the dark -browed mothers in 
 Boston, they wept like Rachel for her first-born, 
 refusing to be comforted. There was no comfort for 
 them save in flight : that must be not in the winter, 
 but into the winter of Canada, which is to the Afri- 
 can what our rude climate is to the goldfinch and the 
 canary-bird. 
 
 Some of the colored people had acquired a little 
 property; they got an honest living; had wives and 
 children, and looked back upon the horrors of sla- 
 very, which it takes a woman's affectionate genius 
 to paint, as you read her book ; looked on them as 
 things for the memory, for the imagination, not as 
 things to be suffered again. But the Fugitive Slave 
 Bill said to every black mother, " This may be your 
 fate ; the fate of your sons and your daughters." It 
 was possible to all ; probable to many ; certain to 
 some, unless they should flee. 
 
 It was a dark bill for them ; but the blackness of 
 the darkness fell on the white men. The colored 
 men were only to bear the cross ; the whites made 
 it. I would take the black man's share in suffering 
 the Slave Act, rather than the white man's sin in 
 making it ; ay, as I would rather take Hancock's 
 than Huske's share of the history of the Stamp Act. 
 This wicked law has developed in the Africans some 
 of the most heroic virtues : in the Yankee it has 
 
46 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 brought out some of the most disgraceful examples 
 of meanness that ever dishonored mankind. 
 
 The Boston Massacre, — you know what that 
 was, and how the people felt when a hireling soldiery, 
 sent here to oppress, shot down the citizens of Bos- 
 ton on the fifth of March, 1770. Then the blood of 
 America flowed for the first time at the touch of 
 British steel. But that deed was done by foreigners ; 
 thank God, they were not Americans born ; done by 
 hirelings, impressed into the army against their will, 
 and sent here without their consent. It was done in 
 hot blood ; done partly in self-defence, after much 
 insult and wrong. The men who fired the shot 
 were brought to trial. The great soul of John 
 Adams stood up to defend them, Josiah Quincy 
 aiding the unpopular work. A Massachusetts jury 
 set the soldiers free, — they only obeyed orders, the 
 soldier is a tool of his commander. Such was the 
 Boston Massacre. Yet hear how John Hancock 
 spoke on the fourth anniversary thereof, when passion 
 had had time to pass away : — 
 
 " Tell me, ye bloody butchers ! ye villains high 
 and low! ye wretches who contrived, as well as you 
 who executed, the inhuman deed ! do you not feel 
 the goads and stings of conscious guilt pierce 
 through your savage bosoms ? Though some of 
 you may think yourselves exalted to a height that 
 bids defiance to the arms of human justice, and 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 47 
 
 others shroud yourselves beneath the mask of hypoc- 
 risy, and build your hopes of safety on the low arts 
 of cunning, chicanery, and falsehood ; yet do you 
 not sometimes feel the gna^\dngs of that worm 
 which never dies ? Do not the injured shades of 
 Maverick, Gray, Caldwell, Attucks, and Carr, attend 
 you in your solitary walks, arrest you even in the 
 midst of your debaucheries, and fill even your dreams 
 with terror ? 
 
 " Ye dark, designing knaves ! ye murderers ! par- 
 ricides ! how dare you thread upon the earth which 
 has drank in the blood of slaughtered innocents, 
 shed by your wicked hands ? How dare you breathe 
 that air which wafted to the ear of Heaven the 
 groans of those who fell a sacrifice to your ac- 
 cursed ambition ? But if the laboring earth doth 
 * not expand her jaws ; if the air you breathe is not 
 commissioned to be the minister of death ; yet 
 hear it, and tremble ! the eye of Heaven penetrates 
 the darkest chambers of the soul ; traces the lead- 
 ing clue through all the labyrinths which your in- 
 dustrious folly has devised ; and you, however you 
 may have screened yourselves from human eyes, 
 must be arraigned, must lift your hands, red with the 
 blood of those whose deaths you have procured, at 
 the tremendous bar of God." 
 
 But the Boston kidnapping was done by Boston 
 men. The worst of the kidnappers were natives of 
 the spot. It was done by volunteers, not impressed 
 
48 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 to the work, but choosing their profession, — loving 
 the wages of sin, — and conscious of the loathing, 
 and the scorn they are all sure to get, and bequeathe to 
 their issue. They did it deliberately ; it was a cold- 
 blooded atrocity : they did it aggressively, not in self- 
 defence, but in self-degradation. They did it for 
 their pay : let them have it ; verily, they shall have 
 their reward. 
 
 When the Fugitive Slave Bill became a law, it 
 seems to me the Governor ought to have assembled 
 the Legislature ; that they should have taken ade- 
 quate measures for protecting the eight thousand 
 nine hundred and seventy-five persons thus left at the 
 mercy of any kidnapper ; that officers should have 
 been appointed, at the public cost, to defend these 
 helpless men, and a law passed, punishing any one 
 who should attempt to kidnap a man in this Com- 
 monwealth. Massachusetts should have done for 
 Justice what South Carolina has long ago done for 
 injustice. But Massachusetts had often seen her 
 citizens put into the jails of the North, for no crime 
 but their complexion, and looked on "with a drowsy 
 yawn. Once, indeed, she did send two persons, one 
 to Charleston and the other to New Orleans, to 
 attend to this matter : both of them were turned out 
 of the South with insult and contempt. After that, 
 Massachusetts did nothing ; the Commonwealth did 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 49 
 
 nothing ; the Commonwealth did not even scold : 
 she sat mute as the symbolic fish in the State 
 House, The Bay State turned non-resistant; — 
 " passive obedience " should have been the motto 
 then. So, when a bill was passed, putting the liberty 
 of her citizens at the mercy of a crew of legalized 
 kidnappers, the Governor of Massachusetts did noth- 
 ing, Boston fired her hundred guns under the very 
 eyes of John Hancock's house ; her servile and her 
 rich men complimented their representative for voting 
 away the liberty of nine thousand of her fellow- 
 citizens. Was Boston Massachusetts ? It is still 
 the Governor. 
 
 As the Government of Massachusetts did nothing, 
 the next thing would have been for the People to 
 come together in a great mass meeting, and decree, 
 as their fathers had often done, that so unjust a law 
 should not be kept in the old Bay State, and appoint 
 a committee to see that no man was kidnapped and 
 carried off; and, if the kidnappers still insisted on 
 kidnapping our brothers here in Massachusetts, the 
 people could have found a way to abate that nui- 
 sance as easily as to keep off the stamped paper in 
 1765. The commissioners of the Slave Act might 
 as easily be dealt with as the commissioners of the 
 Stamp Act. 
 
 I love law, and respect law, and should be slow to 
 violate it. I would suffer much, sooner than violate 
 a statute that was simply inexpedient. There is no 
 
 VOL. I. 5 
 
50 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 natural reason, perhaps, for limiting the interest of 
 money to sLx per cent. ; but as the law of Massa- 
 chusetts forbids more, I would not take more. I 
 should hate to interrupt the course of law, and put 
 violence in its place. 
 
 " The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds, 
 Is yet no devious way. Straightforward goes 
 The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path 
 Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies, and rapid; 
 Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. 
 My son ! the road the human being travels, — 
 That on which blessing comes and goes, — doth follow 
 The river's course, the valley's playful windings ; 
 Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines. 
 Honoring the holy bounds of property ! 
 And thus secure, though late, leads to its end." 
 
 But when the rulers have inverted thek function, 
 and enacted wickedness into a law which treads 
 down the unalienable rights of man to such degree 
 as this, then I know no ruler but God, no law but 
 natural Justice. I tear the hateful statute of kidnap- 
 pers to shivers ; I trample it underneath my feet. I 
 do it in the name of all law ; in the name of Justice 
 and of Man ; in the name of the dear God. 
 
 But of ail this nothing was done. The Governor 
 did not assemble the Legislature, as he would if a 
 part of the property in Massachusetts had thus been 
 put at the mercy of legalized ruffians. There was 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 51 
 
 no convention of the people of Massachusetts. True, 
 there was a meeting at Faneuil Hall, a meeting 
 chiefly of anti-slavery men ; leading Freesoilers were 
 a little afraid of it, though some of them came hon- 
 orably forward. A venerable man put his name at 
 the head of the signers of the call, and wrote a 
 noble-spirited letter to the meeting ; Josiah Quincy 
 was a Faneuil Hall name in 1850, as well as in 
 1765. It was found a little difficult to get what in 
 Boston is called a " respectable " man to preside. 
 Yet one often true sat in the chair that night, — 
 Charles F. Adams did not flinch, when you wanted 
 a man to stand fire. A brave, good minister, Avhose 
 large soul disdains to be confined to sect or party, 
 came in from Cambridge, and lifted up his voice to 
 the God who brought up Israel out of the iron house 
 of bondage, and our fathers from thraldom in a 
 strange land ; thanking Him who created all men in 
 His own image, and of one blood. Charles Lowell's 
 prayer for all mankind will not soon be forgotten. 
 The meeting was an honor to the men who com- 
 posed it. The old spirit was there ; philanthropy, 
 which never fails ; justice, that is not weary with 
 continual defeat ; and faith in God, which is sure to 
 triumph at the last. But what a reproach was the 
 meeting to Boston ! " Respectability " was deter- 
 mined to kidnap. 
 
 At that meeting a Committee of Vigilance was 
 appointed, and a very vigilant committee it has 
 
52 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 proved itself, having saved the liberty of three or 
 four hundred citizens of Boston. Besides, it has 
 done many things not to be spoken of now. I 
 know one of its members who has helped ninety -five 
 fugitives out of the United States. It would not be 
 well to mention his name, — he has "levied war" 
 too often, — the good God knows it.* 
 
 Other towns in the State did the same thing. 
 Vigilance Committees got on foot in most of the 
 great towns, in many of the small ones. In some 
 places, all the people rose up against the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill ; the whole town a vigilance committee. 
 The country was right ; off of the pavement. Lib- 
 erty was the watchword ; on the pavement, it was 
 Money. But the Government of Massachusetts did 
 nothing. Could the eight thousand nine hundred 
 and seventy-five colored persons affect any election ? 
 Was their vote worth bidding for ? 
 
 The controlling men of the Whig party and of the 
 Democratic party, they cither did nothing at all, or 
 else went over in favor of kidnapping ; some of them 
 had a natural proclivity that way, and went over 
 " with alacrity." 
 
 The leading newspapers in the great towns, — 
 they, of course, went on the side of inhumanity, 
 with few honorable exceptions. The political pa- 
 pers thought kidnapping would " save the Union ; " 
 
 * It is not vet safe to mention his name. Feb. 22, 1855 ! 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 53 
 
 the commercial papers thought it would " save 
 trade," the great object for which the Union was 
 established. 
 
 How differently had Massachusetts met the Acts 
 of Trade and the Stamp Act ! How are the mighty 
 fallen ! Yet, if you could have got their secret bal- 
 lot, I think fifteen out of every twenty voters, even 
 in Boston, would have opposed the law. But the 
 leading politicians and the leading merchants were 
 in favor of the bill, and the execution of it. 
 
 There are two political parties in America : one of 
 them is very large and well organized ; that is the 
 Slave-soil party. It has two gi-eat subdivisions ; one 
 is called Whig, the other Democratic : together they 
 make up the great national Slave-soil party. It was 
 the desire of that party to extend slavery ; making a 
 national sin out of a sectional cvirse. They wished 
 to " reannex " Massachusetts to the department of 
 slave soil, and succeeded. We know the history of 
 that party : who shall tell the future of its opponent ? 
 There will be a to-morrow after to-day. 
 
 The practical result was what the leading men of 
 Boston desired : soon we had kidnappers in Boston. 
 Some ruffians came here from Georgia, to kfdnap 
 William and Ellen Craft. Among them came a 
 jailer from Macon, a man of infamous reputation, 
 and character as bad as its repute ; notoriously a 
 cruel man, and hateful on that account even in Geor- 
 5* 
 
54 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 gia. In the handbills, his face was described as 
 " uncommon bad." It was worthy of the description. 
 I saw the face ; it looked like total depravity incar- 
 nate in a born kidnapper. He was not quite wel- 
 come in Boston ; Massachusetts had not then 
 learned to " conquer her prejudices," yet he found 
 friends, got " a sort of a lawyer " to help him kid- 
 nap a man and his wife : a fee will hire such men 
 any day. He was a welcome guest at the United 
 States Hotel, which, however, got a little tired of his 
 company, and warned him off'. The commissioner 
 first applied to for aid in this business seemed to ex- 
 hibit some signs of a conscience, and appeared a lit- 
 tle averse to stealing a man. The Vigilance Com- 
 mittee put their eye on the kidnapper : he was glad 
 to escape out of Boston with a whole skin. He 
 sneaked off in a private way ; went back to Georgia ; 
 published his story, partly true, false in part ; got 
 into a quarrel in the street at Macon, — I traced out 
 his wriggling trail for some distance back, — it was 
 not the first brawl he had been in ; was stabbed to 
 what is commonly called " the heart," and fell un- 
 mistakably dead. Some worthy persons had told 
 him, if he went to Boston, he would " rot in a Mas- 
 sachusetts jail;" others, that they "hoped it would 
 turn out so, for such an errand deserved such an 
 end." Poor men of Georgia I they knew the Boston 
 of 1765, not of 1850 ; — the town of the Stamp Act, 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 55 
 
 ruled by Select Men ; not the city of the Slave Act, 
 ruled by a " Mayor." Hughes came to save the 
 « Union ! " 
 
 That time the kidnappers went off without their 
 prey. Somebody took care of Ellen Craft, and Wil- 
 liam took care of himself. They were parishioners 
 of mine. Mr. Craft was a tall, brave man ; his 
 countrymen, not nobler than he, were once bishops 
 of Hippo and of Carthage. He armed himself, 
 pretty well too. I inspected his weapons : it was 
 rather new business for me ; New England ministers 
 have not done much in that line since the Revolu- 
 tion. His powder had a good kernel, and he kept it 
 dry ; his pistols were of excellent proof, the barrels 
 true and clean ; the trigger went easy ; the caps 
 would not hang fire at the snap. I tested his pon- 
 iard ; the blade had a good temper, stiff enough, yet 
 springy withal ; the point was sharp. There was no 
 law for him but the Law of Nature ; he was armed 
 and equipped " as that law directs." He walked the 
 the streets boldly ; but the kidnappers did not dare 
 touch him. Some persons offered to help Mr. Craft 
 purchase himself. He said, " I will not give the 
 man two cents for his ' right ' to me. I will buy 
 myself, not with gold, but iron ! " That looked like 
 "levying war," not like conquering his prejudices 
 for liberty I William Craft did not obey " with alac- 
 rity." He stood his ground till the kidnappers had 
 fled ; then he also must flee. Boston was no home 
 
56 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 for him. One of her most eminent ministers had 
 said, if a fugitive came to him, " I would drive him 
 away from my own door." 
 
 William and Ellen Craft were at the " World's 
 Fair," specimens of American manufactures, the 
 working-tools of the South ; a proof of the democ- 
 racy of the American State ; part of the " outward 
 evidences " of the Christianity of the American 
 church. " It is a great country," whence a Boston 
 clergyman would drive William Craft from his 
 door ! America did not compete very well with the 
 European States in articles sent to the Fair. A 
 " reaping machine " was the most quotable thing ; 
 then a " Greek slave " in marble ; next an American 
 slave in flesh and blood. America was the only 
 contributor of slaves : she had the monopoly of the 
 article ; it is the great export of Virginia, — it was 
 right to exhibit a specimen at the World's Fair. 
 Visitors went to Westminster Abbey, and saw the 
 monument of marble which Massachusetts erected 
 to Lord George Howe, and thence to the Crystal 
 Palace to see the man and woman whom Massa- 
 chusetts would not keep from being kidnapped in 
 her Capital. 
 
 In due time came the " Union meeting," on the 
 twenty-sixth day of November, 1850, in Faneuil 
 Hall, in front of the pictures of Samuel Adams and 
 John Hancock, — in the hall which once rocked to 
 the patriotism of James Otis, thundering against 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 57 
 
 Acts of Trade and Writs of Assistance, " more elo- 
 quent than Chatham or Burke." The Union meet- 
 ing was held in the face and eyes of George Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 You remember the meeting. It was rather a 
 remarkable platform ; uniformly " Hunker," but de- 
 cidedly heterogeneous. Yet sin abolishes all his- 
 torical and personal distinctions. Kidnapping, like 
 misery, " makes strange bedfellows." Three things 
 all the speakers on that occasion developed in com- 
 mon : A hearty abhorrence of the Right ; a uniform 
 contempt for the Eternal Law of God ; a common 
 desire to kidnap a man. After all, the platform did 
 not exhibit so strange a medley as it seemed at first : 
 the difference in the speakers was chiefly cutaneous, 
 only skin-deep. The reading and the speaking, the 
 whining and the thundering, were all to the same 
 tune. Pirates, who have just quarrelled about divid- 
 ing the spoil, are of one heart when it comes to 
 plundering and killing a man. 
 
 That was a meeting for the encouragement of 
 kidnapping ; not from the love of kidnapping in it- 
 self, but for the recompense of reward. I will not 
 insult the common sense of respectable men with 
 supposing that the talk about the " dissolution of 
 the Union," and the cry, " The Union is in peril this 
 hour," was any thing more than a stage-trick, which 
 the managers doubtless thought was " well got up." 
 So it was ; but, I take it, the spectators who ap- 
 
58 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 plauded, as well as the actors who gi-imaced, knew 
 that the " lion " was no beast, but only " Simon 
 Snug the joiner." Indeed, the lion himself often 
 told us so. However, I did know two very " re- 
 spectable " men of Boston, who actually believed 
 the Union was in danger ; only two, — but they are 
 men of such incomprehensible exiguity of intellect, 
 that their names would break to pieces if spoken 
 loud. 
 
 Well, the meeting, in substance, told this truth : 
 " Boston is willing ; you may come here, and kidnap 
 any black man you choose. We will lend you the 
 marshal, the commissioner, the tools of perjury, 
 supple courts of law, clergymen to bless the transac- 
 tion, and editors to defend it ! " That was the plain 
 English meaning of the meeting, of the resolutions 
 and the speeches. It was so understood North and 
 South. 
 
 At the meeting itself it w^as declared that the 
 Union was at the last gasp ; but the next morning 
 the political doctors, the " medicine-men " of our 
 mythology, declared the old lady out of danger. 
 She sat up that day, and received her friends. The 
 meeting was " great medicine ; " the crisis was 
 passed. The Fugitive Slave Bill could " be exe- 
 cuted in Boston," where the Writs of Assistance 
 and the Stamp Act had been a dead letter : a man 
 might be kidnapped in Boston any day. 
 
 But the meeting was far from unanimous at the 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 59 
 
 end. At the beginning a manly speech would have 
 turned the majority in favor of the right. In No- 
 vember, 1850, half a dozen rich men might have 
 turned Boston against the wicked law. But their 
 interest lay the other side ; and " where the treasure 
 is, there will the heart be also." Boston is bad 
 enough, but bad only in spots ; at that time the 
 spots showed, and some men thought all Boston 
 was covered with the smallpox of the Union meet- 
 ing : the scars will mark the faces of only a few. I 
 wish I could heal those faces, which will have an 
 ugly look in the eyes of posterity. 
 
 The practical result of the meeting was what it 
 was designed to be : soon we had other kidnappers 
 in Boston. This time they found better friends : 
 like consorteth with like. A certain lawyer's office 
 in Boston became a huckstery of kidnappers' war- 
 rants. Soon the kidnappers had Shadrach in their 
 fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter than before 
 for William and Ellen Craft. But the Lord de- 
 livered him out of their clutch ; and he now sings 
 " God save the Queen," in token of his delivery out 
 of the hands of the kidnappers of " Republican " 
 Babylon. Nobody knows how he was delivered ; 
 the rescue was officially declared " levying war," the 
 rescuers guilty of " treason." But, wonderful to say, 
 after all the violations of law by the Court, and all 
 the browbeating by the attorneys, and all the per- 
 jury and other " amendments and enlargement of 
 
60 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 « 
 
 testimony " by witnesses, not a man was found 
 guilty of any crime. Spite of " Union meetings," 
 there is some respect for Massachusetts law ; spite 
 of judicial attempts to pack a jury, it is still the 
 great safeguard of the people ; spite of preaching, 
 there is some virtue left ; and, though a minister 
 would send back his mother into slavery, a Massa- 
 chusetts jury will not send a man to jail for such an 
 act as that. 
 
 The case of Shadrach was not the last. Kidnap- 
 pers came and kidnappers went : for a long time 
 they got no spoil. I need not tell, must not tell, 
 how they were evaded, or what help came, always 
 in season. The Vigilance Committee did not sleep ; 
 it was in " permanent session " much of the whole 
 winter ; its eyes were in every place, beholding the 
 evil and the good. The Government at Washing- 
 ton did not like this state of things, and stimulated 
 the proper persons, as the keeper of a menagerie in 
 private stirs up the hyenas and the cougars and the 
 wolves, from a safe distance. There was a talk of 
 " Sherman's flying-artillery " alighting at Boston ; 
 but it flew over and settled at Newport, I think. 
 Next there was to be a " garrison of soldiers " to 
 enforce the law ; but the men in buckram did not 
 appear. Then a " seventy-four gun ship was com- 
 "ing," to bombard Southack street, I suppose. Still 
 it was determined that the " Union " was not quite 
 safe ; it was in danger of a " dissolution ; " the 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 61 
 
 " medicine-men " of politics and commerce looked 
 grave. True, the Union had been " saved " again 
 and again, till her " salvation " was a weariness ; 
 she " was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." 
 All winter long, the Union was reported as in a 
 chronic spasm of " dissolution." So the " medicine- 
 men " prescribed : A man kidnapped in Massachu- 
 setts, to be taken at the South ; with one scruple 
 of lawyer, and two scruples of clergyman. That 
 would set the Union on her legs. Boston was to 
 furnish all this medicine. 
 
 It was long before this city could furnish a kid- 
 napped man. The Vigilance Committee parried the 
 blow aimed at the neck of the fugitive. The country 
 was on our side, — gave us money, help, men when 
 needed. The guardians of Boston could not bear 
 the taunt that she had not sent back a slave. New 
 York had been before her ; the " City of Brotherly 
 Love," the home of Penn and Franklin, had assisted 
 in kidnapping ; it went on vigorously under the arm 
 of a judge who appropriately bears the name of the 
 great first murderer. No judge could be better enti- 
 tled ; Kane and kidnapping are names conjurioog 
 well. Should Boston delay ? What a reproach, to 
 the fair fame of her merchants ! The history of Bos- 
 ton was against them ; America has not yet forgotten 
 the conduct of Boston in the matter of the Stamp 
 Act and Acts of Trade. She was deeply guilty of 
 the Revolutionary War ; she still kept its Cradle of 
 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
62 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 Liberty, and the bones of Adams and Hancock, — 
 dangerous relics in any soil ; they ought to have 
 been "sent back" at the passage of the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill, and Faneuil Hall demolished. Bunker 
 Hill Monument was within sight. Boston was sus- 
 pected of not liking to kidnap a man. What a 
 reproach it was to her! — 8,975 colored persons in 
 Massachusetts, and not a fugitive returned from 
 Boston. September passed by, October, November, 
 December, January, February, March ; not a slave 
 sent back in seven months I What a disgrace to the 
 Government of Boston, which longed to steal a man; 
 to the representative of Boston, who had voted for 
 the theft ; to the Union Meeting, which loved the 
 Slave Act; to Mr. Webster, who thought Massachu- 
 setts would obey " with alacrity," — his presidential 
 stock looked down ; to his kidnappers, who had not 
 yet fleshed their fangs on a fugitive. What a re- 
 proach to the churches of commerce, and their 
 pati'on. Saint Hunker ! One minister would drive a 
 fugitive from his door ; another send back his own 
 mother: what was their divinity worth, if, in seven 
 months, they could not convert a single parishioner, 
 and celebrate the sacrament of kidnapping! 
 
 Yet, after all, not a slave went back from old Bos- 
 ton, though more than four hundred fled out of the 
 city fi'om the stripes of America, and got safe to the 
 Cross of England ; not a slave went back from Bos- 
 ton, spite of her representative, her Government, her 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 63 
 
 Union Meeting, and her clerical advice. She would 
 comfort herself against this sorrow, but her heart was 
 faint in her. Well might she say, " The harvest is 
 passed, the winter is ended, and we are not saved." 
 
 Yet the good men still left in Boston, their heart 
 not wholly corrupt with politics and lust of gain, 
 rejoiced that Boston was innocent of the great trans- 
 gression of her sister-cities, and thought of the proud 
 days of old. But wily men came here : it was 
 alleged they came from the South. They went round 
 to the shops of jobbers, to the mills of manufacturers, 
 and looked at large quantities of goods, pretending a 
 desire to purchase to a great amount ; now it was a 
 " large amount of domestics," then " a hundred thou- 
 sand dollars worth of locomotives." " But then," 
 said the wily men, " we do not like to purchase here ; 
 you are in favor of the dissolution of the Union." 
 " Oh, no," says the Northerner ; " not at all." '^ But 
 you hate the South," rejoins the feigned customer. 
 " By no means," retorts the dealer. " But you have 
 not sent back a slave," concludes the customer, " and 
 I cannot trade with you." 
 
 The trick was tried in several places, and suc- 
 ceeded. The story got abroad ; it was reported that 
 " large orders intended for Boston had been sent to 
 New York, on account of the acquiescence of the 
 latter city in the Fugitive Slave Bill." Trade is 
 timid ; gold is a cowardly metal ; how the tinsel 
 trembles when there is thunder in the sky! Em- 
 
64 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 ployers threatened their workmen : " You must not 
 attend anti-slavery meetings, nor speak against the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill. The Union is in imminent 
 danger." 
 
 The country was much more hostile to man-steal- 
 ing than the city : it mocked at the kidnappers. 
 " Let them try their game in Essex county," said 
 some of the newspapers in that quarter. Thereupon 
 commercial and political journals prepared to " cut 
 off the supplies of the country," and " reduce the 
 farmers and mechanics to submission." It was pub- 
 licly advised that Boston should not trade with the 
 obnoxious towns ; nobody must buy shoes at Lynn. 
 In 1774, the Boston Port Bill shut up our harbor : it 
 was a punishment for making tea against the law. 
 But " penurious old Salem," whose enterprise is 
 equalled by nothing but her " severe economy," 
 opened her safe and commodious harbor to the mer- 
 chants of Boston, with no cost of wharfage I But the 
 Boston of 1850 was not equal to the " penurious old 
 Salem" of 1774! 
 
 It was now indispensable that a slave should be 
 sent back. Trade was clamorous ; the administra- 
 tion were urgent ; the administration of Mr. Fillmore 
 was in peril; Mr. Webster's reputation for slave- 
 hunting was at stake; the Union was in danger; 
 even the Marshal's commission was on the point of 
 " dissolution," it is said. A descent was planned 
 upon New Bedford, where the followers of Fox and 
 
,THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 65 
 
 Penn had long hid the outcast. That attempt came 
 to nothing. The Vigilance Committee made a long 
 arm, and " tolled the bell " of Liberty Hall in New 
 Bedford. Yovi remember the ghastly efforts at mirth 
 made by some newspapers on the occasion. " The 
 VigUance Committee knows every thing," said one 
 of the kidnappers. 
 
 It now became apparent that Boston must furnish 
 the victim. But some of the magistrates of Boston 
 thought the Marshal was too clumsy to succeed, and 
 offered him the aid of the city. So, on the night of 
 the third of April, Thomas Sims was kidnapped by 
 two police-officers of Boston, pretending to the by- 
 standers that he was making a disturbance, and to 
 him that he was arrested for theft. He was had into 
 the " Court" of the kidnappers the next morning, 
 charged with being a slave and a fugitive. 
 
 You will ask. How did it happen that Sims did 
 not resist the rutfians who seized him ? He did 
 resist ; but he was a rash, heedless young fellow, 
 and had a most unlucky knife, which knocked at a 
 kidnapper's bosom, but could not open the door. He 
 was very imperfectly armed. He underwent what 
 was called a " trial," a trial without " due form of 
 law;" without a jury, and without a judge ; before a 
 Slave Act Commissioner, who was to receive twice 
 as much for sacrificing a victim as for acquitting a 
 man ! The Slave Commissioner decided that Mr. 
 Sims was a slave. I take it, nobody beforehand 
 6* 
 
66 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 doubted that the decision would be against the man. 
 The commissioner was to receive five dollars more 
 for such a decision. The law was framed with 
 exquisite subtlety. Five dollars is a small sum, very 
 small ; but things are great or little by comparison. 
 
 But, in doing justice to this remarkable provision 
 of the bill, let me do no injustice to the commis- 
 sioner, who decided that a man was not a man, but 
 a thing. I am told that he would not kidnap a man 
 for five dollars; I am told, on good authority, that it 
 would be " no temptation to him." I believe it ; for 
 he also is " a man and a brother." I have heard 
 good deeds of his doing, and believe that he did 
 them. Total depravity does not get incarnated in 
 any man. It is said that he refused both of the fees 
 in this case ; the one for the " examination," and the 
 other for the actual enslaving of Mr. Sims. I believe 
 this also : there is historical precedent on record for 
 casting down a larger fee, not only ten but thirty 
 pieces of silver, likewise " the price of blood," money 
 too base for a Jew to put in the public chest eighteen 
 hundred years ago I 
 
 A noble defence was made for Mr. Sims by three 
 eminent lawyers, Messrs. Charles G. Loring, Robert 
 Rantoul, Jr., and Samuel E. Sewall, all honorable 
 and able men. Their arguments were })roductions 
 of no common merit. But of what use to j^lead 
 law in such a " Court " of the Fugitive Slave Bill ; 
 to appeal to the Constitution, when the statute is 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 67 
 
 designed to thwart justice, and to destroy " the 
 blessings of liberty?" Of what avail to appeal to 
 the natural principles of right before the tool of an 
 administration which denies that there is any law of 
 God higher than the schemes of a politician ? It all 
 came to nothing. A reasonable man would think 
 that the human body and soul were " free papers " 
 from the Almighty, sealed with "the image and 
 likeness of God ; " but, of course, in a kidnapper's 
 " Court," such a certificate is of no value. 
 
 You all know the public account of the kidnap- 
 ping and " trial " of Mr. Sims. What is known to 
 me in private, it is not time to tell : T will tell that to 
 your children ; no ! perhaps your grandchildren. 
 
 You know that the arrest was illegal, the officers 
 of Massachusetts being forbidden by statute to help 
 arrest a fugitive slave. Besides, it appears that they 
 had no legal warrant to make the arrest : they lied, 
 and pretended to arrest him for another alleged 
 offence. He was on " trial " nine days, — arraigned 
 before a Slave Act Commissioner, — and never saw 
 the face of a judge or any judicial officer but once. 
 Before he could be removed to slavery, it was neces- 
 sary that the spirit of the Constitution should be 
 violated ; that its letter should be broken ; that 
 the laws of Massachusetts should be cloven down ; 
 its officers, its courts, and its people, treated with 
 contempt. The Fugitive Slave Bill could only be 
 enforced by the bayonet. 
 
68 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 You remember the aspect of Boston, from the 
 fourth of April till the twelfth. You saw the chains 
 about the Court House ; you saw the police of Bos- 
 ton, bludgeons in their hands, made journeymen kid- 
 nappers against their will. Poor fellows ! I pitied 
 them. I knew their hearts. Once on a terrible 
 time, — it was just as they were taking Mr. Sims 
 from the Court House, a year ago this day, — some- 
 body reproached them, calling them names fitting 
 their conduct, and I begged him to desist ; a poor 
 fellow clutched my arm, and said, " For God's sake, 
 don't scold us : we feel worse than you do ! " But 
 with the money of Boston against them, the leading 
 clergy defending the crime against human nature, 
 the City Government using its brief authority, 
 squandering the treasure of Boston and its intoxicat- 
 ing drink for the same purpose, what could a police- 
 officer or a watchman do but obey orders ? They 
 did it most unwillingly and against their conscience. 
 
 You remember the conduct of the Courts of Mas- 
 sachusetts ; the Supreme Court seemed to love the 
 chains around the Court House ; for one by one the 
 judges bowed and stooped and bent and cringed and 
 curled and crouched down, and crawled under the 
 chains. Who judges justly must himself be free. 
 What could you expect of a court sitting behind 
 chains ; of judges crawling under them to go to their 
 own place ? — the same that you found. It was a 
 very appropriate spectacle, — the Southern chain on 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 69 
 
 the neck of the Massachusetts Court. If the Bay 
 State were to send a man into bondage, it was 
 proper that the Court House should be in chains, 
 and the judges should go under. 
 
 You remember the " soldiers " called out, the cele- 
 brated " Sims Brigade," liquored at Court Square 
 and lodged at Faneviil Hall. Do you remember 
 when soldiers were quartered in that place before ? 
 [t was in 1768, when hireling " regulars " came, 
 slaves themselves, and sent by the British Ministry 
 to " makd slaves of us all ; " to sheathe their swords 
 " in the bowels of their countrymen I " That was a 
 sight for the eyes of John Hancock, — the " Sims 
 Brigade," in Faneuil Hall, called out to aid a Slave 
 Act Commissioner in his attempt to kidnap one of 
 his fellow-citizens ! A man by the name of Samuel 
 Adams drilled the police in the street. Samuel 
 Adams of the old time left no children. We have 
 lost the true names of men ; only Philadelphia keeps 
 one. 
 
 You remember the looks of men in the streets, the 
 crowds that filled up Court Square. Men came in 
 from the country, — came a hundred miles to look 
 on ; some of them had fathers who fought at Lex- 
 ington and Bunker Hill. They remembered the old 
 times, when, the day after the battle of Lexington, a 
 hundred and fifty volunteers, with the firelock at the 
 shoulder, took the road from New Ipswich to Boston. 
 
 You have not forgotten the articles in the news- 
 
70 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 papers, Whig and Democratic both ; the conduct of 
 the " leading " churches you will never forget. 
 
 What an appropriate time that would have been 
 Opr the Canadians to visit the " Athens of America," 
 and see the conduct of the " freest and most enlight- 
 ened people in the world I " If the great Hungarian 
 could have come at that time, he would have under- 
 stood the nature of "our peculiar institutions;" at 
 least of our political men. 
 
 You remember the decision of the Circuit judge, 
 — himself soon to be summoned by death before the 
 Judge who is no respecter of persons, — not allowing 
 the destined victim his last hope, " the great writ of 
 right." The decision left him entirely at the mercy 
 of the other kidnappers. The Court-room was 
 crowded with " respectable people," " gentlemen of 
 property and standing : " they received the decision 
 with " applause and the clapping of hands." Seize 
 a lamb out of a flock, a wolf from a pack of wolves, 
 the lambs bleat with sympathy, the wolves howl 
 with fellowship and fear ; but when a competitor for 
 the Presidency sends back to eternal bondage a poor, 
 friendless negro, asking only his limbs, wealthy gen- 
 tlemen of Boston applaud the outrage. 
 
 *' O judgment ! thou art fled to brutisli beasts, 
 And men have lost their reason ! " 
 
 You remember still the last act in this sad trag- 
 edy, — the rendition of the victim. In the darkest 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 71 
 
 hour of the night of the eleventh and twelfth of 
 April, the kidnappers took him from his jail in Court 
 Square, weeping as he left the door. Two kindly 
 men went and procured the poor shivering boy a few 
 warm garments for his voyage : I will not tell their 
 names; perhaps their charity was "treason," and 
 " levying war." Both of the men were ministers, 
 and had not forgotten the great human word : " Inas- 
 much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
 my brethren, ye have done it unto me." The chief 
 kidnappers surrounded Mr. Sims with a troop of po- 
 licemen, armed with naked swords; that troop was 
 attended by a larger crew of some two hundred 
 policemen, armed with clubs. They conducted him, 
 weeping as he went, towards the water-side ; they 
 passed under the eaves of the old State House, 
 which had rocked with the eloquence of James Otis, 
 and shaken beneath the manly tread of both the 
 Adamses, whom the cannon at the door could not 
 terrify, and whose steps awakened the nation. They 
 took him over the spot where, eighty-one years 
 before, the ground had drunk in the African blood of 
 Christopher Attucks, shed by white men on the fifth 
 of March ; brother's blood which did not cry in vain. 
 They took him by the spot where the citizens of 
 Massachusetts — some of their descendants were 
 again at the place — scattered the taxed tea of Great 
 Britain to the waters and the winds ; they put him 
 
72 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 on board the " Acorn," owned by a merchant of 
 Boston, who, once before, had kidnapped a man on 
 his own account, and sent him off to the perdition 
 of slavery, without even the help of a commissioner ; 
 a merchant to whom it is " immaterial what his chil- 
 dren may say of him I" 
 
 " And this is Massachusetts liberty ! " said the 
 victim of the avarice of Boston. No, Thomas Sims, 
 that was not " Massachusetts liberty ; " it was all 
 the liberty which the Government of Massachusetts 
 wished yon to have ; it was the liberty which the 
 City Government presented you ; it was the liberty 
 which Daniel Webster designed for you. The 
 people of Massachusetts still believe that " all men 
 are born free and equal," and " have natural, essen- 
 tial, and unalienable rights "" of enjoying and de- 
 fending their lives and liberties," " of seeking and 
 obtaining their safety and happiness." Even the 
 people of Boston believe that ; but certain politicians 
 and merchants, to whom it is " immaterial what their 
 children say " of them, — they wished you to be a 
 slave, and it was they who kidnapped you. 
 
 Some of you remember the religious meeting held 
 on the spot, as this new " missionary " went abroad 
 to a heathen land; the prayer put up to Him who 
 made of one blood all nations of the earth ; the 
 hymns sung. They sung then, who never sung be- 
 fore, their " Missionary Hymn : " — 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 73 
 
 " From many a Southern river 
 And field of sugar-cane, 
 They call us to deliver 
 Their land from Slavery's chain." 
 
 On the spot where the British soldiers slew Chris- 
 topher Attucks in 1770, other men of Boston resolved 
 to hold a religious meeting that night. They were 
 thrust out of the hall they had engaged. The next 
 day was the Christian sabbath ; and at night a meet- 
 ing was held in a " large upper room," a meeting for 
 mutual condolence and prayer. You will not soon 
 forget the hymns, the Scriptures, the speeches, and 
 the prayers of that night. This assembly is one of 
 the results of that little gathering. 
 
 Well, all of that you knew before ; this you do 
 not know. Thomas Sims, at Savannah, had a fair 
 and handsome woman, by the courtesy of the master 
 called his " wife." Sims loved his wife ; and, when 
 he came to Boston, wrote, and told her of his hiding- 
 place, the number in the street, and the name of the 
 landlord. His wife had a paramour ; that is a very 
 common thing. The slave is " a chattel personal, to 
 all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever." 
 By the law of Georgia, no female slave owns her 
 own virtue ; single or married, it is all the same. 
 This African Delilah told her paramour of her hus- 
 band's hiding-place. Blame her not : perhaps she 
 thought " the Union is in peril this hour," and wished 
 
 VOL. I. 7 
 
74 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 to save it. Yet I doubt that she would send back 
 her own mother ; the African woman does not come 
 to that ; only a Doctor of Divinity and Chaplain of 
 the Navy. I do not suppose she thought she was 
 doing her husband any harm in telling of his escape ; 
 nay, it is likely that her joy was so full, she could 
 not hold it in. The Philistine had ploughed with 
 Sims's heifer, and found out his riddle : the para- 
 mour told the master Sims's secret ; the master sent 
 the paramom- of Mr. Sims's wife to Boston to bring 
 back the husband! He was very welcome in this 
 city, and got " the best of legal advice " at a cele- 
 brated office in Court street. Boston said, " God 
 speed the paramour ! " the Government of Massa- 
 chusetts, " God speed the crime ! " Money came to 
 the pockets of the kidnappers ; the paramour went 
 home, his object accomplished, and the master was 
 doubtless grateful to the city of Boston, which hon- 
 ored thus the piety of its founders ! 
 
 He was taken back to Georgia in the " Acorn ; " 
 some of the better sort of kidnappers went with him 
 to Savannah ; there Sims was put in jail, and they 
 received a public dinner. You know the reputation 
 of the men : the workmen were worthy of their 
 meat In jail, Mr. Sims was treated with gi-eat 
 severity ; not allowed to see his relatives, not even 
 his mother. It is said that he was tortured every 
 day with a certain number of stripes on his naked 
 back ; that his master once offered to remit part of 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 75 
 
 the cruelty, if he would ask pardon for running 
 away. The man refused, and took the added blows. 
 One day, the jail-doctor told the master that Sims 
 was too ill to bear more stripes. The master said, 
 " Damn him I give him the lashes, if he dies ; " — 
 and the lashes fell. Be not troubled at that ; a slave 
 is only a " chattel personal." Those blows were 
 laid on by the speakers of the Union meeting ; it 
 was only " to save the Union." I have seen a cleri- 
 cal certificate, setting forth that the " owner " of Mr. 
 Sims was an " excellent Christian," and " uncom- 
 monly pious." When a clergyman would send back 
 his own mother, such conduct is sacramental in a 
 layman. 
 
 When Thomas Sims was unlawfully seized, and 
 detained in custody against the law, the Governor of 
 Massachusetts was in Boston ; the Legislature was 
 in session. It seems to me it was their duty to pro- 
 tect the man, and enforce the laws of the State ; but 
 they did no such thing. 
 
 As that failed, it seems to me that the next thing 
 was for the public to come together in a vast multi- 
 tude, and take their brother out of the hands of his 
 kidnappers, and set him at liberty. On the morning 
 of the sixth of March, 1770, the day after the Boston 
 massacre, Faneuil Hall could not hold the town- 
 meeting. They adjourned to the Old South, and 
 demanded ",the immediate removal of the troops;" 
 
76 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 at sundown there was " not a Red-coat in Boston." 
 But the people in this case did no such thing. 
 
 The next thing was for the Vigilance Committee 
 to deliver the man : the country has never forgiven 
 the Committee for not doing it. I am Chairman of 
 the executive committee of the Vigilance Commit- 
 tee ; I cannot now relate all that was done, all that 
 was attempted. I will tell that when the time 
 comes. Yet I think you will believe me when I say 
 the Vigilance Committee did all they could. But 
 see some of the difficulties in their w^ay. 
 
 There was in Boston a large number of crafty, 
 rich, designing, and " respectable " men, who wanted 
 a man kidnapped in Boston, and sent into slavery ; 
 they wanted that for the basest of purposes, — for 
 the sake of money ; they wanted the name of it, the 
 reputation of kidnapping a man. They protected 
 the kidnappers, — foreign and domestic ; egged them 
 on, feasted them. It has been said that fifteen hun- 
 dred men volunteered to escort their victim out of 
 the State ; that some of them are rich men. I think 
 the majority of the middle class of men were in 
 favor of freedom ; but, in Boston, what is a man 
 without money ? and, if he has money, who cares 
 how base his character may be ? You demand 
 moral character only of a clergyman. Some of the 
 richest men were strongly in favor of freedom ; but, 
 alas ! not many, and for the most part they were 
 silent. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. ■ 77 
 
 The City Government of that period I do not like 
 to speak of. It offers to a man, as cool as I am, a 
 temptation to use language which a gentleman does 
 not wish to apply to any descendant of the human 
 race. But that Government, encouraging its thou- 
 sand and five hundred illegal groggeries, and pre- 
 tending a zeal for law, was for kidnapping a man ; 
 so the police-force of the city was unlawfully put to 
 that work ; soldiers were called out ; the money of 
 the city flowed freely, and its rum. I do not sup- 
 pose that the kidnapping was at all disagreeable to 
 the " conscience " of the City Government ; they 
 seemed to like it, and the consequences thereof. 
 
 The prominent clergy of Boston were on the same 
 side. The Dollar demanded that; and whither it 
 went, thither went they. "Like people like priest" 
 was a proverb two thousand five hundred years ago, 
 and is likely to hold its edge for a long time to come. 
 Still there were some very noble men among the 
 ministers of Boston : we found them in all denomi- 
 nations. 
 
 Then the Courts of Massachusetts refused to issue 
 the writ of Habeas Corpus. They did not afford the 
 smallest protection to the poor victim of Southern 
 tyraimy. 
 
 Not a sheriff could be got to serve a writ ; the 
 high sheriff refused, all his deputies held back. 
 Who could expect them to do their duty when all 
 else failed ? 
 
78 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 The Legislature was then in session. They sat 
 from January till May. They knew that eight thou- 
 sand nine hundred and seventy-five citizens of Mas- 
 sachusetts had no protection but public opinion, and 
 in Boston that opinion was against them. They 
 saw four hundred citizens of Boston flee off for 
 safety ; they saw Shadrach captured in Boston ; 
 they saw him kidnapped, and put in jail against their 
 own law ; they saw the streets filled with soldiers to 
 break the laws of Massachusetts, the police of Bos- 
 ton employed in the same cause ; they saw the 
 sherilfs refuse to serve a writ; they saw Thomas 
 Sims kidnapped and carried from Boston; and, in 
 all the five months of the session, they did not pass 
 a law to protect their fellow-citizens ; they did not 
 even pass a "resolution" against the extension of 
 slavery ! The Senate had a committee to investigate 
 the affair in Boston. They sat in the Senate-hall, 
 and were continually insulted by the vulgarest of 
 men ; insulted not only with impudence, but im- 
 punity, by men who confessed that they were violat- 
 ing the laws of Massachusetts. 
 
 Massachusetts had then a Governor who said he 
 " would not harbor a fugitive slave." What did he 
 do ? He sat as idle as a feather in the chair of 
 State ; he left the sheriffs as idle as he. While the 
 laws of Massachusetts were broken nine days run- 
 ning, the successor of John Hancock sat as idle as a 
 feather in the chair of State, and let kidnapping go 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 79 
 
 on! I hate to say these things. The Governor is a 
 young man, not without virtues ; but think of such 
 things in Massachusetts I 
 
 This is my public defence of the Vigilance Com- 
 mittee. The private defence shall come, if I live 
 long enough. 
 
 It was on the Nineteenth day of April that Thomas 
 Sims was landed at Savannah, and put in the public 
 jail of the city. Do you know what that day stands 
 for in your calendar ? Some of your fathers knew 
 very well. Ten miles from here is a little monument 
 at Lexington, " sacred to liberty and the rights of 
 mankind," telling that on the 19th of April, 1775, 
 some noble men stood up there against the army of 
 England, "fired the shot heard round the M^orld," 
 and laid down their lives "in the sacred cause of 
 God and their country;" six miles further off is 
 another little monument at Concord ; two miles fur- 
 ther back, a third, all dating from the same day. 
 The War of Revolution began at Lexington, to end 
 at Yorktown. Its first battle was on the Nineteenth 
 of April. Hancock and Adams lodged at Lexington 
 with the minister. One raw morning, a little after 
 daybreak, a tall man, with a large forehead under a 
 three-cornered hat, drew up his company of seventy 
 men on the green, farmers and mechanics like him- 
 self ; only one is left now, the boy who " played " 
 the men to the spot. They wheeled into line to wait 
 
80 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 for the Regulars. T^he captain ordered every man to 
 load " his piece with powder and ball." " Do n't fire," 
 were his Avords, " unless fired upon ; but, if they 
 want a war, let it begin here." 
 
 The Regulars came on. Some Americans offered 
 to run away from their post. Their captain said, " I 
 will order the first man shot dead that leaves his 
 place." The English commander cried out, "Dis- 
 perse, you rebels ; lay down your arms and disperse." 
 Not a man stirred. " Disperse, you damned rebels ! " 
 shouted he again. Not a man stirred. He ordered 
 the vanguard to fire; they did so, but over the heads 
 of our fathers. Then the whole main body levelled 
 their pieces, and there was need of ten new graves 
 in Lexington. A few Americans returned the shot. 
 British blood stained the early grass, which " waved 
 with the wind." " Disperse and take care of your- 
 selves," was the captain's last command ! And, 
 after the British fired their third round, there lay the 
 dead, and there stood the soldiers ; there was a bat- 
 tle field between England and America, never to be 
 forgot, never to be covered over. The " mother- 
 country " of the morning was the " enemy " at sun- 
 rise. " Oh, what a glorious morning is this!" said 
 Samuel Adams. 
 
 The Nineteenth of April was a good day for Bos- 
 ton to land a fugitive slave at Savannah, and put 
 him in jail, because he claimed his liberty. Some of 
 you had fathers in the Battle of Lexington, many of 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 81 
 
 you relations ; some of you, I think, keep trophies 
 from that day, won at Concord or at Lexington. 
 I have seen such things, — powder-horns, shoe- 
 buckles, a firelock, and other things, from the Nine- 
 teenth of April, 1775. Here is a Boston trophy from 
 April Nineteenth, 1851. This is the coat of Thomas 
 Sims.* He wore it on the third of April last. Look 
 at it. You see he did not give up with alacrity, nor 
 easily "conquer" his " prejudices" for liberty. See 
 how they rent the sleeve away ! His coat was torn 
 to tatters. " And this is Massachusetts liberty ! " 
 
 Let the kidnappers come up and say, " Massachu- 
 setts I knowest thou whether this be thy son's coat 
 or not ? " 
 
 Let Massachusetts answer : " It is my son's coat ! 
 An evil beast hath devoured him. Thomas is with- 
 out doubt rent in pieces ! " 
 
 Yes, Massachusetts ! that is right. It was an evil 
 beast that devoured him, worse than the lion which 
 comes up from the swelling of Jordan : it was a kid- 
 napper. Thomas was rent with whips ! Go, Mas- 
 sachusetts ! keep thy trophies from Lexington. I 
 will keep this to remind me of Boston, and her dark 
 places, which are full of cruelty. 
 
 After the formation of the Union, a monument 
 was erected at Beacon Hill, to commemorate the 
 chief events which led to the American Revolution, 
 
 * Here the coat was exhibited. 
 
82 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 and helped secure liberty and independence. Some 
 of yon remember the inscriptions thereon. If a 
 monument were built to commemorate the events 
 which are connected with the recent " Salvation of 
 the Union," the inscriptions might be : — 
 
 Union saved by Daniel Webster's Speech at Washington, March 
 
 7, 1850. 
 Union saved by Daniel Webster's Speech at Boston, April 30, 
 
 1850. 
 Union saved by the Passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill, Sept. 18, 
 
 1850. 
 Union saved by the arrival of Kidnapper Hughes at Boston, Oct. 
 
 19, 1850. 
 Union saved by the " Union Meeting" at Faneuil Hall, Nov. 26, 
 
 1850. 
 Union saved by kidnapping Thomas Sims at Boston, April 3,1851. 
 Union saved by the Rendition of Thomas Sims at Savannah, 
 
 April 19, 1851. — " Oh, what a glorious morning is this.' " 
 
 SicuT Patribus sit Deus Nobis.* 
 
 The great deeds of the American Revolution were 
 also commemorated by medals. The Boston kid- 
 napping is worthy of such commemoration, and 
 would be an appropriate subject for a medal, which 
 might bear on one side a bass-relief of the last scene 
 of that act: the Court House in chains; the victim 
 in the hollow square of Boston police, their swords 
 and bludgeons in their hands. The motto might be 
 
 * The Latin words are the motto on the Seal of Boston. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 83 
 
 — The Great Object of Government is the 
 Protection of Property at Home.* The other side 
 might bear a Boston Church, surrounded by shops 
 and taverns taller than itself, with the twofold in- 
 scription : No Higher Law ; and I would send 
 
 BACK MY own MoTHER. 
 
 What a change from the Boston of John Hancock 
 to the Boston of the Fugitive Slave Bill ; from the 
 town which hung Grenville and Huske in effigy, to 
 the city which approved Mr. Webster's speech in 
 defence of slave-catching! Boston tolled her bells 
 for the Stamp Act, and fired a hundred holiday can- 
 nons for the Slave Act! Massachusetts, all New 
 England, has been deeply guilty of slavery and the 
 slave-trade. An exile from Germany finds the chief 
 street of Newport paved by a tax of ten dollars a 
 head on all the slaves landed there ; the little town 
 sent out Christian New England rum, and brought 
 home Heathen men — for sale. Slavery came to 
 Boston with the first settlers. In 1639, Josselyn 
 found here a negro woman in bondage refusing to 
 become the mother of slaves. There was much to 
 palliate the offence : all northern Europe was stained 
 with the crime. It did not end in Westphalia till 
 1789. But the consciences of New England never 
 slept easy under that sin. Before 1641, Massachu- 
 
 * Remark of Mr. Webster. 
 
84 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 setts ordered that a slave should be set free after 
 seven years' service, reviving a merciful ordinance of 
 the half-barbarous Hebrews a thousand years before 
 Christ. In 1645, the General Court of Massachu- 
 setts sent back to Guinea two black men illegally 
 enslaved, and made a law forbidding the sale of 
 slaves, except captives in war, or men sentenced to 
 sale for crime. Even they were set free after seven 
 years' service. Still slavery always existed here, 
 spite of the law ; the newspapers once contained ad- 
 vertisements of " negro-babies to be given away " in 
 Boston! Yet New England never loved slavery: 
 hard and cruel as the Puritans were, they had some 
 respect for the letter of the New Testament. In 
 1700, Samuel Sewall protested against "the selling 
 of Joseph ; " as another Sewall, in 1851, protested 
 against the selling of Thomas. There was a great 
 controversy about slavery in IMassachusetts in 1766 ; 
 even Harvard College took an interest in freedom, 
 setting its young men to look at the rights of man! 
 In 1767, a bill was introduced to the General Assem- 
 bly to prevent " the unnatural and unwarrantable 
 custom of enslaving mankind." It was killed by 
 the Hunkers of that time. In 1774, a bill of a sim- 
 ilar character passed the Assembly, but was crushed 
 by the veto of Governor Hutchinson. 
 
 In 1788, three men were illegally kidnapped at 
 Boston by " one Avery, a native of Connecticut," 
 and carried off to Martinico. Then we had John 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 85 
 
 Hancock for governor, and he wrote to all the gov- 
 ernors of the West India Islands in favor of the 
 poor creatures. The Boston Association of Congre- 
 gational Ministers petitioned the Legislature to pro- 
 hibit Massachusetts ships from engaging in the for- 
 eign or domestic slave-trade. Dr. Belknap was a 
 member of the Association, — a man worthy to have 
 Channing for a successor to his humanity. The 
 Legislature passed a bill for the purpose. In July 
 the three men were brought back from the West 
 Indies: Dr. Belknap says, " It was a day of jubilee 
 for all the friends of justice and humanity." 
 
 What a change from the Legislature, clergy, and 
 governor of 1788 to that of 1851 ! Alas ! men do 
 not gather figs of thistles. The imitators of this 
 Avery save the Union now : he saved it before it 
 was formed. How is the faithful city become a 
 harlot ! It was full of judgment : righteousnes& 
 lodged in it, but now murderers. 
 
 What is the cause of this disastrous change ! It 
 is the excessive love of money which has taken pos- 
 session of the leading men. In 1776, General 
 Washington said of Massachusetts : " Notwithstand- 
 ing all the public spirit that is ascribed to this people, 
 there is no nation under the sun that I ever came 
 across, which pays greater adoration to money than 
 they do." What would he say now ? Selfishness 
 and covetousness have flowed into the commercial 
 
 VOL. I. 8 
 
86 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 capital of New England, seeking their fortune. Bos- 
 ton is now a shop, with the aim of a shop, and the 
 morals of a shop, and the politics of a shop. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson said : Governments are insti- 
 tuted amongst men to secure the natural and unalien- 
 able right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness. All America said so on the fourth of July, 
 1776. But we have changed all that. Daniel Web- 
 ster said, at New York, 1850 : " The great object of 
 government is the protection of property at home, 
 and respect and renown abroad." John Hancock 
 had some property to protect ; but he said the design 
 of government is " security to the persons and the 
 properties of the governed." He put the persons 
 first, and the property afterwards; the substance of 
 man before his accidents. Hancock said again : " It 
 is the indispensable duty of every member of society 
 to promote, as far as in him lies, the prosperity of 
 every individual." The Governor of Massachusetts 
 says : " I would not harbor a fugitive." A clergy- 
 man says : I would send back my own mother I If 
 the great object of government is the protection of 
 property, why should a governor personally harbor a 
 fugitive, or officially protect nine thousand colored 
 men ? Why should not a clergyman send to slavery 
 his mother, to save the Union, or to save a bank, or 
 to gain a chaplaincy in the navy ? But, if this be 
 so, then what a mistake it was in Jesus of Nazareth 
 to say, " A man's life consisteth not in the abun- 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 87 
 
 dance of things that he possesseth I " Verily the 
 meat is more than the life ; the body less than rai- 
 ment I Christ was mistaken in his " Beware of cov- 
 etousness : " he should have said, " Beware of phi- 
 lanthropy j drive off a fugitive ; send back your 
 mother to bondage. Blessed are the kidnappers, for 
 they shall be called the children of God." 
 
 Even Thomas Paine had a Christianity which 
 would choke at the infidelity and practical atheism 
 taught in the blessed name of Jesus in the Boston 
 churches of Commerce to-day. The Gospel relates 
 that Jesus laid his hands on men to bless them — on 
 the deaf, and they heard ; on the dumb, and they 
 spoke ; on the blind, and they saw ; on the lame, and 
 they walked ; on the maimed and the sick, and they 
 were whole. But Christian Boston lays its hand on 
 a whole and free man, and straightway he owns no 
 eyes, no ears, no tongue, no hands, no foot > he is a 
 slave ! 
 
 In 1761, the Massachusetts of John Hancock 
 would not pay three pence duty on a pound of tea, 
 to have all the protection of the British crown : 
 ninety years later, the Boston of Daniel Webster, to 
 secure the trade of the South, and a dim, delusive 
 hope of a protective tariff, will pay any tax in men. 
 It is no new thing for her citizens to be imprisoned 
 at Charleston and New Orleans, because they are 
 black. What merchant cares? It does not inter- 
 
oo THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 rupt trade. Five citizens of Massachusetts have 
 just been sent into bondage by a Southern State. 
 Of what^ consequence is that to the politicians of the 
 Commonwealth ? Our property is worth six hundred 
 million dollars. By how much is a man- worth less 
 than a dollar I The penny wisdom of " Poor Rich- 
 ard " is the great gospel to the city which cradled 
 the benevolence of Franklin. 
 
 Boston capitalists do not hesitate to own Southern 
 plantations, and buy and sell men ; Boston mer- 
 chants do not scruple to let their ships for the domes- 
 tic slave-trade, and carry the child from his mother 
 in Baltimore, to sell him to a planter in Louisiana or 
 Alabama ; some of them glory in kidnapping their 
 fellow-citizens in Boston. Most of the slave-ships 
 in the Atlantic are commanded by New England 
 men. A few years ago, one was seized by the Brit- 
 ish Government at Africa, " full of slaves ; " it was 
 owned in Boston, had a " clearance " from our har- 
 bor, and left its name on the books of the insurance 
 offices here. The controlling men of Boston have 
 done much to promote, to extend, and to perpetuate 
 slavery. Why not, if the protection of property be 
 the great object of Government? why not, if interest 
 is before Justice ? why not, if the higher law of God 
 is to be sneered at in state and church ? 
 
 When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, the six New 
 England States lay fast asleep : Massachusetts slept 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 89 
 
 soundly, her head pillowed on her unsold bales of 
 cotton and of woollen goods, dreaming of " orders 
 from the South." Justice came to waken her, and 
 whisper of the peril of nine thousand citizens ; and 
 she started in her sleep, and, being frighted, swore 
 a prayer or two, then slept again. But Boston 
 woke, — sleeping, in her shop, with ears open, and 
 her eye on the market, her hand on her purse, dream- 
 ing of goods for sale, — Boston woke broadly up, 
 and fired a hundred guns for joy. O Boston, Bos- 
 ton ! if thou couldst have known, in that thine hour, 
 the things which belong unto thy peace I But no : 
 they were hidden from her eyes. She had prayed to 
 her god, to Money ; he granted her the request, but 
 sent leanness into her soul. 
 
 Yet at first I did not believe that the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill could be executed in Boston ; even the 
 firing of the cannons did not convince me ; I did not 
 think men bad enough for that. I knew something 
 of wickedness ; I knew what love of money could 
 do ; I had seen it blind most venerable eyes. I 
 knew Boston was a Tory town ; the character of 
 upstart Tories — I thought I knew that : the man 
 just risen from the gutter knocks down him that is 
 rising. But I knew also the ancient history of Bos- 
 ton. I remembered the first commissioner we ever 
 had in New England, — Sir Edmund Andros, sent 
 here by the worst of the Stuarts " to rob us of our 
 charters in North America." He was a terrible 
 
90 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 tyrant. The liberty of Connecticut fled into the 
 " Great Oak at Hartford : " — 
 
 " The Charter Oak it was the tree 
 That saved our blessed hberty." 
 
 " All Connecticut was in the Oak." But Massachu- 
 setts laid her hands on the commissioner, — he was 
 her Governor also, — put him in jail, and sent him 
 home for trial in 1689. William of Orange thought 
 we " served him right." The name of " commis- 
 sioner " has always had an odious meaning to my 
 mind. I did not think a commissioner at kidnap- 
 ping men would fare better than Sir Edmund kid- 
 napping charters. I remembered the "Writs of As- 
 sistance, and thought of James Otis ; the Stamp 
 Act, " Adams and Liberty " came to my mind. I 
 did not forget the way our fathers made tea with 
 salt-water. I looked up at that tall obelisk ; I took 
 courage, and have since reverenced that " monument 
 of piled stones." I could not think Mr. Webster 
 wanted the law enforced, spite of his speeches and 
 letters. It was too bad to be true of him. I knew 
 he was a bankrupt politician, in desperate political 
 circumstances, gaming for the Presidency, with the 
 probability of getting the vote of the county of Suf- 
 folk, and no more. I knew he was not rich : his 
 past history showed that he would do almost any 
 thing for money, which he seems as covetous to get 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 91 
 
 as prodigal to spend. I knew that " a man in fall- 
 ing will catch at a redhot iron hook." I saw why- 
 Mr. Webster caught at the Fugitive Slave Bill : it 
 was a great fall from the coveted and imaginary 
 Presidency down to actual private life at Marshfield. 
 It was a great fall. The Slave Act was the redhot 
 iron hook to a man " falling like Lucifer, never to 
 hope again." The temptation was immense. I 
 could not think he meant to hold on there ; he did 
 often relax his grasp, yet only to clutch it the tighter. 
 I did not like to think he had a bad heart. I hoped 
 he would shrink from blasting the head of a single 
 fugitive with that dreadful " thunder " of his speech ; 
 that he would not like to execute his own law. Men 
 in Boston said it could not be executed. Even cruel 
 men that I knew shuddered at the thought of kid- 
 napping a man who fills their glasses with wine. 
 The law was not fit to be executed : that was the 
 general opinion in Boston at first. So, when kid- 
 napper Hughes came here . for William Craft, even 
 the commissioner applied to was a little shy of the 
 business. Yet that commissioner is not a very scru- 
 pulous man. I mean, in the various parties he has 
 wriggled through, he has not left the reputation of 
 any excessive and maidenly coyness in moral mat- 
 ters, and a genius for excessive scrupulousness as to 
 means or ends. Even a Hunker minister informed 
 me that he " w^ould certainly aid a fugitive." But, 
 after the Union Meeting, the clouds of darkness 
 
92 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 gathered together, and it set in for a storm ; the kid- 
 nappers went and rough-ground their swords on the 
 grindstone of the church, a navy chaplain turning 
 the crank ; and all our hopes fell to the ground. 
 
 " Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, 
 As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
 But seen too oft, familiar with her face. 
 We first endure, then jjity, then embrace." 
 
 The relentless administration of Mr. Fillmore has 
 been as cruel as the law they framed. Mr. Webster 
 has thrust the redhot iron hook into the flesh of 
 thousands of his fellow-citizens. He and his kid- 
 nappers came to a nation scattered and peeled, 
 meted out and trodden down ; they have ground the 
 poor creatures to powder under their hoof. I wish I 
 could find an honorable motive for such deeds, but 
 hitherto no analysis can detect it, no solar micro- 
 scope of charity can bring such a motive to light. 
 The end is base, the means base, the motive base. 
 
 Yet one charge has been made against the Gov- 
 ernment, which seems to me a little harsh and un- 
 just. It has been said the administration preferred 
 low and contemptible men as their tools ; judges 
 who blink at law, advocates of infamy, and men 
 cast off from society for perjury, for nameless crimes, 
 and sins not mentionable in English speech ; crea- 
 tures " not so good as the dogs that licked Lazarus's 
 sores ; but, like flies, still buzzing upon any thing 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 93 
 
 that is raw." There is a semblance of justice in the 
 charge : witness Philadelphia, Buffalo, Boston ; wit- 
 ness New York. It is true for kidnappers the Gov- 
 ernment did take men that looked " like a bull-dog 
 just come to man's estate ; " men whose face declared 
 them, " if not the devil, at least his twin-brother." 
 There are kennels of the courts wherein there settles 
 down all that the law breeds most foul, loathsome, 
 and hideous and abhorrent to the eye of day ; there 
 this contaminating puddle gathers its noisome ooze, 
 slowly, stealthily, continually, agglomerating its fetid 
 mass by spontaneous cohesion, and sinking by the 
 irresistible gravity of rottenness into that abhorred 
 deep, the lowest, ghastliest pit in all the subterranean 
 vaults of human sin. It is true the Government has 
 skimmed the top and dredged the bottom of these 
 kennels of the courts, taking for its purpose the scum 
 and sediment thereof, the Squeers, the Fagins, and 
 the Quilps of the law, the monsters of the court. 
 Blame not the Government ; it took the best it could 
 get. It was necessity, not will, which made the 
 selection. Such is the stuff that kidnappers must be 
 made of. If you wish to kill a man, it is not bread 
 you buy: it is poison. Some of the instruments 
 of Government were such as one does not often look 
 upon. But, of old time, an inquisitor was always " a 
 horrid-looking fellow, as beseemed his trade." It is 
 only justice that a kidnapper should bear " his great 
 commission in his look." 
 
94 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 In a town full of British soldiers in 1774, on the 
 anniversary of the Boston Massacre, John Hancock 
 said : — 
 
 " Surely you never will tamely suffer this country 
 to be a den of thieves. Remember, my friends, from 
 whom you sprang. Let not a meanness of spirit, 
 unknown to those whom you boast of as your fathers, 
 excite a thought to the dishonor of your mothers. I 
 conjure you by all that is dear, by all that is honora- 
 ble, by all that is sacred, not only that ye pray, but 
 that you act ; that, if necessary, ye fight, and even 
 die, for the prosperity of our Jerusalem. Break in 
 sunder, with noble disdain, the bonds with which 
 the Philistines have bound you. Suffer not your- 
 selves to be betrayed by the soft arts of luxury and 
 effeminacy into the pit digged for your destruction. 
 Despise the glare of wealth. That people who pay 
 greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, 
 upright man in poverty, almost deserve to be en- 
 slaved : they plainly show that wealth, however it 
 may be acquired, is, in their esteem, to be preferred 
 to virtue. 
 
 " But I thank God that America abounds in men 
 who are superior to all temptation, whom nothing 
 can divert from a steady pursuit of the interest of 
 their country, who are at once its ornament and safe- 
 guard. And siure I am I should not incur your dis- 
 pleasvire, if I paid a respect so justly due to their 
 much-honored characters, in this place ; but, when I 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 95 
 
 name an Adams, svich a numerous host of fellow- 
 patriots rush upon my mind, that I fear it would 
 take up too much of your time, should I attempt to 
 call over the illustrious roll: but your grateful hearts 
 will point you to the men ; and their revered names, 
 in all succeeding times, shall grace the annals of 
 America. From them, let us, my friends, take ex- 
 ample ; from them let us catch the divine enthusi- 
 asm ; and feel, each for himself, the godlike pleasure 
 of diffusing happiness on all around us ; of deliver- 
 ing the oppressed from the iron grasp of tyranny ; 
 of changing the hoarse complaint and bitter moans 
 of wretched slaves into those cheerful songs which 
 freedom and contentment must inspire. There is a 
 heartfelt satisfaction in reflecting on our exertions 
 for the public weal, which all the sufferings an en- 
 raged tyrant can inflict will never take away, which 
 the ingratitude and reproaches of those whom we 
 have saved from ruin cannot rob us of. The virtu- 
 ous assertor of the rights of mankind merits a re- 
 ward, which even a want of success in his endeavors 
 to save his country, the heaviest misfortune which 
 can befall a genuine patriot, cannot entirely prevent 
 him from receiving." 
 
 But, in 1850, Mr. Webster bade Massachusetts 
 " conquer her prejudices." He meant the " preju- 
 dices " in favor of Justice, in favor of the Unaliena- 
 ble Rights of Man, in favor of Christianity. Did 
 Massachusetts obey ? The answer was given a year 
 
96 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 ago. " Despise the glare of wealth," said the richest 
 man in New England in 1774 : the " great object of 
 government is the protection of property," said " the 
 great intellect " of America in 1850 ! John Han- 
 cock seventy-eight years ago, said : " We dread noth- 
 ing but slavery : " Daniel Webster two years ago, 
 said, Massachusetts will obey the Fugitive Slave 
 Bill " with . alacrity." Boston has forgotten John 
 Hancock. 
 
 In 1775, Joseph Warren said, " Scourges and 
 death with tortures are far less terrible than slavery." 
 Now it is "a great blessing to the African." Said 
 the same Warren, " The man who meanly submits 
 to wear a shackle contemns the noblest gift of Heav- 
 en, and impiously affronts the God that made him 
 free." Now clergymen tell us that kidnappers are 
 ordained of God, and passive obedience is every 
 man's duty. The town of Boston in 1770, declared, 
 " Mankind will not be reasoned out of the feelings 
 of humanity." In 1850, the pulpit of Boston says. 
 Send back your brother. 
 
 The talk of dissolution is no new trick. Hear 
 General Warren, in the spirit of 1775 : " Even anar- 
 chy itself, that bugbear held up by the tools of power, 
 is infinitely less dangerous to mankind than arbitrary 
 government. Anarchy can be but of short duration ; 
 for, when men are at liberty to pursue that course 
 which is most conducive to their own happiness, they 
 will soon come into it, and from the rudest state of 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 97 
 
 nature order and good government must soon arise. 
 But tyranny, when once established, entails its curses 
 on a nation to the latest period of time, unless some 
 daring genius, inspired by Heaven, shall, unappalled 
 by danger, bravely form and execute the design of 
 restoring liberty and life to his enslaved and mur- 
 dered country." Now a man would send his mother 
 into slavery to save the Union I 
 
 Will Boston be called on again to return a fugi- 
 tive ? Not long since, some noble ladies in a neigh- 
 boring town, whose religious hand often reaches 
 through the darkness to save men ready to perish, 
 delated to me a fresh tale of woe. Here is their let- 
 ter of the first of March : — 
 
 " Only ten days ago, we assisted a poor, deluded 
 sufferer in effecting his escape to Canada, after hav- 
 ing been cheated into the belief by the profligate 
 captain who brought him from the South, that he 
 would be in safety as soon as he reached Boston. . . . 
 He had accumulated two hundred dollars, whicli he 
 put into the captain's hands, upon his agreeing to 
 secrete him, and bring him to Boston. The moment 
 the vessel touched the wharf, the scoundrel bade the 
 poor fellow be off in a moment ; and he then discov- 
 ered his liability to be pursued and taken. It was 
 then midnight, and the cold was intense. He wan- 
 dered about the streets, and in the morning strolled 
 
 into the Depot, and came out to in 
 
 the earliest cars. On reaching this town, he had the 
 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
98 ' THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 sense to find out the only man of color who lives 
 
 here, , a very respectable barber. ]VIr. 
 
 sheltered him that day and the following night ; and 
 early the next morning a sufficient sum had been col- 
 lected for him to pay his passage to Canada, and 
 supply his first wants after arriving there ; but, in the 
 meanwhile, the villanous captain bears off his hard 
 earnings in triumph." 
 
 I must not give the names of the ladies : they are 
 liable to a fine of a thousand dollars each, and im- 
 prisonment for six months.* It was atrocious in the 
 captain to steal the two hundred dollars from the 
 poor captive ; but the Government of the United 
 States would gladly steal his body, his limbs, his life, 
 his children, to the end of time. The captain was 
 honorable in comparison with the kidnappers. Per- 
 haps he also wished to " Save the Union." — Sicut 
 Patribus sit Deus Nobis I 
 
 What a change from the Boston of our fathers ! 
 Where are the children of the patriots of old ? 
 Tories spawned their brood in the streets : Adams 
 and Hancock died without a child. Has nature 
 grown sterile of men ? is there no male and manly 
 vktue left ? are we content to be kidnappers of men ? 
 No. Here still are noble men, men of the good old 
 stock ; men of the same brave, holy soul. No time 
 
 * It is still unsafe to mention their names ! January, 1855. 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 99 
 
 of trial ever brought out nobler heroism than last 
 year. Did we want money, little Methodist churches 
 in the country, the humanest churches in New Eng- 
 land, dropped their widow's mite into the chest. 
 From ministers of all modes of faith but the popu- 
 lar one in money, from all churches but that of com- 
 merce, there came gifts, offers of welcome, and words 
 of lofty cheer. Here, in Boston, there were men 
 thoroughly devoted to the defence of their poor, 
 afflicted brethren ; even some clergymen faithful 
 among the faithless. But they were few. It was 
 only a handful who ventured to be faithful to the 
 true and right. The great tide of humanity, which 
 once filled up this place, had ebbed off: only a few 
 perennial springs poured out their sweet and unfail- 
 ing wealth to these weary wanderers. 
 
 Yet Boston is rich in generous men, in deeds of 
 charity, in far-famed institutions for the good of 
 man. In this she is still the noblest of the great 
 cities of the land. I honor the self-sacrificing, noble 
 men ; the women whose loving-kindness never failed 
 before. Why did it fail at this time ? Men fancied 
 that their trade was in peril. It was an idle fear ; 
 even the doUar obeys the " Higher Law," which its 
 worshippers deny. Had it been true, Boston had 
 better lose every farthing of her gold, and start anew 
 with nothing but the wilderness, than let her riches 
 stand between us and our fellow man. Thy money 
 perish, if it brutalize thy heart I 
 
100 TIIH ISOSTON KII>N.\1'I'1N(J. 
 
 I wish I could ItclicNc tlir molivcs t»(" men were 
 good ill (his; lh;d Ihry ic:dly lhoiifj;h( the ii:iti(»ii WUS 
 ill peril. Hilt MO ; it <-iMiiio( he. It was not the love 
 oreoiiiiliy wliieh kept the '' eoiiiproiiiises of t he ( "oii- 
 stitiitioii" ;iiid !ii:ide the h'lii^il i\ c Slave IJill. I pity 
 the polilieiaiis \\ ho iiiadi- this wicked law , made it in 
 the madness *>! their pride. I pity that son of New 
 Mii^dand, who, against his nature, a/j^ainst his early 
 history, drew his sword to sheathe it in the bowels of 
 his hrother-man.* 'The melaiieholiest spectacle in all 
 this land, sell-despoiled of the lustre which woultl 
 havi' cast a ^h>ry on his toinh, and sent his name a 
 watchword to many an ajjje, — now he is the com- 
 panion of kidnappers, and a proverb ami>nfj;st lionor- 
 td)le men, with a certainty of leaving a namt^ ti> be 
 hissed at bv mankind. 
 
 I pit\ the kidnappers, the poor tools of men almost, 
 as base. I wiadd not hnrt a hair of their heads; but 
 1 w«>iild take the thtmder of (he moral world, and 
 dash its boiled li^htiiin^ on this crime of stcaliiif^ 
 men, till the name iA' ki(lna|)pini; shonid be like 
 Sodom and (lomorrah. Il is piracy t«.) steal a man 
 in (iiiiiiea ; what is it (o do (his in Hostcai .' 
 
 I pil\ the merchants who, h>r their trade, were 
 j^'lad to steal (heir comitrvmen; 1 wish (liem only 
 •rood. l)cbate in vonder hall has show n how lillle of 
 ImmaiiilN (here is in (he (rade y)l' Mostoii. She looks 
 
 * Mv. Wobstor. 
 
'rillO liOSroN KlUNAI'l'INO. 
 
 loi 
 
 on all Mil' horrors \\ liicli iiilfiii|»craiic<' lias \vroiij;li(, 
 and daily deals in every slr<'e| ; she sernlini/.es llie 
 jails, — (hey are lilled hy ruin; she looks into the 
 ainis-lioiises, ero\\(le<i lull l>y rum ; she walks her 
 sireels, and sees the perishinf^ classes fall, mowed 
 (low n by rimi ; she enters the parlorsol wcallhy men, 
 looks inio Ihe hridal eliamher, and meels tiealli: Ihe 
 ^liosls of Ihe slain are llier*-, • men slain l>y rum. 
 She knows il all, yel says, "There is an inleresi al 
 Hiake ! " — Ihe inleresi. of rum; lei man ;,;ive way! 
 l)oslon does Ihis lo-day. Lasl year she slole a man ; 
 iter merehanis slole a man! The saeriliee of man lo 
 money, when shall i(- lia\<' an end? I jiily lhos<' 
 merehanis who honor money more Ihan jnaii. 'I'lieir 
 ;^fold is cankered, an<i Iheirsonl is brass, — is rnsled 
 brass. They miisl come up bcfoic Ihe poslcrily 
 which Ihcy alleel lo s<'orn. \\ hat voice can plead 
 for them before their own children.' The eye that 
 ino(;keth at the justice ol its son, and seorncth lo 
 obey the mercy ol' its dau''lilcr, the ravens of poster- 
 ity shall j)ick it out, and the yoim;^' eagles cat it up! 
 
 |{u( there is yet. another Iribmial: " /Viler the 
 death the jiid;^Mncnt I'' When he makclh incpiisilion 
 for Ihe blood of the innocent, wlial shall the sicalers 
 ol men reply ? IJoston mcichants, where is yoiu" 
 brother, 'I'liomas Sims? Lei. (!ain r<'ply to ( 'hrist. 
 
 ('ome, Massachusetts! take thy historic mantle, 
 wrou'dil: all over with storied memories of two luui- 
 
102 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 dred years, adorned with deeds in liberty's defence, 
 and rough with broidered radiance from the hands of 
 sainted men ; walk backwards, and cover up and 
 hide the naked public shame of Boston, drunk with 
 gain, and lewdly lying in the street. It will not hide 
 the shame. Who can annul a fact? Boston has 
 chronicled her infamy, and on the iron leaf of time, 
 — ages shall read it there ! 
 
 Then let us swear by the glory of our fathers and 
 the infamy of this deed, that we will hate slavery, 
 hate its cause, hate its continuance, and will exter- 
 minate it from the land ; come up hither as the years 
 go by, and here renew the annual oath, till not a 
 kidnapper is left lurking in the land ; yes, till from 
 the Joseph that is sold into Egypt, there comes forth 
 a man to guide his people to the promised land. 
 Out of this " Acorn " a tall oak may grow. 
 
 Old mythologies relate, that, when a deed of sin 
 is done, the souls of men who bore a kindred to the 
 deed come forth and aid the work. What a com- 
 pany must have assisted at this sacrament a year 
 ago ! What a crowd of ruffians, from the first New 
 England commissioner to the latest dead of Boston 
 murderers I Robert Kidd might have come back 
 from his felon-grave at " Execution Dock," to resume 
 his appropriate place, and take command of the 
 " Acorn," and guide her on her pirate-course. Arnold 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 103 
 
 might sing again his glad Te Deum, as on that 
 fatal day in March, What an assembly there would 
 be, — " shapes hot from Tartarus ! " 
 
 But the same mythologies go fabling on, and say 
 that at such a time the blameless, holy souls who 
 made the virtues blossom while they lived, and are 
 themselves the starriest flowers of Heaven now, that 
 they return to bless the old familiar spot, and witness 
 every modern deed ; and, most of all, that godly min- 
 isters, who lived and labored for their flocks, return 
 to see the deed they cannot help, and aid the good 
 they bless. What a gathering might there have 
 been of the jvist men made perfect ! The patriots 
 who loved this land, mothers whose holy hearts had 
 blessed the babes they bore ; pure men of lofty soul 
 who labored for mankind, — what a fair company 
 this State could gather of the immortal dead ! Of 
 those great ministers of every faith, who dearly loved 
 the Lord, what venerable heads I see : John Cotton 
 and the other " famous Johns ; " Eliot, bearing his 
 Indian Bible, which there is not an Indian left to 
 read ; Edwards, a mighty name in East and West, 
 even yet more marvellous for piety than depth of 
 thought ; the Mathers, venerable men ; Chauncy and 
 Mayhew, both noble men of wealthy soul ; Belknap, 
 who saw a brother in an African ; Buckminster, the 
 fairest, sweetest bud brought from another field, too 
 early nipped in this ; Channing and Ware, both 
 
104 THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 
 
 ministers of Christ, who, loving God, loved too their 
 fellow men ! How must those souls look down 
 upon the scene ! Boston delivering up — for lust of 
 gold delivering up — a poor, forsaken boy to slavery; 
 Belknap and Channing mourning for the church ! 
 
 I turn me off from the living men, the living 
 courts, the living churches, — no, the churches dead ; 
 from the swarm of men ail bustling in the streets ; 
 turn to the sainted dead. Dear fathers of the State ; 
 ye blessed mothers of New England's sons ; — O 
 holy saints who laid with prayer the deep founda- 
 tions of New England's church, is then the seed of 
 heroes gone ? New England's bosom, is it sterile, 
 cold, and dead ? " No ! " say the fathers, mothers, 
 all, — " New England only sleeps ; even Boston is 
 not dead ! Appeal from Boston drunk with gold, 
 and briefly mad with hate, to sober Boston in her 
 hour to come. Wait but a little time ; have pa- 
 tience with her waywardness ; she yet shall weep 
 with penitence that bitter day, and rise with ancient 
 energy to do just deeds of lasting fame. Even yet 
 there's Justice in her heart, and Boston mothers shall 
 give birth to men I " 
 
 Tell me, ye blessed, holy souls, angels of New 
 England's church ! shall man succeed, and gain his 
 freedom at the last ? Answer, ye holy men ; speak 
 by the last great angel of the church who went to 
 heaven. Repeat some noble word you spoke on 
 earth ! 
 
THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING. 105 
 
 Hear their reply : — 
 
 " Oppression shall not always reign : 
 
 There comes a brighter day, 
 When Freedom, burst from every chain, 
 
 Shall have triumphant way. 
 Then Right shall over Might prevail. 
 And Truth, like hero, armed in mail, 
 The hosts of tyrant Wrong assail, 
 
 And hold eternal sway. 
 
 " What voice shall bid the progress stay 
 
 Of Truth's victorious car ? — 
 What arm arrest the growing day, 
 
 Or quench the solar star ? 
 What reckless soul, though stout and strong. 
 Shall dare bring back the ancient wrong, — 
 Oppression's guilty night prolong. 
 
 And Freedom's morning bar ? 
 
 " The hour of triumph comes apace, — 
 The fated, promised hour, 
 When earth upon a ransomed race 
 Her bounteous gifts shall shower. 
 Ring, Liberty, thy glorious bell ! 
 Bid high thy sacred banners swell ! 
 Let trump on trump the triumph tell 
 Of Heaven's redeeming power ! " * 
 
 * These are the words of Henry Ware, jr., the last minister, 
 eminent for religion, who had died in Boston. 
 
THE ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 AT THE 
 
 MASS ANTI-SLAVERY CELEBRATION 
 
 OF INDEPENDENCE, 
 
 AT 
 
 ABINGTON, JULY 5, 1852. 
 
SPEECH. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — This 
 is one of the anniversaries which mark four great 
 movements in the progressive development of man- 
 kind ; whereof each makes an Epoch in the history 
 of the human race. 
 
 The first is the Twenty-fifth of December, the 
 date agreed upon as the anniversary of the Birth of 
 Jesus of Nazareth, marking the Epoch of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 The next is the First of November, the day when, 
 in 1517, Martin Luther nailed the ninety-five theses 
 on the church door at Wittenberg, the noise of his 
 hammer startling the indolence, the despotism, and 
 the licentiousness of the Pope, and his concubines, 
 and his court far off at Rome. That denotes the 
 Epoch of Protestantism, the greatest movement of 
 mankind after the teaching of Jesus. 
 
 VOL. I. 10 
 
110 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 The third is the Twenty-second of December, the 
 day when our Forefathers, in 1620, first set their 
 feet on Plymouth Rock, coming, though uncon- 
 sciously, to build up a Church without a Bishop, a 
 State without a King, a Community without a Lord, 
 and a Family without a Slave. This begins the 
 Epoch of New England. 
 
 The last is the Fourth of July, when our Fathers, 
 in 1776, brought distinctly to national consciousness 
 Avhat I call the American Idea ; the Idea, namely, 
 that all men have natural rights to life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness ; that all men are equal in 
 their natural rights ; that these rights can only be 
 alienated by the possessor thereof; and that it is the 
 undeniable function of government to preserve their 
 rights to each and all. This day marks the Epoch 
 of the United States of America — an Epoch indis- 
 solubly connected with the three preceding. The 
 Idea was Christian, was Protestant, was of New 
 England. Plymouth was becoming national. Protes- 
 tantism going into politics ; and the Sentiments and 
 Ideas of Christianity getting an expression on a na- 
 tional scale. The Declaration of Independence was 
 the American profession of faith in political Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 This day is consecrated to freedom ; let us look, 
 therefore, at the Aspect of Freedom just now in 
 America. 
 
 In 1776, there were less than three million per- 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. Ill 
 
 sons in the United States. Now, more than three 
 million voters. But, alas ! there are also more than 
 three million slaves. Seventy-six years ago, slavery 
 existed in all the thirteen colonies ; but New Eng- 
 land was never quite satisfied with it ; only the cu- 
 pidity of the Puritan assented thereto, not his con- 
 science. Soon it retreated from New England, from 
 all the North, but strengthened itself in the South, 
 and spread Westward and Southward, till now it 
 has crossed the Cordilleras, and the Pacific Ocean is 
 witness to the gigantic wrong of the American 
 People. 
 
 But, spite of this growth of slavery, the Ameri- 
 can Idea has grown in favor with the American 
 people, the North continually becoming more and 
 more democratic in the best sense of the word. 
 True, in all the great cities of the North, the love of 
 slavery has also grown strong, in none stronger than 
 in Boston. The Mother city of the Puritans is now 
 the metropolis of the Hunkers. Slavery also has 
 entered the churches of the North, and some of 
 them, we see, when called on to choose betwixt 
 Christianity and slavery, openly and boldly decide 
 against the Law of God, and in favor of this great 
 crime against man. But simultaneously with this 
 growth of Hunkerism in the cities and the churches 
 of the North, at the same time with the spread of 
 slavery from the Delaware to the Sacramento, the 
 
112 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 Spirit of Liberty has also spread, and taken a deep 
 hold on the hearts of the people. 
 
 In the material world, nothing is done by leaps, all 
 by gradual advance. The land slopes upward all 
 the way from Abington to the White Mountains. 
 If Mt. Washington rose a mile and a quarter of 
 sheer ascent, with perpendicular sides from the level 
 of the ocean, only the eagle and the lightning could 
 gain its top. Now its easy slope allows the girl to 
 look down from its summit. 
 
 What is true in the world of matter holds also 
 good in the world of man. There is no leap, a slope 
 always ; never a spring. The continuity of historical 
 succession is never broke. Newtons and Shak- 
 speares do not come up among Hottentots and Es- 
 quimaux, but among young nations inheriting the 
 old culture. Even the men of genius, who brood 
 like a cloud over the vulgar herd, have then' prede- 
 cessors almost as high, and the continuity of succes- 
 sion holds good in the Archimedes, the Gallileos, the 
 Keplers, the Newtons, and the La Places. Chris- 
 tianity would not have been possible in the time of 
 Moses; nor Protestantism in the days of St. Augus- 
 tine ; nor a New England Plymouth in the days of 
 Luther ; nor any national recognition of the Ameri- 
 can Idea in 1620. That Idea could not become a 
 national Fact in 1776. No, not yet is it a fact. 
 
 First comes the Sentiment — the feeling of liberty; 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 113 
 
 next the Idea — the distinct notion thereof; then the 
 Fact — the thought become a thing. Buds in March, 
 blossoms in May, apples in September — that is the 
 law of historical succession. 
 
 The Puritans enslaved the Indians. In 1675, the 
 Indian apostle petitioned the " Honorable Governor 
 and Council sitting at Boston, this 13th of the 6th, 
 '75," that they would not allow Indians to be sold 
 into slavery. But John Eliot stood wellnigh alone 
 in that matter. For three months later, I find the 
 Governor, Leveret, gives a bill of sale of seven In- 
 dians, " to be sold for slaves," and affixes thereto the 
 " Publique Scale of the Colony." 
 
 Well, there has been a great progress from that 
 day to the Twelfth of April, 1851, when the mer- 
 chants of Boston had to break the laws of Massachu- 
 setts, and put the court house in chains, and get the 
 chains over the neck of the Chief Justice, and call 
 out the Sims brigade, before they could kidnap and 
 enslave a single fugitive from Georgia. 
 
 But it would not be historical to expect a nation 
 to realize its own Idea at once, and allow all men to 
 be "equal" in the enjoyment of their "natural and 
 unalienable rights." Still, there has been a great 
 progress towards that in the last seventy-six years, 
 spite of the steps taken backward in some parts of 
 the land. It is not a hundred and ten years since 
 slaves were advertised for sale in Boston, as now in 
 Norfolk ; not eighty years since they were property 
 10* 
 
114 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 in Massachusetts, and appraised in the inventories of 
 deceased " Republicans." So then the cause of Af- 
 rican freedom has a more auspicious look on the 
 Fourth of July, 1852, than it had on the Fourth of 
 July, 1776. We do not always think so, because we 
 look at the present evil, not at the greater evils of 
 the past. So much for the general aspect of this 
 matter. 
 
 Look now at the present position of the Political 
 Parties. There are two great parties in America — 
 only two. I. One is the Pro-Slavery Party. This 
 has not yet attained a distinct consciousness of its 
 idea and consequent function ; so there is contradic- 
 tion in its opinions, vacillation in its conduct, and 
 heterogeneous elements in its ranks. This has two 
 divisions, namely : the Whigs and the Democrats. 
 The two are one great national party — they are 
 one in slavery, as all sects are "one in Christ." Yet 
 they still keep up their distinctive banners, and shout 
 their hostile war-cry ; but when they come to action, 
 they both form column under the same leader, and 
 fight for the same end — the promotion, the exten- 
 sion, and the perpetuation of slavery. 
 
 Once the Whig Party wanted a Bank. Democ- 
 racy trod it to the earth. Then the Whigs clamored 
 for a protective Tariff. That also seems now an ob- 
 solete idea, and a revenue tariff is a fact accom- 
 plished. The old issues between Whig and Demo- 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 115 
 
 crat are out of date. Shall it be said the Whigs 
 want a strong central government, and the Demo- 
 crats are still anti-federal, and opposed to the cen- 
 tralization of power ? [t is not so. I can see no 
 difference in the two parties in this matter ; both are 
 ready to sacrifice the individual conscience to the 
 brute power of arbitrary law ; each to crush the in- 
 dividual rights of the separate States before the cen- 
 tral power of the federal government. In passing the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill, which aims at both these enor- 
 mities, the Democrats outvied the Whigs ; in exe- 
 cuting it, the Whigs outdo the Democrats, and kid- 
 nap with a more malignant relish. I believe the 
 official kidnappers are all Whigs, in Boston, New 
 York, Philadelphia, and Buffalo. 
 
 Both parties have now laid down their Platforms, 
 and nominated their candidates for the Presidency, 
 and hoisted them thereon. Their platforms are 
 erected on slave soil, and made of slave timber. Both 
 express the same devotion to slavery, the same ac- 
 quiescence in the Fugitive Slave Bill. The Whig 
 Party says, we " will discountenance all efforts at the 
 renewal or continuance of such agitation [on the 
 subject of slavery,] in Congress or out of it — when- 
 ever, wherever, or however the attempt may be 
 made." The Democrats say they " will resist all 
 attempts at reviving, in Congress or out of it, the 
 agitation of the slavery question, under whatever 
 shape or color the attempt may be made." There is 
 
116 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 the difference ; one will discountenance, and the other 
 resist all agitation of the question which concerns 
 the freedom of three million American citizens. Sla- 
 very is their point of agreement. 
 
 Both have nominated their champions — each a 
 " General." They have passed by the eminent politi- 
 cians, and selected men whose political experience is 
 insignificant. The Democratic champion from New 
 Hampshire jumps upon one platform, the Whig 
 champion from New Jersey jumps upon the other, 
 and each seems to like that "bad eminence" very 
 well. But I believe that at what old politicians have 
 left of a heart, both dislike slavery — perhaps about 
 equally. General Pierce, in a public meeting, I am 
 told, declared that the Fugitive Slave Bill was 
 against the principles of the common law, and 
 against natural moral right. General Scott, I am 
 told, in a private conversation, observed, that if he 
 were elected President, he would never appoint a 
 slave-holder as Judge in any territory of the United 
 States. Their letters accepting the nomination show 
 the value of such public or private ejaculations. 
 
 It is a little remarkable that War and Slavery 
 should be the sine qna non in the Chief Magistrate of 
 the United States, and of no other country. A wo- 
 man may be Queen of England, and rule one hun- 
 dred millions of men, and yet not favor the selling of 
 Christians. A man may be "Prince President" of 
 the mock republic of France, and hate slavery ; he 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 117 
 
 may be Emperor of Austria, or Autocrat of all the 
 Russias, and think kidnapping is a sin ; yes, he may 
 be Sultan of Turkey, and believe it self-evident that 
 all men are created equal, with a natural, inherent, 
 and unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness I But, to be President of the United 
 States, a man must be devoted to slavery, and be- 
 lieve in the " finality of the compromise measures," 
 and promise to discountenance or to resist all agita- 
 tion of the subject of slavery, whenever, wherever, or 
 however I Truly, " it is a great country." 
 
 That is the aspect of the great Pro-Slavery Party 
 of America. But I must say a word of the late 
 Whig convention. It resulted in one of the most 
 signal defeats that ever happened to an American 
 statesman. Even Aaron Burr did not fall so sud- 
 denly and deep into the ground, at his first downfall, 
 as Daniel Webster. 
 
 If I am rightly informed, Mr. Mason, in 1850, 
 brought forward the Fugitive Slave Bill, with no ex- 
 pectation that it would pass; perhaps with no desire 
 that it should pass. If it were rejected, then there 
 was what seemed a tangible grievance, which the 
 disunionists would lay hold of, as they cried for 
 " secession." I do not know that it was so ; I am 
 told so. He introduced the Bill. Mr. Webster 
 seized it, made it his "thunder" on the 7th of March, 
 1850. It seemed a tangible thing for him to hold 
 
118 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 on by, while he pushed from under him his old plat- 
 form of liberty, made of such timbers as his orations 
 at Plymouth, at Bunker Hill, at Faneuil Hall — his 
 speech for the Greeks, and his speech against Gen. 
 Taylor. He held on to it for two years, and three 
 months, and fourteen days ; — a long time for him. 
 He took hold on the 7th of March, 1850 ; and on the 
 21st of June, 1852, his hands slipped off, and the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill took flight towards the Presi- 
 dency, without Daniel Webster, but with Gen. Pierce 
 at one end of it, and Gen. Scott at the other. 
 
 " The fiery pomp ascending left the view ; 
 The prophet gazed — and wished to follow too." 
 
 The downfall of Daniel "Webster is terrible : — it 
 was sudden, complete, and final. He has fallen 
 " like Lucifer — never to hope again." 
 
 His giant strength was never so severely tasked as 
 in the support of slavery. What pains he took — 
 up early and down late ! What speeches he made, 
 — at Boston, New York, Albany, Syracuse, Roches- 
 ter, Buffalo, at Philadelphia, and I know not at how 
 many other places ! What letters he wrote ! And 
 it was all to end in this ! What a fee for what a 
 pleading ! He was never so paid before. 
 
 The pride of Boston — its Hunkerism — ten hun- 
 dred strong, went to Baltimore to see him rise. 
 They came back amazed at the totality of his down- 
 fall ! 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 119 
 
 I think this was at first the plan of some of the 
 most skilful of the Northern leaders of the Whigs, 
 to nominate General Scott without a platform — 
 not committed to slavery or to freedom ; then to rep- 
 resent him as opposed to slavery, and so on that 
 ground to commend him to the North, and carry the 
 election ; for any day when the North rallies, it can 
 outvote the South. But some violent pro-slavery 
 men framed the present platform, and brought it for- 
 ward. The policy of Mr. Webster's friends would 
 have been to say — " We need no platform for Mr. 
 Webster. The speech of March 7th is his platform. 
 Mr. Fillmore needs none. General Scott needs a 
 platform, for you don't know his opinions." But, 
 " it is enough for the servant that he be as his mas- 
 ter." As Mr. Webster had caught at Mason's Bill, 
 so the " Retainers " caught at the Northern platform, 
 and one who has a great genius for oratory enlarged 
 on its excellence, and whitewashed it all over with 
 his peculiar rhetoric. The platform was set up by 
 the Convention, to the great joy of the " Retainers " 
 from New England ; when all at once, the image of 
 General Scott appeared upon it ! He as well as 
 Fillmore or Webster can stand there. ^ This was the 
 weight that pulled them down ; for after Scott had 
 signified his willingness to accept the platform, the 
 great objection to him on the part of the South was 
 destroyed. 
 
 The defeat of Mr. Webster is complete and awful. 
 
120 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 In fifty-three ballotings, he never went beyond thirty- 
 two votes out of 293. Fifty-three times was the 
 vote taken, and fifty-three times the whole South 
 voted against him. When it became apparent that 
 the vote would fall to General Scott, Mr. Webster's 
 friends went and begged the Southerners to give 
 him a few votes, votes which could then do Mr. Fill- 
 more no good ; but the South answered — 7iot a 
 vote ! They went with tears in their eyes ; still the 
 South answered — not a vote ! That is a remark- 
 able " chapter in History I " 
 
 Now that the great man has fallen, — utterly and 
 terribly fallen, — a warning for many an age to 
 come, I feel inclined to remember not only the jus- 
 tice of the judgment, but the great powers and the 
 great services of the victim. I wish something may 
 be done to comfort him in his failure, and am glad 
 that his friends now seek an opportunity to express 
 their esteem. Words of endearment are worth some- 
 thing when deeds of succor fail, and when words 
 of consolation awake no hope. I think the anti- 
 slavery men have dared to be just towards Mr. 
 Webster, when he thundered from the seat of his 
 power ; now let us be generous. I hope no needless 
 word of delight at his fall will be spoken by any one 
 of us. If we fought against the lion in his pride, 
 and withstood his rage and his roar, let us now re- 
 member that he was a lion, and not insult the pros- 
 trate majesty of mighty power. " It w^as a grievous 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 121 
 
 fault, and grievously hath Webster answered it." 
 But there was greatness, even nobleness in the man ; 
 and much to excuse so monstrous a departure from 
 the true and right. He was a bankrupt politician, 
 and fancied that he saw within his grasp the scope 
 and goal of all his life ; he represented a city whose 
 controlling inhabitants prize gold and power above 
 all things, and are not very scrupulous about the 
 means to obtain either ; men that run their taxes, let 
 shops for drunkeries and houses for brothels, and 
 bribe a senator of the nation ! The New England 
 doctors of divinity, in the name of God, justified his 
 greatest crime. Do you expect more piety in the 
 bear-garden of politics, than in the pulpit of the 
 Christian church ? Let us remember these things 
 when the mighty is fallen. Let us pity the lion now 
 that his mane is draggled in the dust, and his mouth 
 filled with Southern dirt. Blame there must be in- 
 deed ; but pity for fallen greatness should yet prevail 
 — not the pity of contempt, but the pity of compas- 
 sion, the pity of love. Let us gather up the white 
 ashes of him who perished at the political stake, 
 and do loving honor to any good thing in his charac- 
 ter and his life. If we err at all, let it be on the side 
 of charity. We all need that. 
 
 If General Scott is President, I take it we shall 
 have a moderate pro-slavery administration, fussy and 
 feathery ; that we shall take a large slice from Mexico 
 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
122 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 during the next four years. General Scott is a mili- 
 tary man, of an unblemished character, I believe — 
 that is, with no unpopular vices — but with the pre- 
 judices of a military man. He proposes to confer 
 citizenship on any foreigner who has served a year 
 in the army or navy of the United States, and seems 
 to think a year of work at fighting is as good a 
 qualification for American citizenship as five years 
 industrious life on a farm, or in a shop. This is a 
 little too military for the American taste, but will 
 suit the military gentlemen who like to magnify 
 their calling. 
 
 If General Pierce is chosen, I take it we shall have 
 a strong pro-slavery administration ; shall get the 
 slice of Mexico, and Cuba besides, in the next four 
 years. " Manifest destiny " will probably point that 
 way. 
 
 I do not know that it will not be better for the 
 cause of freedom that Pierce should succeed. Per- 
 haps the sooner this whole matter is brought to a 
 crisis, the better. In each party there is a large body 
 of Hunkers, — men who care little or nothing for the 
 natural rights of man ; mean, selfish men, who seek 
 only their own gratification, and care not at what 
 cost to mankind this is procured. If the Whig 
 Party is defeated, I take it the majority of these 
 Hunkers will gradually faU in with the Democrats ; 
 that the Whig Party will not rally again under its 
 old name ; that the party of Hunkers will hoist the 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 123 
 
 flag of slavery, and the whole hosts of noble, honest, 
 and religious men in both parties will flee out from 
 under that flag, and go over to the Party of Free- 
 dom. Now the sooner this separation of the ele- 
 ments takes place, the better. Then we shall know 
 who are our friends, who our foes. Men will have 
 the real issue set before them. But, until the sepa- 
 ration is effected, many good men will cling to their 
 old party organization, with the delusive hope of op- 
 posing slavery thereby. Thus we see two such valu- 
 able newspapers as the New York Evening Post and 
 the Tribune, with strong anti-slavery feelings, at work 
 for the Democrats or the Whigs. I think this is the 
 last Presidential election in which such journals will 
 defend such a platform. 
 
 11, Look at the Anti-Slavery Party. Here 
 also are two great divisions : one is political, the 
 other moral. A word of each — of the political 
 party first. 
 
 This is formed of three sections. One is the Free 
 Soil party, which has come mainly from the Whigs ; 
 the next is the Free Democracy, the Barnburners, 
 who have come mainly from the Democrats. Each 
 of these has the prejudices of its own historical tra- 
 dition — Whig prejudices or Democratic prejudices; 
 it has also the excellences of its primal source. I 
 include the Liberty party in this Free Soil, Free 
 
124 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 Democratic division. They differ from the other in 
 this — a denial that the Constitution of the United 
 States authorizes or allows slavery ; a denial that 
 slavery is constitutional in the nation, or even legal 
 in any State. 
 
 But all these agree in a strong feeling against sla- 
 very. They are one in freedom, as the "Whigs and 
 Democrats are one in slavery. Part of this feeling 
 they have translated into an Idea. To express it in 
 their most general terms — Slavery is sectional, not 
 national ; belongs to the State, and not the Federal 
 Government. Hence they aim to cut the nation 
 free from slavery altogether, but will leave it to the 
 individual States. 
 
 This political Anti-Slavery party is a very strong 
 party. It is considerable by its numbers — power- 
 ful enough to hold the balance of power in several 
 of the States. Four years ago, it cast three hundred 
 thousand votes. This year I think it will go up to 
 four hundred thousand. 
 
 But it is stronger in the talent and character of its 
 eminent men, than in the force of its numbers. You 
 know those men. I need not speak of Chase and 
 Hale, of Giddings and of Mann, with their coadju- 
 tors in Congress and out of it. Look at names not 
 so well known as yet in our national debates. Here 
 is a noble speech from Mr. Townshend, one- new 
 ally in the field from the good State of Ohio. This 
 is the first speech of his that I have ever read ; it is 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN" AMERICA. 125 
 
 full of promise. There is conscience in this man ; 
 there is power of work in him. 
 
 Mr. Rantoul has done honorably — done nobly, 
 indeed. What he will say to-day, I shall not pre- 
 tend to calculate. He is a politician, like others, and 
 in a very dangerous position ; but I have much faith 
 in him ; and, at any rate, I thank God for what he 
 has done already. He is a man of a good deal of 
 ability, and may be trusted yet to do us good service, 
 not in your way or my way, but in his own way. 
 
 I ought to say a word of Mr. Sumner. I know 
 that he has disappointed the expectations of his best 
 friends by keeping silent so long. But Mr. Sumner's 
 whole life shows him to be an honest man, not a sel- 
 fish man at all — a man eminently sincere, and 
 eminently trustworthy, eminently just. He has a 
 right to choose his own time to speak. I wish he 
 had spoken long ago, and I doubt if this long delay 
 is wholly wise for him. But it is for him to decide, 
 not for us. " A fool's bolt is soon shot," while a 
 wise man often reserves his fire. He should not be 
 taunted with his remarks made when he had no 
 thought of an election to the Senate. A man often 
 thinks a thing easy, which he finds difficult when he 
 comes up to the spot. But this winter past, Mr. 
 Sumner has not been idle. I 'have a letter from an 
 eminent gentleman at Washington, — a man bred in 
 kings' courts abroad, — who assures me that Sumner 
 has carried the ideas of freedom where they have 
 11* 
 
126 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 
 
 never been carried before, and when he speaks, will 
 be listened to with much more interest than if he 
 had uttered his speech at his first entrance to Con- 
 gress. Depend upon it, we shall hear the right word 
 from Charles Sumner, yet. I do not believe that he 
 has w^aited to make it easy for him to speak, but 
 that it may be better for his Idea, and the cause of 
 Freedom he was sent there to represent. 
 
 Then there is another man of great mark on the 
 same side. I mean Mr. Seward. He is nominally 
 with the Whigs, but he is really of the Political 
 Anti-Slavery Party, the chief man in it. Just now 
 he has more influence than any man in the Northern 
 States, and is the only prominent Whig politician of 
 whom we might wisely predict a brilliant future. 
 General Scott, I take it, owes his nomination to 
 Senator Seward. In the Convention, he seems to 
 have wished for three things : — 1. To defeat Mr. 
 Webster at all events. 2. To defeat Mr. Fillmore, 
 if possible. 3. To have the nomination of General 
 Scott, wdthout a platform, if possible, but if not, 
 with a platform, even with the present platform. 
 Had General Scott been nominated without a sla- 
 very platform, I think Mr. Seward, and many other 
 leading Free Soilers, would have stood by to help 
 'his election — would have taken office had he suc- 
 ceeded, and I think his chance of success would not 
 have been a bad one then. But now" Mr. Seward 
 stands out for a more distant day. He will not ac- 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 127 
 
 cept office under General Scott. He sees that Scott 
 is a compromise candidate, conceded by the fears of 
 the South ; that his administration must be a com- 
 promise administration, and he that succeeds 
 on that basis now is sure to be overtaken by 
 political ruin at no distant day. He reserves his 
 fire till he is nearer the mark ! I think we may yet 
 see him the candidate of a great Northern Party for 
 the Presidency ; see him elected. 
 
 Such is the aspect of the Political Anti- Slavery 
 Party. It defeated the strongest pro-slavery section 
 of the Whigs in their convention, defeated them of 
 their candidate, sent the one thousand Hunkers of 
 Boston home from Baltimore, in a rather melancholy 
 state of mind. We shall soon see what it will do 
 in its national convention at Pittsburgh, on the 11th 
 of August. 
 
 Now a word on the Moral division of the Anti- 
 Slavery party. I use the word Moral merely as 
 opposed to Political. It is a party not organized to 
 get votes, but to kindle a Sentiment and diffuse an 
 Idea. Its Sentiment is that of Universal Philan- 
 thropy, specially directed towards the African Race 
 in America. Its Idea is the American Idea, of 
 which it has a quite distinct consciousness — the 
 Idea of the Declaration of Independence. It does 
 not limit itself by constitutional, but only by moral 
 restrictions. 
 
128 ASPECT OF FREEDOM IX AMERICA. 
 
 The functions of this party is to kindle the Senti- 
 ment and diffuse the Idea of Universal Freedom. It 
 is about this work to-day. These four thousand 
 faces before me at this moment are lit with this 
 Idea ; the other thousands beyond the reach of my 
 voice are not without it. It will not be satisfied till 
 there is not a slave in America — not a slave in the 
 world. 
 
 This party is powerful by its Sentiments, its Ideas, 
 and its Eminent Men ; not yet by its numbers. 
 Here is one indication of its power — the absolute 
 hatred in which it is held by all the Hunkers of the 
 land. How Mr. Webster speaks of this party ; with 
 the intense malignity of affected scorn. Men do not 
 thus hate a mouse in the wall. Then the abuse 
 which we receive from all the gnats and mosquitoes 
 of the political penny press is a sign also of our 
 power. There are Hunkers who know that our 
 Ideas are just — that they will be triumphant; hence 
 their hate of our Ideas, and their hate of us. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, the cause of freedom looks very 
 auspicious to-day : it never looked better. Every 
 apparent national triumph of slavery is only a step 
 to its defeat. The annexation of Texas, the Fugi- 
 tive Slave Bill, are measures that ultimately will 
 help the cause of freedom. At first, if a man is 
 threatened with a fever, the doctor tries to " throw it 
 off." If that is impossible, he hastens the crisis — 
 
ASPECT OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA. 129 
 
 knowing that the sooner that comes, the sooner will 
 the man be well again. I think General Pierce will 
 hasten the crisis, when a Northern party shall get 
 founded, with the American Idea for its motto. 
 The recent action of Congress, the recent decisions 
 of the Supreme Court, the recent action of the Exec- 
 utive, have de facto established this : that slavery in 
 the States is subject to the control of the Federal 
 Government. True, they apply this only to the 
 Northern States ; but if the Federal Government 
 can interfere with slavery in Massachusetts, to the 
 extent of kidnapping a man in Boston, and keeping 
 him in duresse by force of armed soldiers, then the 
 principle is established, that the Federal Government 
 may interfere with slavery in South Carolina ; and 
 when we get the spirit of the North aroused, and the 
 numbers of the North on the side of freedom, it will 
 take but a whifF of breath to annihilate human 
 bondage from the Delaware to the Sacramento. 
 
 Even the course of Politics is in our favor. The 
 spirit of this Teutonic family of men is hostile to 
 slavery. We alone preserve slavery which all the 
 other tribes have cast off. We cannot keep it long. 
 The Ideas of America, the Ideas of Christianity, are 
 against it. The spirit of the age is hostile — ay, the 
 spirit of mankind and the Nature of the Infinite 
 God! 
 
DISCOUESE 
 
 OCCASIONED BY THE 
 
 DEATH OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 PREACHED AT THE MELODEON 
 
 ON SUNDAY, OCTOBEE 31, 1852 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is now four months since the delivery of this Sermon. 
 A phonographic report of it was pubHshed the next morn- 
 ing, and quite extensively circulated in all parts of the 
 country. Since then, I have taken pains to examine anew 
 the life and actions of the distinguished man who is the 
 theme of the discourse. I have carefully read all the criti- 
 cisms on my estimate of him, which came to hand; I have 
 diligently read the most important sermons and other dis- 
 courses which treat of him, and have conversed anew with 
 persons who have known Mr. Webster at all the various pe- 
 riods of his life. The result is embodied in the following 
 pages. 
 
 My estimate of Mr. Webster differs from that which 
 seems to prevail just now in Church and State; differs 
 widely ; differs profoundly. I did not suppose that my 
 judgment upon him would pass unchallenged. I have not 
 been surprised at the swift condemnation which many men 
 have pronounced upon this sermon, — upon the statements 
 therein, and the motives thereto. I should be sorry to find 
 that Americans valued a great man so little as to have 
 
 VOL. I. 12 
 
134 PREFACE. 
 
 nothing to say in defence of one so long and so conspicu- 
 ously before the public. The violence and rage directed 
 against me is not astonishing ; it is not even new. I am 
 not vain enough to fancy that I have never been mistaken 
 in a fact of Mr. "Webster's history, or in my judgment pro- 
 nounced on any of his actions, words, or motives. I can 
 only say I have done what I could. If I have committed 
 any errors, I hope they will be pointed out. Fifty years 
 hence, the character of Mr. Webster and his eminent con- 
 temporaries will be better understood than now ; for we have 
 not yet all the evidence on which the final judgment of pos- 
 terity will rest. Thomas Hutchinson and John Adams are 
 better known now than at the day of their death ; five and 
 twenty years hence they will both be better known than at 
 present. 
 
 BosTOK, March 7, 1853. 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 TO THE YOUNG MEN OF AMERICA. 
 
 Gentlemen, — I address this Discourse to you in 
 particular, and by way of introduction will say a few 
 words. 
 
 We are a young nation, three and twenty millions 
 strong, rapidly extending in our geographic spread, en- 
 larging rapidly in numerical power, and greatening our 
 material strength with a swiftness which has no example. 
 Soon we shall spread over the whole continent, and 
 number a hundred million men. America and England 
 are but parts of the same nation, — a younger and an older 
 branch of the same Anglo-Saxon stem. Our character will 
 affect that of the mother country, as her good and evil 
 still influence us. Considering the important place which 
 the Anglo-Saxon tribe holds in the world at this day, — 
 occupying one eighth part of the earth, and controlling one 
 sixth part of its inhabitants, — the national character of 
 England and America becomes one of the great human 
 forces which is to control the world for some ages to come. 
 
 In the American character there are some commanding 
 
136 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and noble qualities. We have founded some political and 
 ecclesiastical institutions which seem to me the proudest 
 achievements of mankind in Church and State. But there 
 are other qualities in the nation's character which are mean 
 and selfish ; we have founded other institutions, or confirmed 
 such as we inherited, which were the weakness of a former 
 and darker age, and are the shame of this. 
 
 The question comes, "Which qualities shall prevail in the 
 character and in the institutions of America, — the noble, or 
 the mean and selfish ? Shall America govern herself by 
 the eternal laws, as they are discerned through the con- 
 science of mankind, or by the transient appetite of the hour, 
 — the lust for land, for money, for power, or fame ? That 
 is a question for you to settle ; and, as you decide for God 
 or Mammon, so follows the weal or woe of millions of men. 
 Our best institutions are an experiment : shall it fail ? If so, 
 it will be through your fault. You have the power to make 
 it succeed. We have nothing to fear from any foreign foe, 
 much to dread from Wrong at home : will you suffer that to 
 work our overthrow ? 
 
 The two chief forms of American action are Business and 
 Politics, — the commercial and the political form. The two 
 humbler forms of our activity, the Church and the Press, 
 the ecclesiastic and the literary form, — are subservient to 
 the others. Hence it becomes exceedingly important to 
 study carefully our commercial and political action, criti- 
 cizing both by the Absolute Eight ; for they control the 
 development of the people, and determine our character. 
 The commercial and political forces of the time culminate 
 in the leading politicians, who represent those forces in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 137 
 
 their persons, and direct the energies of" the people to evil 
 or to good. 
 
 It is for this i*eason, young men, that I have spoken so 
 many times from the pulpit on the great political questions 
 of the day, and on the great political men ; for this reason 
 did I preach ancL now again publish, this Discourse, on one 
 of the most eminent Americans of our day, — that men may 
 be warned of the evil in our Business and our State, and 
 be guided to the Eternal Justice which is the foundation of 
 the common weal. There is a Higher Law of God, written 
 imperishably on the Nature of Things, and in the Nature of 
 Man ; and, if this nation continually violates that Law, then 
 we fall a ruin to the ground. 
 
 If there be any Truth, any Justice, in my counsel, I 
 hope you will be guided thereby ; and, in your commerce 
 and politics, will practise on the truth which ages confirm, 
 that Righteousness exalteth a Nation, while Injustice is 
 a reproach to any People. 
 
 12* 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 When Bossuet, who was himself the eagle of 
 eloquence, preached the funeral discourse on Henri- 
 etta Maria, daughter of Henry the Fourth of France, 
 and wife of Charles the First of England, he had a 
 task far -easier than mine to-day. She was indeed 
 the queen of misfortunes; the daughter of a king 
 assassinated in his own capital, and the wido\v of a 
 king judicially put to death in front of his own 
 palace. Her married life was bounded by the mur- 
 der of her royal sire, and the execution of her kingly 
 spouse ; and she died neglected, far from kith and 
 kin. But for that great man, who in his youth Avas 
 called, prophetically, a " Father of the Church," the 
 sorrows of her birth and her estate made it easy to 
 gather up the audience in his arms, to moisten the 
 faces of men with tears, to show them the nothing- 
 ness of mortal glory, and the beauty of eternal life. 
 He led his hearers to his conclusion that day, as the 
 
140 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 mother lays the sobbing child in her bosom to still 
 its grief. 
 
 To-day it is not so with me. Of all my public 
 trials, this is my most trying day. Give me your 
 sympathies, my friends ; remember the difficulty of 
 my position, — its delicacy too. 
 
 I am to speak of one of the most conspicuous 
 men that New England ever bore, — conspicuous, 
 not by accident, but by the nature of his mind, — 
 one of her ablest intellects. I am to speak of an 
 eminent man, of great power, in a great office, one 
 of the landmarks of politics, now laid low. He 
 seemed so great that some men thought he was him- 
 self one of the institutions of America. I am to 
 speak while his departure is yet but of yesterday ; 
 while the sombre flags still float in our streets. I 
 am no party man ; you know I am not. No party 
 is responsible for me, nor I to any one. I am free 
 to commend the good things of all parties, — their 
 great and good men ; free likewise to censure the 
 evil of all parties. You will not ask me to say what 
 only suits the public ear: there are a hundred to do 
 that to-day. I do not follow opinion because popu- 
 lar. I cannot praise a man because he had great 
 gifts, great station, and great opportunities ; I cannot 
 harshly censure a man for trivial mistakes. You 
 will not ask me to flatter because others flatter ; to 
 condemn because the ruts of condemnation are so 
 deep and so easy to travel in. It is unjust to be un- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 141 
 
 generous, either in praise or blame : only the truth 
 is beautiful in speech. It is not reverential to treat 
 a great man like a spoiled child. Most of you are 
 old enough to know that good and evil are both to 
 be expected of each man, I hope you are all wise 
 enough to discriminate between right and wrong. 
 
 Give me your sympathies. This I am sure of, — 
 I shall be as tender in my judgment as a woman's 
 love ; I will try to be as fair as the justice of a man. 
 I shall tax your time beyond even my usual wont, 
 for I cannot crush Olympus into a nut. Be not 
 alarmed: if I tax your time the more, I shall tire 
 your patience less. Such a day as this will never 
 come again to you or me. There is no Daniel 
 Webster left to die, and Nature will not soon give 
 us another such as he. I will take care by my 
 speech that you sit easy on your bench. The theme 
 will assure it that you remember what I say. 
 
 A great man is the blossom of the world ; the in- 
 dividual and prophetic flower, parent of seeds that 
 will be men. This is the greatest work of God; far 
 transcending earth, and moon, and sun, and all the 
 material magnificence of the universe. It is " a little 
 lower than the angels," and, like the aloe-tree, it 
 blooms but once an age. So we should value, love, 
 and cherish it the more. America has not many 
 
142 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 great men living now, — scarce one : there have been 
 few in her history. Fertile in multitudes, she is 
 stingy in greatness, — her works mainly achieved by 
 large bodies of but common men. At this day, the 
 world has not many natural masters. There is a 
 dearth of great men. England is no better off than 
 we her child. Sir Robert Peel has for years been 
 dead. Wellington's soul has gone home, and left 
 his body awaiting burial. In France, Germany, 
 Italy, and Russia, few greai characters appear. The 
 Revolution of 1848, which found every thing else, 
 failed because it found not them. A sad Hungarian 
 weeps over the hidden crown of Maria Theresa ; a 
 sadder countenance drops a tear for the nation of 
 Dante, and the soil of Virgil and Caesar, Lucretius 
 and Cicero. To me these two seem the greatest 
 men of Europe now. There are great chemists, great 
 geologists, great philologians ; but of gi-eat men, Chris- 
 tendom has not many. From the highest places of 
 politics greatness recedes, and in all Europe no 
 kingly intellect now throbs beneath a royal crown. 
 Even Nicholas of Russia is only tall, not gi-eat. 
 
 But here let us pause a moment, and see what 
 gi-eatness is, looking at the progressive formation of 
 the idea of a great man. 
 
 In general, greatness is emine)ice of ability ; so 
 there are as many different forms thereof as there are 
 qualities wherein a man may be eminent. These 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 143 
 
 various forms of greatness should be distinctly 
 marked, that, when we say a man is great, we may 
 know exactly what we mean. 
 
 In the rudest ages, when the body is man's only 
 tool for work or war, eminent Strength of Body is 
 the thing most coveted. Then, and so long as human 
 affairs are controlled by brute force, the giant is 
 thought to be the great man, — is had in honor for 
 his eminent brute strength. 
 
 When men have a little outgrown that period of 
 force. Cunning is the quality most prized. The 
 nimble brain outwits the heavy arm, and brings the 
 circumvented giant to the ground. He who can 
 overreach his antagonist, plotting more subtly, win- 
 ning with more deceitful skill ; who can turn and 
 double on his unseen track, " can smile and smile, 
 and be a villain," — he is the great man. 
 
 Brute force is merely animal ; cunning is the 
 animalism of the intellect, — the mind's least intel- 
 lectual element. As men go on in their development, 
 finding qualities more valuable than the strength of 
 the lion or the subtlety of the fox, they come to value 
 higher intellectual faculties, — great Understanding, 
 great Imagination, great Reason. Power to think 
 is then the faculty men value most; ability to devise 
 means for attaining ends desired ; the power to 
 originate ideas, to express them in speech, to organ- 
 ize them into institutions ; to organize things into a 
 machine, men into an army, or a State, or a gang of 
 
144 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 operatives ; to administer these various organiza- 
 tions. He who is eminent in this ability is thought 
 the gi-eat man. 
 
 But there are qualities nobler than the mere intel- 
 lect, the Moral, the Affectional, the Religious Facul- 
 ties,— the power of justice, of love, of holiness, of 
 trust in God, and of obedience to his law, — the 
 Eternal Right. These are the highest qualities of 
 man : whoso is most eminent therein is the greatest 
 of great men. He is as much above the merely 
 intellectual great men, as they above the men of mere 
 cunning or of force. 
 
 Thus, then, we have four different kinds of great- 
 ness. Let me name them bodily greatness, crafty 
 greatness, intellectual greatness, religious greatness. 
 Men in different degrees of development will value 
 the different kinds of greatness. Belial cannot yet 
 honor Christ. How can the little girl appreciate 
 Aristotle and Kant? The child thinks as a child. 
 You must have manhood in you to honor it in 
 others, even to see it. 
 
 Yet how we love to honor men eminent in such 
 modes of greatness as we can understand ! Indeed, 
 we must do so. Soon as we really see a real great 
 man, his magnetism draws us, will we or no. Do 
 any of you remember when, for the first time in 
 adult years, you stood beside the ocean, or some 
 great mountain of New Hampshire, or Virginia, or 
 Pennsylvania, or the mighty mounts that rise in 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 145 
 
 Switzerland ? Do you remember what emotions 
 came upon you at the awful presence ? But if you 
 are confronted by a man of vast genius, of colossal 
 history and achievements, immense personal power 
 of wisdom, justice, philanthropy, religion, of mighty 
 power of will and mighty act ; if you feel him as 
 you feel the mountain and the sea, what grander 
 emotions spring up ! It is like making the acquaint- 
 ance of one of the elementary forces of the earth, — 
 like associating with gravitation itself! The stiffest 
 neck bends over : down go the democratic knees ; 
 human nature is loyal then ! A New England ship- 
 master, wrecked on an island in the Indian Sea, 
 was seized by his conquerors, and made their chief. 
 Their captive became their king. After years of 
 rule, he managed to escape. When he once more 
 visited his former realm, he found that the savages 
 had carried him to heaven, and worshipped him as a 
 God greater than their fancied deities : he had revo- 
 lutionized divinity, and was himself enthroned as a 
 God. Why so ? In intellectual qualities, in relig- 
 ious qualities, he was superior to their idea of God, 
 and so they worshipped him. Thus loyal is human 
 nature to its great men. 
 
 Talk of Democracy ! — we are all looking for a 
 master ; a man manlier than we. We are always 
 looking for a great man to solve the difficulty too 
 hard for us, to break the rock which lies in our way, 
 — to represent the possibility of human nature as an 
 
 VOL. I. 13 
 
146 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ideal, and then to realize that ideal in his life. Little 
 boys in the country, working against time, with 
 stints to do, long for the passing-by of some tall 
 brother, who in a few minutes shall achieve what 
 the smaller boy took hours to do. And we are all 
 of us but little boys, looking for some great brother 
 to come and help us end our tasks. 
 
 But it is not quite so easy to recognize the great- 
 est kind of greatness. A Nootka- Sound Indian 
 would not see much in Leibnitz, Newton, Socrates, 
 or Dante ; and if a great man were to come as much 
 before us as ^ve are before the Nootka- Sounders, 
 what should we say of him ? Why, the worst 
 names we could devise, Blasphemer, Hypocrite, Infi- 
 del, Atheist. Perhaps we should dig up the old 
 cross, and make a new martyr of the man posterity 
 will worship as a deity. It is the men who are up 
 that see the rising sun, not the slviggards. It takes 
 greatness to see greatness, and know it at the first ; 
 I mean to see greatness of the highest kind. Bulk, 
 anybody can see ; bulk of body or mind. The lofti- 
 est form of greatness is never popular in its time. 
 Men cannot understand or receive it. Guinea ne- 
 groes would think a juggler a greater man than 
 Franklin. What would be thought of Martin 
 Luther at Rome, of Washington at St. Petersburgh, 
 of Fenelon among the Sacs and Foxes ? Herod 
 and Pilate were popular in their day, — men of 
 property and standing. They got nominations and 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 147 
 
 honor enough. Jesus of Nazareth got no nomina- 
 tion, got a cross between two thieves, was crowned 
 with thorns, and, when he died, eleven Galileans 
 gathered together to lament their Lord ! Any man 
 can measure a walking-stick, — so many hands long, 
 and so many nails beside ; but it takes a mountain- 
 intellect to measure the Andes and Altai. 
 
 Now and then, God creates a mighty man, who 
 greatly influences mankind. Sometimes he reaches 
 far on into other ages. Such a man, if he be of the 
 greatest, will, by and by, unite in himself the four 
 chief forces of society, — business, politics, literature, 
 and the church. Himself a stronger force than all of 
 these, he will at last control the commercial, political, 
 literary, and ecclesiastical action of mankind. But 
 just as he is greater than other men, in the highest 
 mode of greatness, will he at first be opposed, and 
 hated too. The tall house in the street darkens the 
 grocer's window opposite, and he must strike his 
 light sooner than before. The inferior great man 
 does not understand the man of superior modes of 
 eminence. Sullenly the full moon at morning pales 
 her ineffectual light before the rising day. In the 
 Greek fable, jealous Saturn devours the new gods 
 whom he feared, foreseeing the day when the Olym- 
 pian dynasty would turn him out of heaven. To 
 the natural man the excellence of the spiritual is 
 only foolishness. What do you suppose the best 
 educated Pharisees in Jerusalem thought of Jesus ? 
 
148 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 They thought him an infidel : " He blasphemeth." 
 They called him crazy : " he hath a devil." They 
 mocked at the daily beauty of his holiness : he had 
 " broken the sabbath." They reviled at his philan- 
 thropy : it was " eating with publicans and sinners." 
 
 Human nature loves to reverence great men, and 
 often honors many a little one under the mistake 
 that he is great. See how nations honor the greatest 
 great men, — Moses, Zoroaster, Socrates, Jesus, — 
 that loftiest of men ! But by how many false men 
 have we been deceived, — men whose light leads to 
 bewilder, and dazzles to blind I If a preacher is a 
 thousand years before you and me, we cannot under- 
 stand him. If only a hundred years of thought 
 shall separate us, there is a great gulf between the 
 two, whereover neither Dives nor Abraham, nor yet 
 Moses himself, can pass. It is a false great man 
 often who gets possession of the pulpit, with his les- 
 son for to-day, which is no lesson ; and a false great 
 man who gets a throne, with his lesson for to-day, 
 which is also no lesson. Men great in little things 
 are sure of their pay. It is all ready, subject to their 
 order. 
 
 A little man is often mistaken for a great one. 
 The possession of office, of accidental renown, of 
 imposing qualities, of brilliant eloquence, often daz- 
 zles the beholder ; and he reverences a show. 
 
 How much a great man of the highest kind can 
 do for us, and how easy ! It is not harder for a 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 149 
 
 cloud to thunder, than for a chestnut in a farmer's 
 fire to snap. Dull Mr. Jingle urges along his restive, 
 hardmouthed donkey, besmouched with mire, and 
 wealed with many a stripe, amid the laughter of the 
 boys ; while, by his proper motion, swanlike Milton 
 flies before the faces of mankind, which are new lit 
 with admiration at the poet's rising flight, his gar- 
 lands and singing robes about him, till the aspiring 
 glory transcends the sight, yet leaves its track of 
 beauty trailed across the sky. 
 
 Intellect and conscience are conversant with ideas, 
 — with absolute Truth and absolute Right, as the 
 norm of conduct. But, with most men, the affec- 
 tions are developed in advance of the intellect and 
 the conscience ; and the affections want a person. 
 In his actions, a man of great intellect embodies a 
 principle, good or bad ; and, by the affections, men 
 accept the great intellectual man, bad or good, and 
 with him the principle he has got. 
 
 As the affections are so large in us, how delightful 
 is it for us to see a great man, honor him, love him, 
 reverence him, trust him! Crowds of men come to 
 look upon a hero's face, who are all careless of his 
 actions and heedless of his thought ; they know not 
 his what, nor his whence, nor his whither ; his per- 
 son passes for reason, justice, and religion. 
 
 They say that women have the most of this affec- 
 tion, and so are most attachable, most swayed by 
 persons, — least by ideas. Woman's mind and con- 
 
 13* 
 
150 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 science, and her soul, they say, are easily crushed 
 into her all-embracing heart ; and truth, justice, and 
 holiness are trodden underfoot by her affection, rush- 
 ing towards its object. "What folly I" say men. 
 But, when a man of large intellect comes, he is wont 
 to make women of us all, and take us by the heart. 
 Each great intellectual man, if let alone, will have 
 an influence in proportion to his strength of mind 
 and will, — the good great man, the bad great man ; 
 for as each particle of matter has an attractive force, 
 which affects all other matter, so each particle of 
 mind has an attractive force, which draws all other 
 mind. 
 
 How pleasant it is to love and reverence I To 
 idle men how much more delightful is it than to 
 criticize a man, take him to pieces, weighing each 
 part, and considering every service done or promised, 
 and then decide I Men are continvially led astray 
 by misplaced reverence. Shall we be governed by 
 the mere instinct of veneration, uncovering to every 
 man who demands our obeisance ? Man is to rule 
 himself, and not be overmastered by any instinct 
 subordinating the whole to a special part. We 
 ought to know if what we follow be real greatness 
 or seeming greatness; and of the real greatness, of 
 what kind it is, — eminent cunning, eminent intel- 
 lect, or eminence of religion. For men ought not to 
 gravitate passively, drawn by the bulk of bigness, 
 but consciously and freely to follow eminent wisdom, 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 151 
 
 justice, love, and faith in God. Hence it becomes 
 exceedingly important to study the character of all 
 eminent men ; for they represent great social forces 
 for good or ill. 
 
 It is true, great men ought to be tried by their 
 peers. But " a cat may look upon a king," and, if 
 she is to enter his service, will do well to look before 
 she leaps. It is dastardly in a democrat to take a 
 master with less scrutiny than he would buy an ox. 
 
 Merchants watch the markets : they know w4iat 
 ship brings corn, what hemp, what coal ; how much 
 cotton there is at New York or New Orleans ; how 
 much gold in the banks. They learn these things, 
 because they live by the market, and seek to get 
 money by then- trade. Politicians watch the turn of 
 the people and the coming vote, because they live 
 by the ballot-box, and wish to get honor and office 
 by their skill. So a minister, who would guide men 
 to wisdom, justice, love, and piety, to human wel- 
 fare, — he must watch the great men, and know 
 what quantity of truth, of justice, of love, and of 
 faith there is in Calhoun, Webster, Clay ; because 
 he is to live by the word of God, and only asks, 
 " Thy kingdom come I " 
 
 What a great power is a man of large intellect! 
 Aristotle rode on the neck of science for two thou- 
 sand years, till Bacon, charging down from the vant- 
 age-ground of twenty centuries, with giant spear 
 unhorsed the Stagyrite, and mounted there himself ; 
 
152 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 himself in turn to be unhorsed. What a profound 
 influence had Frederick in Germany for half a cen- 
 tury I What an influence Sir Robert Peel and Wel- 
 lington have had in England for the last twenty or 
 thirty years ! — Napoleon in Europe for the last fifty 
 years ! Jefferson yet leads the democracy of the 
 United States ; the cold hand of Hamilton still con- 
 solidates the several States. Dead men of great in- 
 tellect speak from the pulpit. Law is of mortmain. 
 
 In America it is above all things necessary to 
 study the men of eminent mind, even the men of 
 eminent station ; for their power is greater here than 
 elsewhere in Christendom. Money is our only ma- 
 terial, greatness our only personal nobility. In Eng- 
 land, the influence of powerful men is checked by 
 the great families, the great classes, with their ances- 
 tral privileges consolidated into institutions, and the 
 hereditary crown. Here we have no such families ; 
 historical men are not from or for such ; seldom had 
 historic fathers ; seldom leave historic sons. 
 
 Tempns ferax homini/m, edax homimtm. 
 
 Fruitful of men is time ; voracious also of men. 
 
 Even while the individual family continues rich, 
 political unity does not remain in its members, if 
 numerous, more than a single generation. Nay, it 
 is only in families of remarkable stupidity that it 
 lasts a single age. 
 
 In this country the swift decay of powerful families 
 is a remarkable fact. Nature produces only indi- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 153 
 
 viduals, not classes. It is a wonder how many 
 famous Americans leave no children at all. Han- 
 cock, and Samuel Adams, Washington, Madison, 
 Jackson — each was a childless flower that broke off 
 the top of the family tree, which after them dwindled 
 down, and at length died out. It has been so with 
 EurojDean stocks of eminent stature. Bacon, Shak- 
 speare, Leibnitz, Newton, Descartes, and Kant died 
 and left no sign. With strange self-complaisance 
 said the first of these, " Great benefactors have been 
 childless men." Here and there an American family 
 continues to bear famous fruit, generation after gen- 
 eration. A single New England tree, rooted far off 
 in the Marches of Wales, is yet green with life, 
 though it has twice blossomed with Presidents. But 
 in general, if the great American leave sons, the 
 wonder is what becomes of them, — so little, they are 
 lost, — a single needle from the American pine, to 
 strew the forest floor amid the other litter of the 
 woods. 
 
 No great families here hold great men in check. 
 There is no permanently powerful class. The me- 
 chanic is father of the merchant, who will again be 
 the grandsire of mechanics. In thirty years, half the 
 wealth of Boston will be in the hands of men now 
 poor ; and, where power of money is of yesterday, it 
 is no great check to any man of large intellect, in- 
 dustry, and will. Here is no hereditary office. So 
 the personal power of a great mind, for good or evil, 
 
154 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 is free from that threefold check it meets in other 
 lands, and becomes of immense importance. 
 
 Our nation is a great committee of the whole ; our 
 State is a provisional government, riches our only 
 heritable good, greatness our only personal nobility ; 
 office is elective. To the ambition of a great bad 
 man, or the philanthropy of a great good man, there 
 is no check but the power of money or numbers ; no 
 check from great families, great classes, or hereditary 
 privileges. If our man of large intellect runs up hill, 
 there is nothing to check him but the inertia of man- 
 kind ; if he runs down hill, that also is on his side. 
 
 With us the great mind is amenable to no conven- 
 tional standard measure, as in England or Europe, — 
 only to public opinion. And that public opinion is 
 controlled by money and numbers ; for these are the 
 two factors of the American product, the multiplier 
 and the multiplicand, — millions of money, millions 
 of men. 
 
 A great mind is like an elephant in the line of an- 
 cient battle, — the best ally if you can keep him in 
 the ranks, fronting the right way ; but, if he turn 
 about, he is the fatalest foe, and treads his master 
 underneath his feet. Great minds have a trick of 
 turning round. 
 
 Taking all these things into consideration, you see 
 how important it is to scrutinize all the great men, — 
 to know their quantity and quality, — before we 
 allow them to take our heart. To do this is to 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 155 
 
 measure one of the most powerful popular forces for 
 guiding the present and shaping the future. Every 
 office is to be filled by the people's vote, — that of 
 public president and private cook. Franklin intro- 
 duced new philanthrophy to the law of nations. 
 Washington changed men's ideas of political great- 
 ness. If Napoleon the Present goes unwhipped of 
 Justice, he will change those ideas again ; not for the 
 world, but for the saloons of Paris, for its journals 
 and its mob. 
 
 How different are conspicuous men to different 
 eyes! The city corporation of Toulouse has just 
 addressed this petition to Napoleon : — 
 
 "MoNSEiGNiEUK, — The government of the world by Provi- 
 dence is the most perfect. France and Europe style you the 
 elect of God for the accomplishment of his designs. It belongs 
 to no Constitution whatever to assign a term for the divine mission 
 ■with which you are intrusted. Inspire yourself with this thought, 
 — to restore to the countrj' those tutelar institutions, which form 
 the stability of , power and the dignity of nations." 
 
 That is a prayer addressed to the Prince President 
 of France, whose private vices are equalled only by 
 his public sins. How different he looks to different 
 men I To me he is Napoleon the Little ; to the 
 Mayor and Aldermen of Toulouse, he is the Elect 
 of God, with irresponsible power to rule as long and 
 as badly as likes him best. Well said Sir Philip 
 Sidney, " Spite of the ancients, there is not a piece 
 
156 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of wood in the world out of which a Mercury may 
 not be made." 
 
 It is this importance of great men which has led 
 me to speak of them so often; not only of men 
 great by nature, but great by position on money or 
 office, or by reputation ; men substantially great, and 
 men great by accident. Hence I spoke of Dr. Chan- 
 ning, whose word weht like morning over the conti- 
 nents. Hence I spoke of John Quincy Adams, and 
 did not fear to point out every error I thought I dis- 
 covered in the great man's track, which ended so 
 proudly in the right; and I did homage to all the 
 excellence I found, though it was the most unpopu- 
 lar excellence. Hence I spoke of General Taylor ; 
 yes, even of General Harrison, a very ordinary man, 
 but available, and accidentally in a great station. 
 
 You see why this ought to be done. We are a 
 young nation ; a great man easily gives us the im- 
 pression of his hand ; we shall harden in the fire of 
 centuries, and keep the mark. Stamp a letter on 
 Chaldean clay, and how very frail it seems ! but 
 burn that clay in the fire, — and, though Nineveh 
 shall perish, and Babylon become a heap of ruins, 
 that brick keeps the arrow-headed letter to this day. 
 As with bricks, so with nations. 
 
 Ere long, these three and twenty millions will be- 
 come a hundred millions ; then perhaps a thousand 
 millions, spread over all the continent, from the 
 Arctic to the Antarctic Sea. It is a good thing to 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 157 
 
 start with men of great religion for our guides. The 
 difference between a Moses and a Maximian will be 
 felt by many millions of men, and for many an age, 
 after death has effaced both from the earth. The 
 dead hand of Moses yet circumcises every Hebrew 
 boy ; that of mediaeval doctors of divinity still 
 clutches the clergyman by the throat ; the dead 
 barons of Runnymede even now keep watch, and 
 vindicate for us all a trial by the law of the land, 
 administered by our peers. 
 
 A man of eminent abilities may do one of two 
 things in influencing men. 
 
 I. Either he may extend himself at right angles 
 with the axis of the human march, lateralize himself, 
 spreading widely, and have a great power in his 
 own age, putting his opinion into men's heads, his 
 will into their action, and yet never reach far onward 
 into the future. In America, he will gain power in 
 his time, by having the common sentiments and 
 ideas, and an extraordinary power to express and 
 show their value ; great power of comprehension, of 
 statement, and of will. Such a man differs from 
 others in quantity, not quality. Where all men 
 have considerable, he has a great deal. His power 
 may be represented by two parallel lines, the one be- 
 ginning where his influence begins, the other where 
 his influence ends. His power will be measured by 
 the length of the lines laterally, and the distance 
 betwixt the parallels. That is one thing. 
 
 VOL. I. 14 
 
158 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Or a great man may extend himself forward, in 
 the line of the human march, himself a prolongation 
 of the axis of mankind : not reaching far sideways 
 in his own time, he reaches forward immensely, his 
 influence widening as it goes. He will do this by 
 superiority in sentiments, ideas, and actions ; by 
 eminence of justice and of affection ; by eminence 
 of religion : he will differ in quality as well as 
 quantity, and have much where the crowd has 
 nothing at all. His power also may be represented 
 by two lines, both beginning at his birth, pointing 
 forwards, diverging from a point, reaching far into 
 the future, widening as they extend, comprehending 
 time by then" stretch, and space by their spread. 
 Jesus of Nazareth was of this class : he spread 
 laterally in his lifetime, and took in twelve Galilean 
 peasants and a few obscure women ; now his diverg- 
 ing lines reach over two thousand years in their 
 stretch, and contain two hundred and sixty millions 
 of men within their spread. 
 
 So much, my friends, and so long, as preface to 
 this estimate of a great man. 
 
 Daniel Webster was a man of eminent abili- 
 ties : for many years the favored son of New Eng- 
 land. He was seventy years old ; nearly forty years 
 in the councils of the nation ; held high office in 
 times of peril and doubt ; had a commanding elo- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 159 
 
 quence — there were two million readers for every 
 speech he spoke ; and for the last two years he has 
 had a vast influence on the opinion of the North. 
 He has done service ; spoken noble words that will 
 endure so long as English lasts. He has largely 
 held the jiation's eye. His public office made his 
 personal character conspicuous. Great men have no 
 privacy ; their bed and their board are both spread 
 in front of the sun, and their private character is a 
 public force. Let us see what he did, and what he 
 was ; what is the result for the present, what for the 
 future. 
 
 Daniel Webster was born at Salisbury, N. H., on 
 the borders of civilization, on the 18th of January, 
 1782. He was the son of Capt. Ebenezer and Abi- 
 gail (Eastman) Webster. 
 
 The mother of Capt. Webster was a Miss Bach- 
 elder, of Hampton, where Thomas Webster, the 
 American founder of the family, settled in 1636. 
 She was descended from the Rev. Stephen Bachiller, 
 formerly of Lynn in Massachusetts, a noted man in 
 his time, unjustly, or otherwise, driven out of the 
 colony by the Puritans. Ebenezer Webster, in his 
 early days, lived as " boy " in the service of Col. 
 Ebenezer Stevens, of Kingston, from whom he re- 
 ceived a " lot of land " in Stevenstown, now Salis- 
 bury. In 1764, Mr. Webster built himself a log- 
 cabin on the premises, and lighted his fire. His land 
 
160 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 " lapped on " to the wilderness ; no New Englander 
 living so near the North Star, it is said. The family- 
 was any thing but rich, living first in a log-cabin, 
 then in a frame-house, and some time keeping 
 tavern. 
 
 The father was a soldier in the French war, and 
 in the Revolution ; a great, brave, big, brawny man ; 
 " high-breasted and broad-shouldered ; " " with heavy- 
 eyebrows," and " a heart which he seemed to have 
 borrowed from a lion ; " ' a dark man," so black 
 that " you could not tell when his face was covered 
 with gunpowder ; " six feet high, and both in look 
 and manners " uncommon rough." He was a shifty- 
 man of many functions, — a farmer, a saw-miller, 
 " something of a blacksmith," a captain in the early- 
 part of the Revolutionary War, a colonel of militia, 
 representative and senator in the New Hampshire 
 legislature, and finally Judge of the Court of Com- 
 mon Pleas; yet "he never saw the inside of a 
 school-house." In his early married life, food some- 
 times failed on the rough farm : then the stout man 
 and his neighbors took to the woods, and brought 
 home many a fat buck in their day. 
 
 The mother, one of the " black Eastmans," was a 
 quite superior woman. It is often so. When virtue 
 leaps high in the public fountain, you seek for the 
 lofty spring of nobleness, and find it far off in the 
 dear breast of some mother, who melted the snows 
 of wdnter, and condensed the summer's dew into 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 161 
 
 fair, sweet humanity, which now gladdens the face 
 of man in all the city streets. Bulk is bearded and 
 masculine ; niceness is of woman's gendering. 
 
 Daniel Webster was fortunate in the outward cir- 
 cumstances of his birth and breeding. He came 
 from that class in society whence almost all the great 
 men of America have come, — the two Adamses, 
 Washington, Hancock, Jefferson, Jackson, Clay, and 
 almost every living notable of our time. New 
 Hampshire herself has furnished a large number of 
 self-reliant and able-headed men, who have fought 
 their way in the world with their own fist, and won 
 eminent stations at the last. The little, rough State 
 breeds professors and senators, merchants and hardy 
 lawyers, in singular profusion. Our Hercules was 
 also cradled on the ground. When he visited the 
 West, a few years ago, an emigrant from New 
 Hampshire inet him in Ohio, recognized him, and 
 asked, " Is this the son of Capt. W^ebster ? " " It is, 
 indeed," said the great man. " What ! " said he, " is 
 this the little black Dan that used to water the 
 horses ? " And the great Daniel Webster said, " It 
 is the little black Dan that used to water the horses." 
 He was proud of his history. If a man finds the 
 way alone, should he not be proud of having found 
 the way, and got out of the woods ? 
 
 He had small opportunities for academical educa- 
 tion. The schoolmaster was " abroad " in New 
 Hampshire ; and was seldom at home in Salisbury. 
 14* 
 
162 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Only two or three months in the year was there a 
 school ; often only a movable school, that ark of the 
 Lord, shifting from place to place. Sometimes it 
 was two or three miles from Capt. Webster's. 
 Once it was stationary in a log-house. Thither went 
 Daniel Webster, " carrying his dinner in a tin pail," 
 a brave, bright boy. "The child is father of the 
 man." The common-school of America is the cradle 
 of all her greatness. How many Presidents has she 
 therein rocked to vigorous manhood ! But Mr. 
 Webster's school-time was much interrupted : there 
 were "chores to be done" at home, — the saw-mill 
 to be tended in winter ; in summer, Daniel " must 
 ride horse to plough ; " and in planting-time, and 
 hay-time, and harvest, have many a day stolen from 
 his scanty seed-time of learning. In his father's 
 tavern-barn, the future Secretary gave a rough curry- 
 ing, " after the fashion of the times," to the sorry 
 horse of many a traveller, and in the yard of the inn 
 yoked the oxen of many a New Hampshire teamster. 
 
 " Cast the bantling on the rocks." 
 
 When fourteen years old, he went to Phillips 
 Academy * at Exeter for a few months, riding thither 
 
 * At the commemoration of Mr. Abbott's fiftieth anniversary as 
 Preceptor of Phillips Academy, a time when " English was of no 
 more account at Exeter than silver at Jerusalem in the days of 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 163 
 
 on the same horse with his father; then to study 
 with Rev. Mr. Wood at Boscawen, paying a " dollar 
 a week" for the food of the body and the food of the 
 mind. In the warm weather, " Daniel went bare- 
 foot, and wore tow trousers and a tow shirt, his 
 only garments at that season," spvm, woven, and 
 made up by his diligent mother. " He helped do 
 the things" about Mr. Wood's barn and woodpile, 
 and so diminished the pecuniary burden of his 
 father. But Mr. Wood had small Latin and less 
 Greek, and only taught what he knew. Daniel was 
 an ambitious boy, and apt to learn. Men wonder 
 that some men can do so much with so little out- 
 ward furniture. The wonder is the other way. He 
 was more college than the college itself, and had a 
 university in his head. It takes time, and the sweat 
 of oxen, and the shouting of drivers, goading and 
 whipping, to get a cart-load of cider to the top of 
 Mount Washington ; but the eagle flies there on his 
 own wide wings, and asks no help. Daniel Webster 
 had little academic furniture to help him. He had 
 the mountains of New Hampshire, and his own 
 great mountain of a head. Was that a bad outfit ? 
 No millionaire can buy it for a booby-son. 
 
 King Solomon," Mr. Abbott sat between Mr. Webster and Mr. 
 Everett, both of them his former pupils. Mr. John P. Hale, in his 
 neat speech, said, " If you had done nothing else but instruct these 
 two, you might say, Exp:gi monumentum ^re perennius." 
 
164 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 There was a British sailor, with a wife but no 
 child, an old " man-of-war's-man " living hard by 
 Capt. Webster's, fond of fishing and hunting, of 
 hearing the newspapers read, and of telling his 
 stories to all comers. He had considerable influ- 
 ence on the young boy, and never wore out of his 
 memory. 
 
 There was a small social library at Salisbury, 
 whence a bright boy could easily draw the water of 
 life for his intellect ; at home was the Farmers' Al- 
 manac, with its riddles and " poetry," Watts's 
 Hymns and the Bible, the inseparable companion of 
 the New England man. Daniel was fond of poetry, 
 and, before he was ten years old, knew dear old Isaac 
 Watts all by heart. He thought all books were to 
 be got by heart. I said he loved to learn. One day 
 his father said to him, " I shdll send you to college, 
 Daniel;" and Daniel laid his head on his father's 
 shoulder, and wept right out. In reading and spell- 
 ing he surpassed his teacher ; but his hard hands did 
 not take kindly to writing, and the schoolmaster told 
 him his " fingers were destined to the plough-tail." 
 
 He was not a strong boy, was " a crying baby " 
 that worried his mother ; but a neighbor " prophe- 
 sied," " You will take great comfort in him one 
 day ! " As he grew up, he was " the slimmest of 
 the family," a farmer's youngest boy, and " not good 
 for much." He did not love work. It was these 
 peculiarities which decided Capt. Webster to send 
 Daniel to college. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 165 
 
 The time came for him to go to college. His 
 father once carried him to Dartmouth in a wagon. 
 On the way thither, they passed a spot which Capt. 
 Webster remembered right well. " Once when you 
 were a little baby," said he, " in the winter we were 
 out of provisions, I w^ent into the woods with the 
 gun to find something to eat. In that spot yonder, 
 then all covered with woods, I found a herd of 
 deer. The snow was very deep, and they had made 
 themselves a pen.) and were crowded together in 
 great numbers. As they could not get out, I took 
 my choice, and picked out a fine, fat stag. I walked 
 round and looked at him, with my knife in my hand. 
 As I looked the noble fellow in the face, the great 
 tears rolled down his cheeks, and I could not touch 
 him. But I thought of you, Daniel, and your 
 mother, and the rest of the little ones, and carried 
 home the deer." 
 
 He can hardly be said to have " entered college : " 
 he only " broke in," so slenderly was he furnished 
 with elementary knowledge. This deficiency of ele- 
 mentary instruction in the classic tongues and in 
 mathematics was a sad misfortune in his later life 
 which he never outgrew. 
 
 At pollege, like so many other New Hampshire 
 boys, he " paid his own way," keeping school in the 
 vacation. One year he paid his board by " doing 
 the literature " for a weekly newspaper. He gradu- 
 ated at Dartmouth in his twentieth year, largely dis- 
 
166 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 tinguished, for power as a writer and speaker, though 
 not much honored by the college authorities ; so he 
 scorned his degree ; and, when the faculty gave him 
 their diploma, he tore it to pieces in the college-yard, 
 in presence of some of his mates, it is said, and trod 
 it underfoot. 
 
 When he graduated, he was apparently of a feeble 
 constitution, " long, slender, pale, and all eyes," with 
 " teeth as white as a hound's ; " thick, black hair 
 clustered about his ample forehead. At first he 
 designed to study theology, but his father's better 
 judgment overruled the thought. 
 
 After graduating, he continued to fight for his 
 education, studying law with one hand, keeping 
 school with the other, and yet finding a third hand 
 — this Yankee Briareus — to serve as Register of 
 Deeds. This he did at Fryeburg in Maine, borrow- 
 ing a copy of Blackstone's Commentaries, which he 
 was too poor to buy. In a long winter evening, by 
 copying two deeds, he could earn fifty cents. He 
 used his money, thus severely earned, to help his 
 older brother, Ezekiel, " Black Zeke," as he was 
 called, to college. Both were " heinously unpro- 
 vided." 
 
 Then he came to Boston, with no letters of intro- 
 duction, raw, awkward, and shabby in his dress, with 
 cowhide shoes, blue yarn stockings "coarsely ribbed," 
 his rough trousers ceasing a long distance above his 
 feet. He sought admittance as a clerk to more than 
 
DANIEL WEBSTEK. 167 
 
 one office before he found a place ; an eminent law- 
 yer, rudely turning him off, " would not have such a 
 fellow in the office ! " Mr. Gore, a man of large 
 reputation, took in the unprotected youth, who 
 " came to work, not to play." Here he struggled 
 with poverty and the law. Ezekiel, not yet gradu- 
 ated, came also and took a school in Short street. 
 Daniel helped his brother in the school. Edward 
 Everett was one of the pupils, a " marvellous boy," 
 with no equal, it was thought, in all New England, 
 making the promise scholarly he has since fulfilled. 
 
 Mr. Webster was admitted to the bar in 1805, with 
 a prophecy of eminence from Mr. Gore, — a proph- 
 ecy which might easily be made : such a head was 
 its own fortune-teller. His legal studies over, re- 
 fusing a lucrative office, he settled down as a lawyer 
 at Boscawen, in New Hampshire. Thence went to 
 Portsmouth in 1807, a lawyer of large talents, get- 
 ting rapidly into practice ; " known all over the State 
 of New Hampshire," known also in Massachusetts. 
 He attended to literature, wrote papers in the 
 Monthly Anthology, a periodical published in the 
 " Athens of America " — so Boston was then called. 
 He printed a rhymed version of some of the odes of 
 Horace, and wrote largely for the " Portsmouth 
 Oracle." 
 
 In 1808 he married Miss Grace Fletcher, an at- 
 tractive and beautiful woman, one year older than 
 himself, the daughter of the worthy minister of Hop- 
 
168 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 kinton, N. H. By this marriage he was the father 
 of tw-o daughters and two sons. But, alas for him ! 
 this amiable and beloved woman ceased to be mortal 
 in 1828. 
 
 In 1812, when thirty years of age, he was elected 
 to Congress, — to the House of Representatives. In 
 1814 his house was burned, — a great loss to the 
 young man, never thrifty, and then struggling for an 
 estate. He determined to quit New Hampshire, and 
 seek a place in some more congenial spot. New 
 Hampshire breeds great lawyers, but not great for- 
 tunes. He hesitated for a while between Boston 
 and Albany. " He doubted ; " so he wi'ote to a 
 friend, if he " could make a living in Boston." But 
 he concluded to try ; and in 1816 he removed to 
 Boston, in the State which had required his ances- 
 tor, Rev. Stephen Bachiller, "to forbare exercising 
 his gifts as a pastor or teacher publiquely in the 
 Pattent," "for his contempt of authority, and till 
 some scandles be removed." * 
 
 In 1820, then thirty-eight years old, he is a mem- 
 ber of the Massachusetts Convention, and is one of 
 the leading members there ; provoking the jealousy, 
 but at the same time distancing the rivalry, of young 
 men Boston born and Cambridge bred. His light, 
 taken from under the New Hampshii-e bushel at 
 
 * MS. Kecords of Mass. General Court, Oct. 3, 1632. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 169 
 
 Portsmouth, could not be hid in Boston. It gives 
 light to all that enter the house. In 1822 he was 
 elected to Congress from Boston ; in 1827, to the 
 Senate of the United States. In 1841 he was Sec- 
 retary of State ; again a private citizen in 1843 ; in 
 the Senate in 1845, and Secretary of State in 1850, 
 where he continued, until, " on the 24th 'of October, 
 1852, all that was mortal of Daniel Webster was no 
 more I " 
 
 He was ten days in the General Court of Massa- 
 chusetts ; a few weeks in her Convention ;, eight 
 years Representative in Congress ; nineteen. Sen- 
 ator ; five. Secretary of State. Such is a condensed 
 map of his outward history. 
 
 Look next at the Headlands of his life. Here 1 
 shall speak of his deeds arid words as a citizen and 
 public officer. 
 
 He was a great lawyer, engaged in many of the 
 most important cases during the last forty years ; 
 but, in the briefness of a sermon, I must pass by his 
 labors in the law. 
 
 I know that much of his present reputation de- 
 pends on his achievements as a lawyer; as an "ex- 
 pounder of the Constitution." Unfortunately, it is 
 not possible for me to say how much credit belongs 
 to Mr. Webster for his constitutional arguments, and 
 how much to the late Judge Story. The publication 
 
 VOL. I. 15 
 
170 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of the correspondence between these gentlemen will 
 perhaps help settle the matter; but still much exact 
 legal information was often given by w^ord of mouth, 
 during personal interviews, and that must for ever 
 remain hidden from all but him who gave and him 
 who took. However, from 1816 to 1842, IVIi-. AVeb- 
 ster was in the habit of drawing from that deep and 
 copious well of legal knowledge, whenever his own 
 bucket was dry. I\Ii-. Justice Story was the Jupiter 
 Pluvius from whom Mr. Webster often sought to 
 elicit peculiar thunder for his speeches, and private 
 rain for his own public tanks of law. The states- 
 man got the lawyer to draft bills, to make sugges- 
 tions, to furnish facts, precedents, law, and ideas. 
 He went on this aquilician business, asking aid, now 
 in a " bankruptcy bill," in 1816 and 1825 ; then in 
 questions of law of nations, in 1827 ; next in mat- 
 ters of criminal law in 1830 ; then of constitutional 
 law in 1832 ; then in relation to the North-eastern 
 boundary in 1838 ; in matters of international law 
 again, in his negotiations with Lord Ashburton, in 
 1842. " You can do more for me than all the rest 
 of the world," wrote the Secretary of State, April 
 9th, 1842, "because you can give me the lights I 
 most want; and, if you furnish them, I shall be con- 
 fident that they will be true lights. I shall trouble 
 you greatly the next three months." And again, 
 July 16th, 1842, he writes, ^^Nobody hut yourself can 
 do this.^^ But, alas ! in his later years the beneficiary 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 171 
 
 sought to conceal the source of his supplies. Jupiter 
 Pluvius had himself been summoned before the court 
 of the Higher Law. 
 
 Much of Mr. Webster's fame as a Constitutional 
 lawyer rests on his celebrated argument in the Dart- 
 mouth College case. But it is easy to see that the 
 facts, the law, the precedents, the ideas, and the con- 
 clusions of that argument, had almost all of them 
 been presented by Messrs. Mason and Smith in the 
 previous trial of the case.* 
 
 Let me speak of the public acts of Mr. Webster in 
 his capacity as a private citizen. Here I shall speak 
 of him chiefly as a Public Orator. 
 
 Two juvenile orations of his are still preserved, 
 delivered while he was yet a lad in college.f One is 
 
 * See the Report of the Case of the Trustees of Dartmouth 
 College, etc. Portsmouth, N. H. [1819.] 
 
 f " An Oration pronounced at Hanover, N. H., the 4th day of 
 July, 1800, being the Twenty-fourth Anniversary of Indepen- 
 dence, by Daniel Webster, member of the Junior Class, Dartmouth 
 University. 
 
 " Do thou, great Liberty, inspire our souls. 
 And make our lives in thy possession happy. 
 Or our deaths glorious in thy just defence," etc. 
 
 " Hanover, 1800." 8vo. pp. 15. 
 
 " Funeral Oration, occasioned by the Death of Ephraim SI- 
 
 monds, of Templeton, Mass., a Member of the Senior Class in 
 
 Dartmouth College, who died at Hanover (N. H.), on the 18th of 
 
 June, 1801, aet. 26. By Daniel Webster, a class-mate of the do- 
 
172 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 a Fourth-of-July oration, — a performance good 
 enough for a lad of eighteen, but hardly indicating 
 the talents of its author. The sentiments probably 
 belong to the neighborhood, and the diction to the 
 authorities of the college : — 
 
 " Fair Science, too, holds her gentle empire amongst us, and 
 almost Innumerable altars are raised to her divinity from Bruns- 
 ■wick to Florida. Yale, Providence, and Harvard now grace our 
 land; and Dartmouth, towering majestic above the groves 
 •which encircle her, now inscribes her glory on the registers of 
 fame ! Oxford and Cambridge, those oriential stars of literature, 
 shall now be lost, while the bright sun of American science dis- 
 plays his broad circumference in uneclipsed radiance." — p. 10. 
 
 Here is an opinion which he seems to have enter- 
 tained at the end of his life. He speaks of the for- 
 mation of the Constitution : — 
 
 " We then saw the people of these States engaged in a transac- 
 tion, which is undoubtedly the greatest approximation towards 
 human perfection the political world ever yet experienced ; and 
 which will perhaps for ever stand, in the history of mankind, with- 
 out a parallel." — p. 8, 9. 
 
 In 1806, he delivered another Fourth-of-July ad- 
 dress at Concord, N. H.,* containing many noble and 
 generous opinions : — 
 
 ceased. Et vix sentiunt dicere lingua. Vale. Hanover, 1801." 
 8vo. pp. 13. 
 
 * " An Anniversary Address, delivered before the Federal 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 173 
 
 " Patriotism," said he, " hath a source of consolation that clieers 
 the heart In these unhappy times, when good men are rendered 
 odious, and bad men popular ; when great men are made little, 
 and little men are made great. A genuine patriot, above the 
 reach of personal considerations, with his eye and his heart on 
 the honor and the happiness of his country, is a character as easy 
 and as satisfactory to himself as venerable in the eyes of the world. 
 While his country enjoys freedom and peace, he will rejoice and 
 be thankful ; and, if it be In the councils of Heaven to send the 
 storm and the tempest, he meets the tumult of the political 
 elements with composure and dignity. Above fear, above danger, 
 above reproach, he feels that the last end which can happen to 
 any man never comes too soon, if he fall In defence of the law 
 and the liberty of his country." — p. 21. 
 
 In 1812, he delivered a third Fourth-of-July ad- 
 dress at Portsmouth.* The political storm is felt in 
 the little harbor of Portsmouth, and the , speaker 
 swells with the tumult of the sea. He is hostile to 
 France ; averse to the war with England, then 
 waging, yet readyto fight and pay taxes for it. He 
 wants a navy. He comes " to take counsel of the 
 dead," with whom he finds an " infallible criterion." 
 But, alas ! " dead men tell no tales," and give no 
 
 Gentlemen of Concord and Its Vicinity, July 4, 1806. By Daniel 
 Webster. Concord, N. H., 180G." 8vo. pp. 21. 
 
 * " An Address delivered before the Washington Benevolent 
 Society at Portsmouth, July 4, 1812. By Daniel Webster. 
 Portsmouth, N. H." 8vo. pp. 27. He delivered also other Fourth- 
 of-July addresses, which I have not seen. 
 
 15* 
 
174 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 .counsel. There was then no witch at Portsmouth to 
 ■bring' up Washington quickly. 
 
 His subsequent deference to the money-power be- 
 'gins to appear: "The Federal Constitution was 
 •adopted for no single reason so much as for the 
 protection of commerce." " Commerce has paid the 
 price of independence," It has been committed to 
 the care of the general government, but " not as a 
 convict to the safe-keeping of a jailor," "not for close 
 confinement." He wants a navy to protect it. Such 
 were the opinions of Federalists around him. 
 
 But these speeches of his youth and early man- 
 hood were but commonplace productions. In his 
 capacity as public orator, in the vigorous period of 
 his faculties, he made three celebrated speeches, not 
 at all political, — at Plymouth Rock, to celebrate the 
 two hundredth anniversary of New England's birth ; 
 at Bunker Hill, in memory of the chief battle of New 
 England ; and at Faneuil Hall, to honor the two 
 great men who died when the nation was fifty years 
 old, and they fourscore. Each of these orations was 
 a great and noble effort of patriotic eloquence. 
 
 Standing on Plymouth Rock, with the graves of 
 the forefathers around him, how proudly could he 
 say : — 
 
 ■" Our ancestors established their' system of government on 
 morality and reb'gious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, 
 cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 175 
 
 principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported 
 by moral habits. Living under the heavenly light of revelation, 
 they hoped to find all the social dispositions, all the duties which 
 men owe to each other and to society, enforced and performed. 
 Whatever makes men good Christians makes them good citizens. 
 Our fathers came here to enjoy their religion free and unmo- 
 lested ; and, at the end of two centuries, there is notiiing upon 
 which we can pronounce more confidently, nothing of which we 
 can express a more deep and earnest conviction, than of the in- 
 estimable importance of that religion to man, both in regard to 
 this life and that which is to come." 
 
 At Bunker Hill, there were before him the men of 
 the Revolution, — venerable men who drew swords 
 at Lexington and Concord, and faced the fight in 
 many a fray. There was the French nobleman, — 
 would to God that France had many such to-day! 
 
 — who perilled his fortune, life, and reputation, for 
 freedom in America, and never sheathed the sword 
 he drew at Yorktown till France also was a republic, 
 
 — Fayette was there ; the Fayette of two revolu- 
 tions ; the Fayette of Yorktown and Olmutz. How 
 well could he say : — 
 
 " Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. 
 Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which 
 we are called to act. Let our object be, our country, our 
 
 WHOLE COUNTRY, AND NOTHING BUT OUR COUNTRY. And, by 
 
 the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and 
 splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, 
 of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with ad- 
 miration for ever ! " 
 
176 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 On another occasion, he stood at the grave of two 
 great men, who, in the time that tried men's souls, 
 were of the earliest to peril " their lives, their for- 
 tunes, and their sacred honor," — men who, having 
 been one in the Declaration of Independence, were 
 again made one in death ; for then the people re- 
 turned to the cradle wherein the elder Adams and 
 Hancock had rocked Liberty when young ; and 
 Webster chaunted the psalm of commemoration to 
 Adams and J^erson, who had helped that new-born 
 child to walk. He brought before the living the 
 mighty dead. In his words they fought their battles 
 o'er again ; we heard them resolve, that, " sink or 
 swim, live or die, survive or perish," they gave their 
 hand and their heart for liberty; and Adams and 
 Jefferson grew greater before the eyes of the people, 
 as he brought them up, and showed the massive 
 services of those men, and pointed out the huge 
 structure of that human fabric which had gone to 
 the grave : — 
 
 " Adams and Jefferson, I have said, are no more. As human 
 beings, indeed, they are no more. They are no more, as in 1 776, 
 bold and fearless advocates of independence ; no more, as at sub- 
 sequent periods, the head of the government ; no more, as we 
 have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of admira- 
 tion and regard. They are no more. They are dead. But how 
 little is there of the great and good which can die ! To their 
 country they yet live, and live for ever. They live in all that 
 perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth ; in the recorded 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 177 
 
 proofs of their own great actions, in the offspring of their intel- 
 lect, in the deep-engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the 
 respect and homage of mankind. They live in their example ; 
 and they live, emphatically, and will live, in the influence which 
 their lives and efforts, their principles and opinions, now exercise, 
 and will continue to exercise, on the affairs of men, not only in 
 their own country, but throughout the civilized world." 
 
 How loftily did he say : — 
 
 " If we cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers, 
 Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and 
 human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples 
 are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our 
 path. Washington is in the clear, upper sky. These other stars 
 have now joined the American constellation. They circle round 
 their centre, and the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this 
 illumination let us walk the course of life, and, at its close, de- 
 voutly commend our beloved country, the common parent of us 
 all, to the Divine Benignity." 
 
 As a political officer, I shall speak of him as a 
 Legislator and Executor of the law, a maker and 
 administrator of laws. 
 
 In November, 1812, Mr. Webster was chosen as 
 Representative to the Thirteenth Congress. At that 
 time the country was at war with Great Britain ; and 
 the well-known restraints still fettered the commerce 
 of the country. The people were divided into two 
 great parties, — the Federalists, who opposed the 
 embargo and the war; and the Democrats, who 
 
178 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 favored both. Mr. Madison, then President, had 
 been forced into the war, contrary to his own con- 
 victions of expediency and of right. The most bitter 
 hatred prevailed between the two parties : " party 
 pohtics were inexpressibly violent." An eminent 
 lawyer of Salem, afterwards one of the most dis- 
 tinguished jurists in the world, a Democrat,* was, on 
 account of his political opinions, knocked down in 
 the street, beaten, and forced to take shelter in the 
 house of a friend, whither he fled, bleeding, and 
 covered with the mud of the streets. Political ran- 
 cor invaded private life ; it occupied the pulpit ; it 
 blinded men's eyes to a degree almost exceeding be- 
 lief : were it not now again a fact, we should not 
 believe it possible at a former time. 
 
 Mr. Webster was a Federalist, earnest and de- 
 voted, with the convictions of a Federalist, and the 
 prejudices and the blindness of a Federalist ; and, of 
 course, hated by men who had the convictions of a 
 Democrat, and the prejudices and blindness thereof. 
 It is difficult to understand the wilfulness of 
 thorough partisans. In New Hampshire the Judges 
 were Democrats ; the Federalists, having a majority 
 in the Legislature, wished to be rid of them, and, for 
 that purpose, abolished all the Courts in the State, 
 and appointed others in their place (1813). I men- 
 tion this only to show the temper of the times. 
 
 * Joseph Story. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 179 
 
 There was no great principle of political morals 
 on which the two parties differed, only on measures 
 of expediency. The Federalists demanded freedom 
 of the seas and protection for commerce ; but they 
 repeatedly, solemnly, and officially scorned to extend 
 this protection to sailors. They justly complained 
 of the embargo that kept their ships from the sea, 
 but found little fault with the British for impressing 
 sailors from American ships. The Democrats pro- 
 fessed the greatest regard for " sailors' rights ; " but, 
 in 1814, the government forbade its officers to grant 
 protection to " colored sailors," though Massachu- 
 setts alone, had more than a thousand able seamen 
 of that class ! A leading Federal organ, said, — 
 " The Union is dear ; Commerce is still more dear." 
 " The Eastern States agreed to the Union for the 
 sake of their Commerce." * 
 
 With the Federalists there was a great veneration 
 for England. Mr. Fisher Ames, said, — " The im- 
 mortal spirit of the wood-nymph Liberty dwells only 
 in the British oak." " Our country," quoth he, " is 
 too big for union, too sordid for patriotism, and too 
 democratic for liberty." " England," said another, 
 " is the bulwark of our religion," and the " shield of 
 afflicted humanity." A Federalist newspaper at 
 Boston censured Americans as " enemies of Eng- 
 land and monarchy," and accused the Democrats of 
 
 * "Columbian Centinel " for July 25th, 1812. 
 
180 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 " antipathy to kingly power." Did Democrats com- 
 plain that our prisoners were ill-treated by the Brit- 
 ish, it was declared " foolish and wicked to throw 
 the blame on the British government ! " Americans 
 expressed indignation at the British outrages at 
 Hampton, — burning houses and violating the wo- 
 men. The Federal newspapers said, it is " impossi- 
 ble that their (the British) military or naval men 
 should be other than magnanimous and humane." 
 Mr. Clay accused the Federalists of " plots that aim 
 at the dismemberment of the Union," and denounced 
 the party as " conspirators against the integrity of 
 the nation." 
 
 In general, the Federalists maintained that Eng- 
 land had a right to visit American vessels to search 
 for and take her own subjects, if found there ; and, 
 if she sometimes took an American citizen, that was 
 only an " incidental evil." Great Britain, said the 
 Massachusetts Legislature, has done us " no essen- 
 tial injury : " she " was fighting the battles of the 
 world." They denied that she had impressed " any 
 considerable number of American seamen." Such 
 was the language of Mr. Webster and the party he 
 served. But even at that time the " Edinburgh 
 Review " declared, " Every American seaman might 
 be said to hold his liberty, and ultimately his life, at 
 the discretion of a foreign commander. In many 
 cases, accordingly, native-born Americans were 
 dragged on board British ships of war : they were 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 181 
 
 dispersed in the remotest quarters of the globe, and 
 not only exposed to the perils of service, but shut 
 out by their situation from all hope of ever being 
 reclaimed. The right of reclaiming runaway seamen 
 was exercised, in short, without either moderation or 
 justice." 
 
 Over six thousand cases of impressment were re- 
 corded in the American Department of State. In 
 Parliament, Lord Castlereagh admitted that there 
 were three thousand five hundred men in the British 
 fleet claiming to be American citizens, and sLxteen 
 hundred of them actually citizens. At the begin- 
 ning of the war, two thousand five hundred Ameri- 
 can citizens, impressed into the British navy, refused 
 to fight against their native land, and were shut up 
 in Dartmoor prison. When the Guerriere was cap- 
 tured, there were ten American sailors on board who 
 refused to fight. In Parliament, in 1808, Mr. Baring 
 (Lord Ashburton) defended the rights of Americans 
 against the British orders in council, while in 1812 
 and 1813 the Federalists could " not find out the 
 cases of impressment " ; — such was the influence of 
 party spirit. 
 
 The party out of power is commonly the friend of 
 freedom. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts 
 declared that unconstitutional acts of Congress were 
 void; the Legislature declared it the duty of the 
 State Courts to prevent usurped and unconstitu- 
 tional powers from being exercised : " It is the duty 
 
 VOL. I. 16 
 
182 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of the present generation to stand between the next 
 and despotism ; " " Whenever the national compact 
 is violated, and the citizens of this State oppressed 
 by cruel and unauthorized enactments, this Legisla- 
 ture is bound to interpose its power to wrest from 
 the oppressor his victim." 
 
 After the Federal party had taken strong ground, 
 Ml-. Webster opposed the administration, opposed 
 the war, took the part of England in the matter of 
 impressment. He drew up the Brentwood Memo- 
 rial, once so famous all over New England, now for- 
 gotten and faded out of all men's memory.* 
 
 On the 24th of May, 1813, Mr. Webster first took 
 his seat in the House of Representatives, at the extra 
 session of the thirteenth Congress. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and indus- 
 triously opposed the administration. In the three 
 sessions of this Congress, he closely followed the 
 leaders of the Federal party ; voting with Mr. Pick- 
 ering a hundred and ninety-one times, and against 
 him only fom* times, in the two years. Sometimes 
 he " avoided the question ; " but voted against thank- 
 ing Commodore Perry for his gallant conduct, against 
 the purchase of Mr. Jefferson's library, against naval 
 supplies, direct taxes, and internal duties. 
 
 He opposed the government scheme of a National 
 
 * I purposely pass over other political writings and speeches 
 of his. 
 
DANIEL AVEBSTER. 183 
 
 Bank.* No adequate reports of his speeches against 
 the warf are preserved; but, to judge from the testi- 
 mony of an eminent man, J they contained prophetic 
 indications of that oratorical power which was one 
 day so mightily to thunder and lighten in the nation's 
 eyes. Yet his influence in Congress does not appear 
 to have been great. In later years he defended the 
 United States Bank; but that question, like others, 
 had then become a party question ; and a horse in 
 the party-team must go on with his fellows, or be 
 flayed by the driver's lash. 
 
 But though his labors were not followed by any 
 very marked influence at Washington, at home he 
 drew on himself the wrath of the Democratic party. 
 Mr. Isaac Hill, the editor of the leading Democratic 
 paper in New Hampshire, pursued him with intense 
 personal hatred. He sneeringly says, and falsely, 
 " The great Mr. Webster, so extremely flippant in 
 arguing petty suits in the courts of law, cuts but a 
 sorry figure at Washington : his overweening con- 
 fidence and zeal cannot there supply the place of 
 knowledge." § 
 
 He was sneeringly called the " great," the " elo- 
 quent," the " preeminent " Daniel Webster. His 
 
 * Speech in the House of Representatives, January 2, 1815. 
 Works, vol. iii. p. 35, et seq. 
 
 t See his Speech in House of Representatives, January 14, 
 1814, on the Army Bill. Alexandria, 1814. 8vo. pp. 14. 
 
 % Mr. Story. 
 
 § " New Hampshire Patriot" of July 27, 1813. 
 
184 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 deeds, his words, his silence, all were represented as 
 coming from the basest motives, and serving the 
 meanest ends. His Journal at Portsmouth was 
 called the " lying Oracled Listen to this : " Mr. 
 Webster spoke much and often when he was in 
 Congress ; and, if he had studied the Wisdom of 
 Solomon (as some of his colleagues probably did), 
 he would have discovered that a fool is knoivn by his 
 much speaking^ 
 
 IVIr. Webster, in common with his party, refused 
 to take part in the war. " I honor," said he, " the 
 people that shrink from such a contest as this. T 
 applaud their sentiments : they are such as religion 
 and humanity dictate, and such as none but can- 
 nibals would wish to eradicate .from the human 
 heart." Whereupon the editor asks, Will not the 
 federal soldiers call the man who made the speech 
 " a cold-blooded wretch, whose heart is callous to 
 every patriotic feeling ? " * and then, " We do not 
 wonder at Mr. Webster's reluctance again to appear 
 at the city of Washington " (he was attending cases 
 at court) : " even his native brass must be abashed 
 at his own conduct, at his own speeches." f Flattery 
 " has spoiled him ; for application might have made 
 him something a dozen years hence. It has given 
 him confidence, a face of brass, which and his native 
 
 *"New Hampshire Patriot," August 27, 1814. 
 t Id., October 4, 1814. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 185 
 
 volubility are mistaken for ' preeminent talent.' Of 
 all men in the State, he is the fittest to be the tool 
 of the enemy." * He was one of the men that bring 
 the " nation to the verge of ruin ; " a " Thompsonian 
 intriguer ; " a " Macfarland admirer ; " " The self- 
 importance and gross egotism he displays are dis- 
 gusting ; " " You would suppose him a great mer- 
 chant, living in a maritime city, and not a man 
 reared in the ivoods of Salisbmy, or educated in the 
 ivilds of Hanover." f 
 
 Before he was elected to Congress, IVIr. Hill ac- 
 cused him of " deliberate falsehood," of " telling bold 
 untruths to justify the enormities of the enemy." $ 
 The cry was raised, "The Union is in danger." Mr. 
 Webster was to bring about " a dissolution of the 
 Union ; " § " The few conspirators in Boston, who 
 aim at the division of the Union, and the English 
 Government, who support them in their rebellion, ap- 
 pear to play into each other's hands with remarkable 
 adroitness." The Patriot speaks of "the mad meas- 
 ures of the Boston junto ; the hateful, hypocritical 
 scheme of its canting, disaffected chief, and the 
 audacious tone of its public prints." || The language 
 of Washington was quoted against political foes ; 
 his Farewell Address reprinted. Mr. Webster was 
 
 * " New Hampshire Patriot," August 2, 1814. 
 
 t Id., Aug. 9, 1814. X Id., Oct. 29, 1812. 
 
 § Id., Oct, 13, 1812. 
 
 II March 30, 1813, quoted from the " Baltimore Patriot" 
 
 16* 
 
186 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 charged with " setting the North against the South." 
 The Essex junto was accused of " a plot to destroy 
 the Union," in order " to be under the glorious shelter 
 of British protection."* The Federalists were a 
 " British faction ; " the country members of the 
 Massachusetts Legislature were " wooden mem- 
 bers ; " distinguished characters were " exciting hos- 
 tility against the Union ;" one of these " ought to be 
 tied to the tail of a Congreve rocket, and offered up 
 a burnt sacrifice." It was " moral treason " not to 
 rejoice at the victories of the nation — it was not 
 then " levying war." The Legislature of New Jersey 
 called the acts of the Massachusetts Legislature 
 "the ravings of an infuriated faction," and Gov. 
 Strong a " Maniac Governor." The " Boston Patri- 
 ot"! called Mr. Webster "the poor fallen Webster," 
 who " curses heartily his setters on : " " the poor 
 creature is confoundedly mortified." Mr. Clay, in 
 Congress, could speak of " the howlings of the whole 
 British pack, let loose from the Essex junto : " the 
 Federalists were attempting "to familiarize the pub- 
 lic mind with the horrid scheme of disunion." ij: And 
 Isaac Hill charged the Federalists with continually 
 " threatening a separation of the States ; striving to 
 stir up the passions of the North against the South, 
 
 * •" Boston Patriot," No. 1 . 
 
 if July 21,1813. 
 
 j: Speech in House of Representatives, January 8, 1813. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. ^ 187 
 
 — in clear defiance of the dying injunctions of 
 Washington."* I mention these things that all may 
 understand the temper of those times. 
 
 In 1815, Mr. "Webster sought for the oflfice of At- 
 torney-General of New Hampshire, but, failing there- 
 of, was reelected to the House of Representatives.! 
 In the fourteenth Congress, two important measures 
 came up amongst others, — the Bank and the Tariff. 
 Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Clay favored the establishment 
 of a national bank, with a capital of $35,000,000. 
 Mr. Webster opposed it by votes and words, reaf- 
 firming the sound doctrines of his former speech : 
 the founders of the Constitution were "hard-money 
 men ; " government must not receive the paper of 
 banks which do not pay specie ; but " the taxes 
 must be paid in the legal money of the country." J 
 Such was the doctrine of the leading Federalists of 
 the time, and the practice of New England. He in- 
 troduced a resolution, that all revenues of the United 
 States should be paid in the legal currency of the 
 nation. It met scarce any opposition, and was 
 passed the same day. I think this was the greatest 
 service he ever performed in relation to our national 
 
 * "New Hampshire Patriot" for June 7, 1814. 
 
 t See the Farmers' Monthly Visitor, vol. xii. p. 198, et seq. 
 (Manchester, N. H. 1832.) 
 
 X Speech in House of Representatives, Feb. 28, 1816 (in " Na- 
 tional Intelligencer" for March 2, 181G). See also Works, vol. iii. 
 p. 35, et seq. 
 
188 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 currency or national finance. He was himself proud 
 of it in his later years.* 
 
 The protective tariff was supported by Messrs. 
 Calhoun, Clay, and Lowndes. Mr. Webster opposed 
 it; for the capitalists of the North, then deeply en- 
 gaged in commerce, looked on it as hostile to their 
 shipping, and talked of the " dangers of manufac- 
 tories." Was it for this reason that the South, al- 
 ways jealous of the Northern thrifty toil, proposed 
 it ? So it was alleged.f Mr. Webster declared that 
 Congress has no constitutional right to levy duties 
 for protection ; only for revenue ; revenue is the con- 
 stitutional substance ; protection, only the accidental 
 shadow. :|: 
 
 In 1816, Mr. Webster removed to Boston. In 
 1819, while he was a private citizen, a most impor- 
 tant question came before the nation, — Shall slavery 
 be extended into the Missouri Territory ? Here, too, 
 Mr. Webster was on the side of freedom. § He was 
 one of a committee appointed by a meeting of the 
 citizens of Boston to call a general meeting of the 
 
 * It passed April 26, 1816. Yeas 79; nays, 35. 
 
 f But see Mr. Calhoun's defence of his course. Life and 
 Speeches. New York, 1843. p. 329. 
 
 X Speech in House of Representatives. 
 
 § In Mr. Everett's Memoir prefixed to the Works of Mr. 
 Webster, no mention is made of this opposition to the Missouri 
 Compromise ! 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 189 
 
 citizens to oppose the extension of slavery. The 
 United States Marshal was chairman of the meeting. 
 Mr. Webster was one of the committee to report 
 resolutions at a subsequent meeting. The preamble 
 said : — 
 
 " The extirpation of slavery has never ceased to be a measure 
 deeply concerning the honor and safety of the United States." 
 " In whatever tends to diminish the evil of slavery, or to check 
 its growth, all parts of the confederacy are alike interested." " If 
 slavery is established in Missouri, then it will be burdened with 
 all the mischiefs which are too well known to be the sure results 
 of slavery ; an evil, which has long been deplored, would be in- 
 calculably augmented ; the whole confederacy would be weakened, 
 and our free institutions disgraced, by the voluntary extension of 
 a practice repugnant to all the principles of a free government, 
 the continuance of which in any part of our country necessity 
 alone has justified." 
 
 It was Resolved, that Congress " possesses the constitutional 
 power, upon the admission of any new State created beyond the 
 limits of the original territory of the United States, to make the 
 prohibition of the further extension of slavery or involuntary ser- 
 vitude in such new State, a condition of its admission." " It -is 
 just and expedient that this power should be exercised by Con- 
 gress, upon the admission of all new States created beyond the 
 limits of the original territory of the United States." 
 
 In a speech, Mr. Webster " showed incontroverti- 
 bly that Congress had this power; that they were 
 called upon by all the principles of sound policy, 
 humanity, and morality, to enact it, and, by prohibit- 
 
190 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 • 
 
 ing slavery in the new State of Missouri, oppose a 
 barrier to the future progress of slavery, which else 
 — and this was the last time the opportunity would 
 happen to fix its limits — would roll on desolating 
 the vast expanse of continent to the Pacific Ocean." * 
 Mr. Webster was appointed chairman of a com- 
 mittee to prepare a memorial to Congress on this 
 matter.f He said: — 
 
 " We have a strong feeling of the injustice of any toleration of 
 slavery." But, " to permit it In a new country, what is it but to 
 encourage that rapacity and fraud and violence, against which we 
 have so long jiointed the denunciations of our penal code ? What 
 is it but to tarnish the proud fame of our country ? What is it 
 but to throw suspicion on its good faith, and to render question- 
 able all its professions of regard for the rights of humanity, and 
 the liberties of mankind ? " — p. 21. 
 
 At that time, such was the general opinion of the 
 Northern men.:|: A writer in the leading journal of 
 
 * Account of a Meeting at the State House in Boston, Dec. 3, 
 1819, to consider the Extension of Slavery by the United States 
 (in " Boston Daily Advertiser " for Dec. 4, 1819). 
 
 t " A Memorial to the Congress of the United States, on the 
 Subject of Restraining the Increase of Slavery in the New States 
 to be admitted Into the Union," etc. etc. Boston, 1819. pp. 22. 
 
 i See a valuable series of papers in the " Boston Daily Adver- 
 tiser," No. I. to VI., on this subject, from Nov. 20 to Dec. 28, 
 1819. Charge of Judge Story to the Grand Juries, etc.; ibid. 
 Dec. 7 and 8, 1819. Article on the Missouri Compromise, in 
 "North American Review," Jan. 1820. Mr. King's speech In 
 Senate of United States, in " Columbian Centinel " for Jan. 19 and 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 191 
 
 Boston said : " Other calamities are trifles compared 
 to this (slavery). War has alleviations ; if it does 
 much evil, it does some good : at least, it has an end. 
 But negro-slavery is misery without mixture ; it is 
 Pandora's box, but no Hope at the bottom ; it is evil, 
 and only evil, and that continually." * 
 
 A meeting of the most respectable citizens of 
 Worcester resolved against " any further extension 
 of slavery," as " rendering our boasted Land of 
 Liberty preeminent only as a mart for Human 
 Flesh." ■ 
 
 " Sad prospects," said the "Boston Daily Adver- 
 tiser," " indeed for emancipators and colonizers, that, 
 faster than the wit or the means of men can devise 
 a method even for keeping stationary the frightful 
 propagation of slavery, other men, members of the 
 same community, sometimes colleagues of the same 
 deliberative assembly will be compassing, with all 
 their force, the widest possible extension of sla- 
 very." f 
 
 The South uttered its threat of " dissolving the 
 Union," if slavery were not extended west of the 
 Mississippi. " The threat," said a writer, " when we 
 consider from whence it comes, raises at once won- 
 
 22, 1820. See also the comments of the " Dally Advertiser" on 
 the treachery of Mr. Mason, the Boston representative, March 28 
 and 29, 1820. 
 
 * " L.M." in " Columbian Centinel " for Dec. 8, 1819. 
 
 t " Boston Daily Advertiser" for Nov. 20, 1819. 
 
192 DANIEL WEBSTEK. 
 
 der and pity, but has never been thought worth a 
 serious answer here. Even the academicians of 
 Laputa never imagined such a nation as these seced- 
 ing States would form." " We have lost much ; our 
 national honor has received a stain in the eyes of the 
 world ; we have enlarged the sphere of human 
 misery and crime." * Only four New Englanders 
 voted for the Missouri Compromise, — Hill and 
 Holmes of Maine, Mason and Shaw of Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
 Mr. Webster held no public office in this State, 
 until he was chosen a member of the Convention 
 for amending the Constitution of the Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 It appears that he had a large influence in the 
 Massachusetts Convention. His speeches, however, 
 do not show any remarkable depth of philosophy, or 
 width of historic view ; but they display the strength 
 of a great mind not fully master of his theme. They 
 are not always fair ; they sometimes show the 
 specious arguments of the advocate, and do not 
 always indicate the soundness of the judge. He 
 developed no new ideas; looked back more than 
 forward. He stated his opinions with clearness and 
 energy. His leaning was then, as it always was, 
 towards the concentration of power ; not to its difFu- 
 
 * " Boston Daily Advertiser" of March 16, 1820. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 193 
 
 sion. It was the Federal leaning of New England 
 at the time. He had no philosophical objection to a 
 technical religious test as the qualification for office, 
 but did not think it expedient to found a measure on 
 that principle. He wanted property, and not popu- 
 lation, as the basis of representation in the senate. 
 It was " the true basis and measure of power." 
 " Political power," said he, " naturally and necessa- 
 rily goes into the hands which holds the property." 
 The House might rest on men, the Senate on money. 
 He said, " It would seem to be the part of political 
 wisdom to found government on property ; " yet 
 he wished to have the property diffused as widely as 
 possible. He was not singular in this preference of 
 money to men. Others thought, that, to put the 
 Senate on the basis of population, and not property, 
 was a change of *' an alarming character." 
 
 He had small confidence in the people ; apparently 
 little sympathy with the multitude of men. He was 
 jealous of the liCgislature ; afraid of its encroach- 
 ment on the Judiciary, — New Hampshire, had per- 
 haps, shown him examples of legislative injustice, — 
 but contended ably for the independence of Judges. 
 He had great veneration for the existing Constitution, 
 and thought there would "never be any occasioo 
 for great changes " in it, and that " no revision of 
 its general principles would be necessary."^ Others 
 of the same party thought also that the Constitution 
 was " the most perfect system that human wisdom 
 
 VOL. I. 17 
 
194 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 had ever devised." To judge from the record, Mr. 
 Webster found abler heads than his own in that 
 Convention. Indeed it would have been surprising 
 if a young man, only eight and thirty years of age, 
 should surpass the " assembled wisdom of the 
 State." * 
 
 On the 2d of December, 1823, Mr. Webster took 
 his seat in the House of Representatives, as member 
 for Boston. He defended the cause of the Greeks 
 " with the power of a great mind applied to a great 
 subject," denounced the " Holy Alliance," and rec- 
 ommended interference to prevent oppression. Pub- 
 lic opinion set strongly in that direction.! " The 
 
 * Some valuable passages of Mr. Webster's speeches are omit- 
 ted from the edition of his Works. (Compare vol. iii. pp. 15 and 
 17, -nitli the "Journal of Debates and Proceedings In the Con- 
 vention of Delegates," etc. Boston, 1821. pp. 143, 144, and 145, 
 146.) A reason for the omission will be obvious to any one 
 who reads the original, and remembers the position and expecta- 
 tions of the author in 1851. 
 
 •|- Meetings had been held in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, 
 and other important towns, and considerable sums of money- 
 raised on behalf of the Greeks. Even the educated men were 
 filled with enthusiasm for the descendants of Anacreon and Peri- 
 cles. The leading journals of England were on the same side. 
 See the letters of John Q. Adams to Mr. Kich and Mr. Luriottis, 
 Dec. 18, 1823 ; and of John Adams, Dec. 29, 1823. Mr. Clay 
 was on the same side with Mr. Webster. But Mr. Kandolph, in 
 his speech in House of Representatives, Jan. 20, 1824, tartly 
 asked, " Why have we never sent an envoy to our sister republic 
 Havti?" 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 195 
 
 policy of our Government," said he, "is on the side 
 of liberal and enlightened sentiments ; " " The civil- 
 ized world has done with ' The enormous faith of 
 many made for one.' " * 
 
 In 1816 he had opposed a tariff which levied a 
 heavy duty on imports ; in 1824 he opposed it again, 
 with vigorous arguments. His speech at that time 
 is a work of large labor, of some nice research, and 
 still of value.f " Like a mighty giant," says Mr. 
 Hayne, " he bore away upon his shoulders the pil- 
 lars of the temple of error and delusion, escaping 
 himself unhurt, and leaving his adversaries over- 
 whelmed in its ruins." He thought, " the authority 
 of Congress to exercise the revenue-power with 
 direct reference to the protection of manufactures is 
 a questionable authority." J He represented the 
 opinion of New England, which " discountenanced 
 the progress of this policy " of high duties. The 
 Federalists of the North inclined to free trade ; in 
 1807 Mr. Dexter thought it " an unalienable right," § 
 and in 1820 Judge Story asked why should " the 
 laboring classes be taxed for the necessaries of life ? "|| 
 
 * See the just and beautiful remarks of Mr. Webster in this 
 speech. Works, vol. iii. pp. 77, 78, and 92 and 93. Oh si sic 
 semper ! 
 
 t Vol. iii. p. 94, et seq. See Speech in Faneuil Hall, Oct. 2, 
 1820. 
 
 X Speech in reply to Hayne, vol. iii. p. 305. 
 
 § Argument in District Court of Massachusetts against the 
 Embargo. 
 
 II Memorial of the Citizens of Salem. 
 
196 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 The tariff of 1824 got but one vote from Massachu- 
 setts. As the public judgment of Northern capitalists 
 changed, it brought over the opinion of Mr. Web- 
 ster, who seems to have had no serious and sober 
 convictions on this subject. At one time, he declares 
 the protective system is ruinous to the laboring man ; 
 but again "it is aimed point-blank at the protection 
 of labor ; " and the duty on coal must not be dimin- 
 ished, lest coal grow scarce and dear.* Non-impor- 
 tation was " an American instinct." f 
 
 In 1828 he voted for " the bill of abominations," 
 as that tariff was called, which levied " thirty-two 
 millions of duties on sixty-four millions of imports," 
 " not because he was in favor of the measure, but 
 as the least of two evils." 
 
 In 1816 the South wanted a protective tariff: the 
 commercial North hated it. It was Mr. Calhoun $ 
 who introduced the measure first. Mr. Clay gave it 
 the support of his large talents and immense per- 
 sonal influence, and built up the " American Sys- 
 tem." Pennsylvania and New York were on that 
 side. General Jackson voted for the tariff of 1824. 
 Mr. Clay was jealous of foreign commerce : it was 
 " the great source of foreign wars ; " " The predilec- 
 
 * Works, vol. iv. p. 309. f Works, vol. ii. p. 352. 
 
 X See Mr. Calhoun's reason for this. Life and Speeches, p. 70, 
 et seq. But see the articles of a " Friend to Truth " upon Mr. 
 Calhoun and the Protective System, in the Richmond Enquirer 
 for November, 1832. 
 
DANIEL AVEBSTER. 197 
 
 tion of the school of the Essex junto," said he, " for 
 foreign "trade and British fabrics is unconquerable." 
 Yet he correctly said, " New England will have the 
 first and richest fruits of the tariff." * 
 
 After the system of protection got footing, the 
 Northern capitalists set about manufacturing in 
 good earnest, and then Mr. Webster became the 
 advocate of a high tariff of protective duties. Here 
 he has been blamed for his change of opinion ; but 
 to him it was an easy change. He was not a scien- 
 tific legislator : he had no great and comprehensive 
 ideas of that part of legislation which belongs to 
 political economy. He looked only at the fleeting 
 interest of his constituents, and took their transient 
 opinions of the hour for his norm of conduct. As 
 these altered, his own views also changed. Some- 
 times the change was a revolution.! It seems to 
 me his first opinion was right, and his last a fatal 
 mistake, that he never answered his first great speech 
 of 1824 : but it also appears that he was honest in 
 the change ; for he only looked at the pecuniary in- 
 
 * Speech in House of Representatives, April 26, 1820. Works, 
 . (New York, 1843,) vol. i. p. 159. 
 
 t Compare his speeches on the tariif in 1824 and 1828 (Works, 
 vol. iii. p. 94, et seq. ; and 228, et seq.) with his subsequent 
 speeches thereon in 1837, 1846. Works, vol. iv. p. 304, et seq.; 
 vol. V. p. 361, et seq.; and vol. ii. p. 130, et seq. and 340, et seq. 
 Compare vol. iii. p. 118, et seq. and 124, et seq. with vol. ii. p. 357, 
 See his reasons for the change of opinion in vol. v. p. 186 and 240. 
 All of these speeches are marked by great ability of statement. 
 
 17* 
 
198 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 terest of his employers, and took their opinions for 
 his guide. But he had other fluctuations on this 
 matter of the tariff, which do not seem capable of so 
 honorable an explanation.* 
 
 In the days of nullification, Mr. Webster denied 
 the right of South Carolina to secede from tli^ 
 Union, or to give a final interpretation of the Con- 
 stitution. She maintained that the Federal Gov- 
 ernment had violated the Constitution ; that she, 
 the aggrieved State of South Carolina, was the 
 judge in that matter, and had a constitutional right 
 to " nullify " the Constitution, and withdraw from 
 the Union. 
 
 The question is a deep one. It is the old is- 
 sue of Federal and Democrat, — the question be- 
 tween the constitutional power of the whole, and 
 the power of the parts, — Federal power and State 
 power. ]VIr. Webster was always in favor of a 
 strong central government ; honestly in favor of it, I 
 doubt not. His speeches on that subject were most 
 masterly speeches. I refer, in particular, to that in 
 1830 against Mr. Hayne, and the speech in 1833 
 against Mr. Calhoun. 
 
 The first of these is the great political speech of 
 
 * Compare his speech in Faneuil Hall, September, 30, 1842, 
 •with his tariff speeches in 1846. Works, vol. ii. p. 130, et seq. 
 with vol. V. p. 161, et seq. and vol. ii. p. 349, et seq. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 199 
 
 Daniel Webster. I do not mean to say that it is 
 just in its political ethics, or deep in the metaphysics 
 of politics, or far-sighted in its political providence. 
 I only mean to say that it surpasses all his other 
 political speeches in the massive intellectual power 
 of statement. Mr. Webster was then eight and 
 forty years old. He defended New England against 
 Mr. Hayne ; he defended the Constitution of the 
 United States against South Carolina. His speech 
 is full of splendid eloquence ; he reached high, and 
 put the capstone upon his fame, whose triple foun- 
 dation he had laid at Plymouth, at Bunker Hill, and 
 at Faneuil Hall. The " republican members of the 
 Massachusetts Legislature " unanimously thanked 
 him for his able vindication of their State. A Vir- 
 ginian, who heard the speech, declared he felt " as if 
 looking at a mammoth treading his native cane- 
 brake, and, without apparent consciousness, crush- 
 ing obstacles which nature had never designed as 
 impediments to him." 
 
 He loved concentrated power, and seems to have 
 thought the American Government was exclusively 
 national, and not Federal.* The Constitution was 
 " not a compact." He was seldom averse to sacri- 
 ficing the rights of the individual States to the claim 
 of the central authority. He favored consolidation 
 
 , * Last remarks on Foote's Resolution, and Speech in Senate, 
 13th Feb. 1833. Works, vol. iii. p. 343, et seq.; 448, et seq. 
 
200 DANIEL WEBSTEK. 
 
 of power, while the South Carolinians and others 
 preferred local self-government. It was no doctrine 
 of his "that unconstitutional laws bind the people ;" 
 but it was his doctrine that such laws bind the peo- 
 ple until the Supreme Court declares them uncon- 
 stitutional; thus making, not the Constitution, but 
 the discretion of the rulers, the measure of its 
 powers I 
 
 It is customary at the North to think Mr. Webster 
 wholly in the right, and South Carolina wholly in 
 the wrong, on the question of nullification ; but it 
 should be remembered, that some of the ablest men 
 whom the South ever sent to Washington thought 
 otherwise. There was a good deal of truth in the 
 speech of IVIr. Hayne : he was alarmed at the in- 
 crease of the central power, which seemed to invade 
 the rights of the States. Mr. Calhoun defended the 
 Carolinian id^a ; * and Calhoun was a man of great 
 mind, a sagacious man, a man of unimpeachable 
 integrity in private.f Mr. Clay was certainly a man 
 of very large intellect, wise and subtle and far-sighted. 
 But, in 1833, he introduced his " Compromise Meas- 
 
 * See Mr. Calhoun's Disquisition on Government, and his Dis- 
 course on the Constitution and Government of the United States, 
 in his Works, vol. i. (Charleston, 1851) ; Life and Speeches 
 (New York, 1843), No. iii.-vl. See, too. Life and Speeches, No. 
 ix., xix., xxii. 
 
 f A more thorough acquaintance with the character and con- 
 duct of Mr. Calhoun, makes it doubtful to me that he deserves 
 this threefold praise. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 201 
 
 lire," to avoid the necessity of enforcing the opin- 
 ions of Mr. Webster. 
 
 I must pass over many things in Mr. Webster's 
 congressional career. 
 
 While Secretary of State, he performed the chief 
 act of his public life, — the one deed on whicii his 
 reputation as a political administrator seems now to 
 settle down and rest. He negotiated the Treaty of 
 Washington in 1842. The matter was difficult, the 
 claims intricate ; there were four parties to pacify, 
 — England, the United States, Massachusetts, and 
 Maine. The quarrel was almost sixty years old. 
 Many political doctors had laid their hands on the 
 immedicable wound, which only smarted sorer under 
 their touch. The British Government sent over a 
 minister to negotiate a treaty with the American 
 Secretary. The two eminent statesmen settled the 
 difficulty. It has been said that no other man in 
 America could have done so well, and drawn the 
 thunder out of the gathered cloud. Perhaps I am 
 no judge of that ; yet I do not see why any sensible 
 and honest man could not have done the work. You 
 all remember the anxiety of America and of Eng- 
 land ; the apprehension of war ; and the delight 
 when these two countries shook hands, as the work 
 was done. Then we all felt that there was only one 
 English nation, — the English Briton and the Eng- 
 lish American ; that Webster and Ashburton were 
 
202 DANIEL ■WEBSTER. 
 
 fellow-cftizens, yea, brothers of the same great An- 
 glo-Saxon tribe. 
 
 His letters on the Right of Search, and the British 
 claim to impress seamen from American ships, 
 would have done honor to any statesman in the 
 world.* He refused to England the right to visit 
 and search our ships, on the plea of their being en- 
 gaged in the slave-trade. Some of my anti-slavery 
 brethren have censured him for this. I always 
 thought he was right in the matter. But, on the 
 other side, his celebrated letter to Lord Ashburton, 
 in the Creole case, seems to me most eminently un- 
 just, false in law, and wicked in morality.f It is the 
 greatest stain on that negotiation ; and it is wonder- 
 ful to me, that, in 1846, Mr. Webster could himself 
 declare he thought that letter was the "most tri- 
 umphant production " from his pen in aU the corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 But let us pause a moment, and see how much 
 praise is reaUy due to JVlr. Webster for negotiating 
 the treaty. I limit my remarks to the north-eastern 
 boundary. The main question was, Where is the 
 north-west angle of Nova Scotia, mentioned in the 
 treaty of 1783 ? for a line, drawn due north from the 
 source of the river St. Croix to the summit of the 
 highlands dividing the waters of the Atlantic from 
 those of the St. LawTence, was to terminate at that 
 
 * Works, vol. vi. p. 318, et seq. f Id. p. 303, et seq. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 203 
 
 point. The American claim was most abundantly- 
 substantiated ; but it left the British Provinces, New 
 Brunswick and Canada, in an embarrassed position. 
 No military road could be maintained between them ; 
 and, besides, the American border came very near 
 to Quebec. Accordingly, the British Government, 
 on the flimsiest pretext, refused to draw the lines and 
 erect the monuments contemplated by the treaty of 
 1794 ; perverted the language of the treaty of 1783, 
 which was too plain to be misunderstood ; and grad- 
 ually extended its claim further and further to the 
 west. By the treaty of Ghent (1814), it was pro- 
 vided that certain questions should be left out to a 
 friendly power for arbitration. In 1827, this matter 
 was referred to the King of the Netherlands : he was 
 to determine where the line of the treaty ran. He 
 did not determine that question, but, in 1831, pro- 
 posed a new conventional line. His award ceded to 
 the British about 4,119 square miles of land in 
 Maine. The English assented to it ; but the Amer- 
 icans refused to accept the award, Mr. "Webster op- 
 posing it. He was entirely convinced that the 
 American claim was just and sound, and the Amer- 
 ican interpretation of the treaty of 1783 the only- 
 correct one. On a memorable occasion, in the Sen- 
 ate of the United States, Mr. Webster declared — 
 " that Great Britain ought forthwith to be told, that, 
 unless she would agree to settle the question by the 
 4th of July next, according to the treaty of 1783, 
 
204 DAXIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 we would then take possession of that line, and let 
 her drive us off if she can! " * 
 
 The day before, and in all soberness, he declared 
 that he " never entertained a doubt that the right to 
 this disputed territory was in the United States." 
 This was " perfectly clear, — so clear that the con- 
 troversy never seemed to him hardly to reach to the 
 dignity of a debatable question." 
 
 But, in 1842, the British minister came to nego- 
 tiate a treaty. Maine and Massachusetts were asked 
 to appoint commissioners to help in the matter; for 
 it seemed determined on that those States were to 
 relinquish some territory to which they had a lawful 
 claim. Those States could not convey the territory 
 to England, but might authorize the Federal Gov- 
 ernment to make the transfer. The treaty was made, 
 and accepted by Maine and Massachusetts. But it 
 ceded to Great Britain all the land which the award 
 had given, and 893 square miles in addition. Thus 
 the treaty conveyed to Great Britain more than five 
 thousand square miles — upwards of three million 
 acres — of American territory, to which, by the terms 
 of the treaty, the American title was perfectly good. 
 Rouse's Point was ceded to the United States,- with 
 a narrow strip of land on the north of Vermont and 
 New Hampshire ; but the king's award gave us 
 
 * Evening Debate of Senate, Feb. 27, 1839 (iu "Boston At- 
 las" of March 1). 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 205 
 
 Rouse's Point at less cost. The rights which the 
 Americans gained with the navigation of a part of 
 the St. John's River were only a fair exchange for 
 the similar right conceded to the British. As a 
 compensation to Maine and Massachusetts for the 
 loss of the land and the jurisdiction over it, the 
 United States paid those two States $300,000, and 
 indemnified Maine for the expenses occasioned by 
 the troubles which had grown out of the contested 
 claims, — about $300,000 more. Great Britain 
 gained all that was essential to the welfare of her 
 colonies. All her communications, civil and mili- 
 tary, were forever placed beyond hostile reach ; and 
 all the military positions claimed by America, with 
 the exception of Rouse's Point, were for ever 
 secured to Great Britain ! What did England 
 concede ? The British government still keeps (in 
 secret) the identical map used by the English and 
 American Commissioners who negotiated the treaty 
 of 1783 : the Boundary line is drawn on it, in red 
 ink, with a pen, exactly where the Americans had 
 always claimed that the Treaty required it to be ! 
 
 It was fortunate that the controversy was settled ; 
 it was wise in America to be liberal. A tract, of 
 wild land, though half as large as Massachusetts, is 
 nothing compared to a war. It is as well for man- 
 kind that the jurisdiction over that spot belongs to 
 the Lion of England as to the Eagle of America. 
 But I fear a man who makes such a bargain is not 
 
 VOL. I. 18 
 
206 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 entitled to any great glory among diplomatists. In 
 1832, Maine refused to accept the award of the king, 
 even when the Federal Government offered her a 
 million acres of good land in Michigan, of her own 
 selection, valued at a million and a quarter of dollars. 
 Had it been a question of the south-western boun- 
 dary, and not the north-eastern, Mexico would have 
 had an answer ta her claim very different from that 
 which Ensfland received. Mr. Webster was deter- 
 mined on negotiating tjie treaty at all hazards, and 
 was not very courteous to those who expostulated 
 and stood out for the just rights of Maine and Mas- 
 sachusetts ; nay, he was indignant at the presump- 
 tion of these States asking for compensation when 
 their land was ceded away ! * 
 
 * For the facts of this controversy, see, I. The Definitive Treaty 
 of Peace, etc. 1783. Public Statutes of the United States of 
 America (Boston, 18-46), vol. viii. p. 80. Treaty of Amity, Com- 
 merce, and Navigation, etc. 1794, ibid. p. 116. Treaty of Peace 
 and Amity, 1814, ibid. p. 218. — 11. Act of Twentieth Congress, 
 Stat. i. chap. xxx. id. vol. iv. p. 262. Act of Twenty-sixth Con- 
 gress, Stat. i. chap. Hi. ibid. vol. v. p. 402 ; and stat. ii. chap. ii. p. 
 413. III. Statement, on the part of the United States, of the 
 Case referred in pursuance of the Convention of 29th September, 
 1827, between the said States and Great Britain, to his Majesty 
 the King of the Netherlands, for his decision thereon (Washing- 
 ton, 1829). North American Boundary, A.: Correspondence re- 
 lating to the Boundary, etc. etc. (London, 1838). North Ameri- 
 can Boundary, part I. : Correspondence relating to the Boundary, 
 etc. (London, 1840). The Right of the United States of America 
 to the North-eastern Boundary claimed by them, etc. etc., by 
 Albert Gallatin, etc. (New York, 1840). Documents of the 
 Senate of ]\Iassachusetts, 1839, No. 45 ; 1841, No. 9. Documents 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 207 
 
 Was there any real danger of a war ? If Eng- 
 land had claimed clear down to the Connecticut, I 
 think the Southern masters of the North would have 
 given up Bunker Hill and Plymouth Rock, rather 
 than risk to the chances of a British war the twelve 
 hundred million dollars invested in slaves. Men 
 who live in straw houses think twice before they 
 scatter firebrands abroad. England knew well with 
 whom she had to deal, and authorized her repre- 
 sentative to treat only for a " conventional line," not 
 to accept the line of the treaty ! Mr. Webster suc- 
 ceeded in negotiating, because he gave up more 
 American territory than any one would yield before, 
 — more than the king of the Netherlands had pro- 
 posed. Still, we may all rejoice in the settlement of 
 the question ; and if Great Britain had admitted our 
 claim by the plain terms of the treaty, and then 
 asked for the land so valuable and necessary to her, 
 who in New England would have found fault ? * 
 
 After the conclusion of the treaty, Mr. Webster 
 came to Boston. You remember his speech in 1842, 
 in Faneuil Hall. He was then sixty years old. He 
 
 of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massa- 
 chusetts, 1842, No. 44. — IV. Congressional Globe, etc. (Wash- 
 ington, 1843), vol. xii. and Appendix. Mr. Webster's Defence 
 of the Treaty; Works, yoI. v. p. 18, ct seq. 
 
 * The time has not yet come when the public can completely 
 understand this negotiation, and I pass over some things which it 
 is not now prudent to relate. 
 
208 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 had done the great deed of his life. He still held a 
 high station. He scorned, or affected to scorn, the 
 littleness of party and its narrow platform, and 
 claimed to represent the people of the United States. 
 Everybody knew the importance of his speech. I 
 counted sixteen reporters of the New England and 
 Northern press at that meeting. It was a proud day 
 for him, and also a stormy day. Other than friends 
 were about him. It was thought that he had just 
 scattered the thunder which impended over the 
 nation. But a sullen cloud still hung over his own 
 expectations of the Presidency. He thundered his 
 eloquence into that cloud, — the great ground-light- 
 ning of his Olympian power. 
 
 I come now to speak of his relation to Slavery. 
 Up to 1850, with occasional fluctuations, much of 
 his conduct had been just and honorable. As a 
 private citizen, in 1819, he opposed the Missouri 
 Compromise. At the meeting of the citizens of Bos- 
 ton to prevent that iniquity, he said, " We are acting 
 for unborn millions, who lie along before us in the 
 track of time." * The extension of slavery would de- 
 moralize the people, and endanger the welfare of the 
 nation. " Nor can the laws derive support from the 
 manners of the people, if the power of moral senti- 
 ment be weakened by enjoying, under the per- 
 
 * Reported in the " Columbian Centinel" for December 8, 
 1819, not contained in tlie edition of his "Works ! 
 
DANIEL AYEBSTER. 209 
 
 mission of the government, great facilities to commit 
 offences." * 
 
 A few months after the deed was done, on Fore- 
 fathers' Day in 1820, standing on Plymouth Rock, he 
 could say : — 
 
 " I deem it my duty, on this occasion, to suggest, that the land 
 is not yet wholly free from the contamination of a traffic, at which 
 every feeling of humanity must for ever revolt, — I mean the Af- 
 rican slave-trade. Neither public sentiment nor the law has 
 hitherto been able entirely to put an end to this odious and abom- 
 inable trade. At the moment when God in his mercy has blessed 
 the Christian world with a universal peace, there is reason to fear, 
 that, to the disgrace of the Christian name and chai'acter, new 
 efforts are making for the extension of this trade by subjects and 
 citizens of Christian States, in whose hearts there dwell no senti- 
 ments of humanity or of justice, and over whom neither the fear 
 of God nor the fear of man exercises a control. In the sight of 
 our law, the African slave-trader is a pirate and a felon ; and, in 
 the sight of Heaven, an offender far beyond the ordinary depth of 
 human guilt. There is no brighter page of our history than that 
 which records the measures which have been adopted by the Gov- 
 ernment at an early day, and at different times since, for the sup- 
 pression of this traffic ; and I would call on all the true sons of 
 New England to cooperate with the laws of man and the justice of 
 Heaven. If there be, within the extent of our knowledge or influ- 
 ence, any participation in this traffic, let us pledge ourselves here, 
 upon the rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not 
 fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the shame longer. I 
 hear the sound of the hammer ; I see the smoke of the furnaces 
 where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I 
 
 * Memorial to Congress, ut supra ; also omitted in Works. 
 
 18* 
 
210 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 see tbe visages of tliose who, by stealth and at midnight, labor in 
 this work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of 
 such instruments of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, 
 or let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified, or let it 
 be set aside from the Christian world. Let it be put out of the 
 circle of human sympathies and human regards ; and let ciA'ilized 
 man henceforth have no communion with it." * 
 
 Li 1830, he praised Nathan Dane for the Ordi- 
 nance which makes the difference between Ohio and 
 Kentucky, and honorably vindicated that man who 
 lived "too near the north star" for Southern eyes to 
 see. " I regard domestic slavery," said Mr. Webster 
 to Mr. Hayne, " as one of the greatest evils, both 
 moral and political."! 
 
 In 1837, at Niblo's Garden, he avowed his entire 
 unwilUngness to do any thing which should extend 
 the slavery of the African race on this continent. 
 He said : — 
 
 " On the general question of slavery, a great portion of the 
 community is already strongly excited. The subject has not only 
 attracted attention as a question of politics, but it has struck a 
 far deeper-toned chord. It has arrested the religious feeling of 
 the country ; it 'has taken strong hold on the consciences of men. 
 He is a rash man, indeed, and little conversant with human 
 nature, — and especially has he a very erroneous estimate of the 
 character of the people of this country, — who supposes that a 
 feeling of this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It will assur- 
 edly cause itself to be respected. It may be reasoned with ; it 
 
 * Works, vol. i. p. 45, et seq. 
 
 f 2d., vol. iii. p. 279 ; see also p. 263, et seq. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 211 
 
 may be made willing — I believe it is entirely ■willing — to fulfil 
 all existing engagements, and all existing duties ; to uphold and 
 defend the Constitution as it is established, with whatever regrets 
 about some provisions which it does actually contain. But to 
 coerce it into silence, to restrain its free expression, to seek to 
 compress and confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such 
 endeavors would inevitably render it, — should this be attempted, 
 I know nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, 
 which would not be endangered by the explosion which might 
 follow." * 
 
 He always declared that slavery was a local mat- 
 ter of the South ; sectional, not national. In 1830 
 he took the ground that the general government had 
 nothing to do with it. In 1840, standing " beneath 
 an October sun " at Richmond, he declared again 
 that there was no power, direct or indirect, in Con- 
 gress or the general government, to interfere in the 
 smallest degree with the " institutions " of the 
 South, f 
 
 At first he opposed the annexation of Texas ; he 
 warned men against it in 1837. He went so far as 
 to declare : — 
 
 " I do say that the annexation of Texas would tend to prolong 
 the duration and increase the extent of African slavery on this 
 continent. I have long held that opinion, and I would not now 
 suppress it for any consideration on earth ! and because it does 
 increase the evils of slavery, because it will increase the number 
 of slaves and prolong the duration of their bondage, — because it 
 
 * Works, vol. i. p. 35G-7. f ^'^•i vol. "• p- 93, et seq. 
 
212 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 does all this, I oppose it witliout condition and -without qualifica- 
 tion, at this time and all times, hoio and foreve?:" * 
 
 He prepared some portions of the Address of the 
 Massachusetts Anti-Texas Convention in 1845. 
 But, as some of the leading Whigs of the North 
 opposed that meeting and favored annexation, he 
 did not appear at the Convention, but went off to 
 New York ! In 1845 he voted against annexation. 
 He said that he had felt it to be his duty steadily, 
 uniformly, and zealously to oppose it. He did not 
 wish America to be possessed by the spirit of 
 aggrandizement. He objected to annexation princi- 
 pally because Texas was a Slave State, f Here he 
 stood with John Quincy Adams, but, alas ! did too 
 little to oppose that annexation. Against him were 
 Mr. Calhoun, the South, almost all the Democratic 
 party of the North, — Mr. Van Buren losing his 
 nomination on account of his hostility to new 
 slave-soil ; and many of the capitalists of the North 
 wished a thing that Mr. Webster wanted not. 
 
 He objected to the Constitution of Texas. Why ? 
 Because it tied up the hands of the Legislature 
 against the abolition of slavery. He said so on 
 Forefathers' Day, two hundred and twenty-five years 
 after the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. 
 Then he could not forget his own proud words, 
 uttered a quarter of a century before. I thought 
 
 * Works, vol. 1, p. 270. f Id., vol. ii. p. 552, et seq. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 213 
 
 him honest then ; I think so still. But he said that 
 New England might have prevented annexation ; 
 that Massachusetts might have prevented annexa- 
 tion, only " she could not be roused." If he had 
 labored then for freedom with as much vigor and 
 earnestness as he wrought for slavery in 1850 and 
 1851, Massachusetts would have been roused ; New 
 England would have risen as a single man ; and an- 
 nexation of new slave-soil have been put off till the 
 Greek Kalends, a day beyond eternity. Yet he did 
 some service in this work. 
 
 After the outbreak of the Mexican war, the north- 
 ern men sought to pass a law prohibiting slavery in 
 the new territory gained from Mexico. The cele- 
 brated " Wilmot Proviso " came up. Mr. Webster 
 also wished to prohibit slavery in the new territory. 
 In March, 1847, he presented to Congress the resolu- 
 tions of the Massachusetts Legislature against the 
 extension of slavery, — which had been passed 
 unanimously, — and he " indorsed them all." 
 
 " I thank her for It, and am proud of her ; for she has de- 
 nounced the whole object for which our armies are now travers- 
 ing the mountains of Mexico." " If any thing is certain, it is 
 that the sentiment of the whole North is utterly opposed to the 
 acquisition of territory to be formed into new Slave-holding 
 States." * 
 
 At the Whig Convention at Springfield, in 1847, 
 * " Congressional Globe," March, 1847, p. 555. 
 
214 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 he maintained that the Wihnot Proviso was his 
 » thunder." 
 
 " Did I not commit myself in 1837 to the whole doctrine, fully, 
 entirely ? " "I cannot quite consent that more recent discoverers 
 should claim the merit and take out a patent. "We are to use the 
 first and the last and every occasion which offers to oppose the 
 extension of slave power." * 
 
 On the 10th of August, 1848, in the Senate of the 
 United States, he said: — 
 
 " M}' opposition to the increase of slavery in this countrj', or 
 to the increase of slave-representation, is general and universal. 
 It has no reference to the lines of latitude or points of the com- 
 pass. I shall oppose all such extension at all times and under all 
 circumstances, even against all inducements, against all supposed 
 limitations of great interests, against all combinations, against all 
 compromises." 
 
 He sought to gain the support of the Free-Soilers 
 in Massachusetts, and encouraged their enterprise. 
 Even when he denounced the nomination of Gen- 
 eral Taylor as " not fit to be made," he declared 
 that he could stand on the Buffalo Platform ; its 
 Anti- Slavery planks were good sound Whig timber ; 
 he himself had had some agency in getting them 
 out, and did not see the necessity of a new organiza- 
 tion. He had never voted for the admission of a 
 Slave State into the Union ! 
 
 But, alas I all this was to pass away. "Was he 
 
 * Remarks in Convention at Springfield, Sept. 10, 1847 ; re- 
 ported in " Boston Daily Advertiser." 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 215 
 
 sincere in his opposition to tlie extension of slavery ? 
 I always thought so. I think so still. 
 
 Yet, after all, on the 7th of March, 1850, he could 
 make that sj)eech — you know it too well. He re- 
 fused to exclude slavery by law from California and 
 New Mexico. It would " irritate " the South, would 
 " reenact the law of God." He declared Congress 
 was bound to make four new Slave States out of 
 Texas ; to allow all the territory below 36° 30' to 
 become Slave States ; he volunteered to give Texas 
 fifty thousand square miles of land for slave-territory, 
 and , ten millions of dollars ; would refund to Vir- 
 ginia two hundred millions of dollars derived from 
 the sale of the public lands, to expatriate the free 
 colored people from her soil ; he would support the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill, with all its amendments, " with 
 all its provisions," "to the fullest extent." 
 
 You know the Fugitive Slave Bill too well. It is 
 bad enough now ; but when he first volunteered his 
 support thereto, it was far worse, for then every one 
 of the seventeen thousand postmasters of America 
 might be a legal kidnapper by that Bill.* He pledged 
 our own Massachusetts to support it, and that " with 
 alacrity." 
 
 My friends, you all know the speech of the 7th of 
 March : -you remember how men felt when the tele- 
 
 * See Speeches, Addresses, etc., of Theodore Parker, vol. ii. 
 p. 160, et seq. 
 
216 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 graph brought the first news, they thought there 
 must be some mistake ! They could not beheve the 
 lightning. You recollect how the Whig party, and 
 the Democratic party, and the newspapers, treated 
 the report. When the speech came in full, you know 
 the effect. One of the most conspicuous men of 
 the State, then in high office, declared that Mr. Web- 
 ster " seemed inspired by fhe devil to the extent of 
 his intellect." You know the indignation men felt, 
 the sorrow and anguish. I think not a hundred 
 prominent men in all New England acceded to the 
 speech. But such was the power of that gigantic 
 understanding, that, eighteen days after his speech, 
 nine hundred and eighty-seven men of Boston sent 
 him a letter, telling him that he had pointed out 
 " the path of duty, convinced the understanding and 
 touched the conscience of a nation ; " and they ex- 
 pressed to him their " entire concurrence in the sen- 
 timents of that speech," and their " heartfelt thanks 
 for the inestimable aid it afforded to the preservation" 
 of the Union. 
 
 You remember the return of Mr. Webster to Bos- 
 ton ; the speech at the Revere House ; his word that 
 " discussion " on the subject of slavery must " in 
 some way be suppressed ; " you remember the " dis- 
 agreeable duty ; " the question if JNIassachusetts 
 "will be just against temptation;" whether "she 
 will conquer her prejudices " in favor of the trial by 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 217 
 
 jury, of the unalienable rights of man, in favor of 
 the Christian religion, and 
 
 " Those thoughts 'which ■wander through eternity." 
 
 You remember the agony of our colored men. 
 The Son of Man came to Jerusalem to seek and 
 to save that which was lost ; but Daniel Webster 
 came to Boston to crush the poorest and most lost 
 of men into the ground with the hoof of American 
 power. 
 
 At the moment of making that speech, Mr. Web- 
 ster was a member of a French Abolition Society, 
 which has for its object to protect, enlighten, and 
 emancipate the African race ! * 
 
 You all know what followed. The Fugitive Slave 
 Bill passed. It was enforced. You remember the 
 consternation of the colored people in Boston, New 
 York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, — all over the land. 
 You recollect the speeches of Mr. Webster at Buf- 
 falo, Syracuse, and Albany, — his industry never 
 equalled before ; his violence, his indignation, his de- 
 nunciations. You remember the threat at Syracuse, 
 that out of the bosom of the next Anti-slavery Con- 
 vention should a fugitive slave be seized. Yom 
 remember the scorn that he poured out on men who 
 
 * Institut d'Afrique pour I'Abolition de la Traits et do I'Escla- 
 vage. Art. ii. "II a pour but egalement de proteger^ d'e'clairer 
 et d'cmanciper la race Africaine." 
 
 VOL. I. 19 
 
218 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 pledged " their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
 honor," for the welfare of men.* 
 
 You remember the letters to Mr. Webster from 
 Newburyport, Kennebec, Medford, and his " Neigh- 
 bors in New Hampshire." You have not forgotten 
 the " Union Meetings : " " Blue-light Federalists," 
 and " Genuine Democrats dyed in the wool," united 
 into one phalanx of Hunkerism and became his 
 "retainers," lay and clerical, — the laymen maintain- 
 ing that his political opinions were an " amendment 
 to the Constitution ; " and the clergymen, that his 
 public and private practice was " one of the evidences 
 of Christianity." You remember the sermons of 
 Doctors of Divinity, proving that slavery was Chris- 
 tian, good Old Testament Christian, at the very least. 
 You do not forget the offer of a man to deliver up his 
 own mother. Andover went for kidnapping. The 
 loftiest pulpits, — I mean those highest bottomed on 
 the dollar, — they went also for kidnapping. There 
 arose a shout against the fugitive from the metropoli- 
 tan pulpits, " Away with such a fellow from the earth I 
 — Kidnap him, kidnap him ! " And when we said, 
 mildly remonstrating, " Why, what evil has the poor 
 black man done ? " the answer was, — " We have a 
 law, and by that law he ought to be a slave I " 
 
 * The speeches referred to have not all been collected in the 
 " Works." See some of them in Mr. Webster's " Speeches at 
 BufFalo, Syracuse, and Albany, May, 1851." Times Office, New 
 
 York, [1851]. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 219 
 
 Yon remember the first kidnappers which came 
 here to Boston. Hughes was one of them, an ngly- 
 looking fellow, that went back to die in a street 
 brawl in his own Georgia. He thirsted for the blood 
 of Ellen Craft.* 
 
 You remember the seizure of Shadrach, and his 
 deliverance out of his fiery furnace. Of course it 
 was an Angel who let him out; for that court, — the 
 kidnappers' court, — thirsting for human blood, spite 
 of the " enlargement of the testimony," after six 
 trials, I think, has not found a man, who, at noonday 
 and in the centre of the town, did the deed ! So I 
 suppose it was an Angel who did the deed, and 
 miracles are not over yet. I hope you have not for- 
 gotten Caphart, the creature which " whips women," 
 the great ally of the Boston kidnappers. 
 
 You remember the kidnapping of Thomas Sims ; 
 Faneuil Hall shut against the convention of the 
 people; the court house in chains; the police drilled 
 in the square ; soldiers in arms ; Faneuil Hall a bar- 
 rack. You remember Fast Day, 1851, — at least I 
 do.f You remember the "Acorn" and Boston on 
 the 12th of April. You have not forgotten the dread- 
 ful scenes at New York, Philadelphia, and Buffalo ; 
 the tragedy at Christiana. 
 
 You have not forgotten Mr. Webster's definition 
 of the object of government. In 1845, standing 
 
 * See above p. 53, of this volume. 
 
 t Sec Speeches, etc., vol. ii. p. 313, et seq., and this volume, p. 
 70, et seq. 
 
220 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 over the grave of Judge Story, he said, — " Justice 
 is the great interest of mankind ; " I think he thought 
 so too I But at New York, on the 18th of Novem- 
 ber, 1850, he said, — " The great object of govern- 
 ment is the protection of property at home, and re- 
 spect and renown abroad." 
 
 He went to Annapolis, and made a speech com- 
 plimenting a series of ultra resolutions in favor of 
 slavery and slave-catching. One of the resolutions 
 made the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law the 
 sole bond of the Union. The orator of Bunker Hill 
 replied : — 
 
 " Gentlemen, I concur in the sentiments expressed by you all — 
 and I thank God they were expressed by you all — in the resolu- 
 tions passed here on the 10th of December. And allow me to 
 say, that any State, North or South, which departs one iota from 
 the sentiment of that resolution, is disloyal to this Union. 
 
 " Further, — so far as any act of that sort has been committed, 
 — SUCH A State has no portion of my regard. / do 
 not srjmpatldze with it. I rebuke it wherever I speak, and on all 
 occasions where it is proper for me to express my sentiments. If 
 there are States — and I am afraid there are — which have 
 sought, by ingenious contrivances of State legislation, to thwart 
 the fair exercise and fulfilment of the laws of Congress passed to 
 carry into effect the compacts of the Constitution, — that 
 State, so far, is entitled to no regard from me. 
 At the North there have been certainly some inti- 
 mations IN certain States of such a policy. 
 
 ^^ I hold the importance of maintaining these measures to be of 
 the highest character and nature, every one of them out and out, 
 and through and through. I have no confidence in anybody icho 
 
DAXIEL WEBSTER. 221 
 
 seeks the repeal, in amjhod/j tcJio ivishes to alter or modi/// these 
 constitutional provisions. There they are. Many of these great 
 measures are irrepealable. The settlement with Texas is as irre- 
 pealable as the admission of California. Other important objects 
 of legislation, if not in themselves in the nature of grants, and 
 therefore not so irrepealable, are just as important; and loe are 
 to hear no imrleying upon if. We are to listen to no modification 
 or qualification. They were passed in conformity with the pro- 
 visions of the Constitution ; and they must he performed and 
 abided by, in whatever event, and at whatever cost." 
 
 t 
 
 Surrounded by the Federalists of New England, 
 when a young man, fresh in Congress, he stood out 
 nobly for the right to discuss all matters. Every 
 boy knows his brave words by heart : — 
 
 "Important as I deem it, sir, to discuss, on all proper occasions, 
 the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more im- 
 p)ortant to maintain the right of such discussion in its full and just 
 extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing popular, 
 render it necessary to be explicit on this point. It is the ancient 
 and constitutional right of this people to canvass public measures, 
 and the merits of public men. It is a homebred right, a fireside 
 privilege. It has ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and 
 cabin in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It 
 is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air, and walking on 
 the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to pub- 
 lic life as a duty; and it is the last duty which those whose repre- 
 sentative I am shall find me to abandon. This high constitutional 
 privilege I shall defend and exercise within this house and with- 
 out this house, and in all places ; in time of war, in time of peace, 
 and at all times. 
 
 " Living, I will assert it ; dying, I will assert it ; and should I 
 leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of C4od 
 
 19* 
 
222 DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 
 I will leave them the inheritance of Free Principles, and the ex- 
 ample of a manly, independent, and constitutional defence of 
 them." 
 
 Then, in 1850, when vast questions, so intimately 
 affecting the welfare of millions of men, were before 
 the country, he told us to suppress agitation I 
 
 " Neither you nor I shall see the legislation of the country pro- 
 ceed in the old harmonious way, until the discussions in Congress 
 and out of Congress upon the subject [of slavery] shall be in 
 some way suppressed. Take that truth home with you, and take 
 it as truth." 
 
 " I shall support no agitations having their foundation in unreal 
 and ghostly abstractions." * 
 
 The opponents of Mr. Webster, contending for 
 the freedom of all Americans, of all men, appealed 
 from the Fugitive Slave Bill to " the element of all 
 laws, out of which they are derived, to the end 
 of all laws, for which they are designed and in 
 which they are perfected." How did he resist the 
 appeal ? You have not forgotten the speech at 
 Capron Springs, on the 26th of June, 1851. " When 
 nothing else will answer," he said, " they," the abo- 
 litionists, "invoke 'religion,' and speak of the 
 ' higher law ! ' " He of the granite hills of New 
 Hampshire, looking on the mountains of Virginia, 
 blue with loftiness and distance, said, " Gentlemen, 
 
 * Speech at the Revere House in Boston, April 29, 1850, in 
 « Daily Advertiser " of April 30. 
 
DANIEL "WEBSTER. 223 
 
 this North Mountain is high, the Blue Ridge higher 
 still, the AUeghanies higher than either, and yet this 
 'higher law' ranges further than an eagle's flight 
 above the highest peaks of the AUeghanies ! No 
 common vision can discern it ; no common and un- 
 sophisticated conscience can feel it ; the hearing of 
 common men never learns its high behests ; and, 
 therefore, one would think it is not a safe law to be 
 acted upon in matters of the highest practical mo- 
 ment. It is the code, however, of the abolitionists 
 of the North." 
 
 This speech was made at dinner. The next " sen- 
 timent " given after his was this : — 
 
 ^^ The Fugitive Slave Law — Upon its faithful execution de- 
 pends the perpetuity of the Union." 
 
 Mr. Webster made a speech in reply, and distinctly 
 declared, — 
 
 " You of the South have as much right to secure your fugitive 
 slaves, as the North has to any of its rights and privileges of navi- 
 gation and commerce." 
 
 Do you think he believed that ? Daniel Webster 
 knew better. In 1844, only seven years before, he 
 had said, — 
 
 " What ! when all the civilized world is opposed to slavery ; ' 
 when morality denounces it ; when Christianity denounces it ; 
 when every thing respected, every thing good, bears one united 
 witness against it, Is It for America — America, the land of Wash- 
 
224 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ington, the model republic of the -world — is it for America to 
 come to its assistance, and to insist that the maintenance of sla- 
 very is necessary to the support of her institutions ? " 
 
 How do you think the audience answered then ? 
 With six and twenty cheers. It was in Faneuil 
 Hall. jVIr. Webster said, " These are Whig princi- 
 ples ; " and, with these, " Faneuil Hall may laugh a 
 siege to scorn." That speech is not printed in his 
 collection ! How could it stand side by side with 
 the speech of the 7th of March ? 
 
 In 1846, a Whig Convention voted to do its possi- 
 ble to " defeat all measures calculated to uphold 
 slavery, and promote all constitutional measures for 
 its overthrow ; " to " oppose any further addition of 
 Slave-holding States to this Union;" and to have 
 "free institutions for all, chains and fetters for none." 
 At that time Mr. Webster declared he had a heart 
 which beat for every thing favorable to the progress 
 of human liberty, either here or abroad ; then, when 
 in " the dark and troubled night " he saw only the 
 Whig party as his Bethlehem Star, he rejoiced in 
 " the hope of obtaining the power to resist whatever 
 threatens to extend slavery." * Yet after New York 
 had kidnapped Christians, and with civic pomp sent 
 her own sons into slavery, he could go to that city 
 
 * Speech at Faneuil Hall, September 23, 1846, reported in the 
 " Daily Advertiser," September 24. 
 
DANIEL AVEBSTER. 225 
 
 and say, " It is an air which for the last few months 
 I love to inhale. It is a patriotic atmosphere : con- 
 stitutional breezes fan it every day." * 
 
 To accomplish a bad purpose, he resorted to mean 
 artifice, to the low tricks of vulgar adventurers in 
 politics. He used the same weapons once wielded 
 against him, — misrepresentation, denunciation, in- 
 vective.f Like his old enemy of New Hampshire, 
 he carried his political quarrel into private life. He 
 cast off the acquaintance of men intimate with him 
 for twenty or thirty years. The malignity of his 
 conduct, as it was once said of a great apostate, J 
 "was hugely aggravated by those rare abilities 
 whereof God had given him the use." Time had 
 not in America bred a man before bold enough to 
 consummate such aims as his. In this New Hamp- 
 shire Strafford, " despotism had at length obtained 
 an instrument with mind to comprehend, and resolu- 
 tion to act upon, its principles in their length and 
 breadth ; and enough of his purposes were effected 
 by him to enable mankind to see as from a tower 
 the end of all." 
 
 "What was the design of all this ? It was to " save 
 the Union." Such was the cry. Was the Union in 
 danger ? Here were a few non-resistants at the 
 North, who said, We will have " no union with slave- 
 
 * Speech at New York, May 12, 1851, in "Boston Atlas" of 
 May 14. 
 
 t See above p. 183-187. % Lord Strafford. 
 
226 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 holders." There was a party of seceders at the 
 South, who periodically blustered about disunion. 
 Could these men bring the Union into peril ? Did 
 Daniel Webster even think so ? I shall never insult 
 that giant intellect by the thought. He knew South 
 Carolina, he knew Georgia, very well.* Mr. Benton 
 knew of no " distress," even at the time when it was 
 alleged that the nation was bleeding at " five gaping 
 wounds," so that it would take the whole Omnibus 
 full of compromises to stanch the blood : " All the 
 political distress is among the politicians." f I think 
 JVIr. Webster knew there was no danger of a disso- 
 lution of the Union. But here is a proof that he 
 knew it. In 1850, on the 22d of December, he 
 declared, " There is no longer imminent danger of 
 the dissolution of the United States. We shall live, 
 and not die." But, soon after, he went about saving 
 the Union again, and again, and again, — saved it 
 at Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, at Annapolis, and then 
 at Capron Springs. 
 
 I say there was no real danger ; but my opinion is 
 a mere opinion, and nothing more. Look, however, 
 at a fact. We have the most delicate test of public 
 opinion, — the state of the public funds ; the barom- 
 eter which indicates any change in the political 
 
 * See his description in 1830 of the process and conclusion of 
 nullification. Works, vol. iii. p. 337, et seq. 
 f Speech in Senate, Sept. 10, 1850. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 227 
 
 weather. If the winds blow clown the Tiber, Roman 
 funds fall. Talk of war between France and Eng- 
 land, the stocks go down at Paris and London. The 
 foolish talk about the fisheries last summer lowered 
 American stocks in the market, to the great gain of 
 prudent and far-sighted brokers, who knew there was 
 no danger. But all this time, when Mr. Webster was 
 telling us the ship of State was going to pieces, 
 and required undergirding by the Fugitive Slave 
 Bill, and needed the kidnapper's hand at the helm ; 
 while he was advising Massachusetts to " conquer 
 her prejudices " in favor of the unalienable rights of 
 man; while he was denouncing the friends of free- 
 dom, and calling on us to throw over to Texas — that 
 monster of the deep which threatened to devour the 
 ship of State — fifty thousand square miles of terri- 
 tory, and ten millions of dollars ; and to the other 
 monster of secession to cast over the trial by jury, 
 the dearest principles of the Constitution, of man- 
 hood, of justice, and of religion, "those thoughts 
 that wander through eternity;" while he himself 
 revoked the noblest words of his whole life, casting 
 over his interpretation of the Constitution, his respect 
 for State rights, for the common law, his own 
 morality, his own religion, and his own God, — the 
 funds of the United States did not go down one mill ! 
 You asked the capitalist, " Is the Union in danger?" 
 He answered, " O yes ! it is in the greatest peril." 
 " Then will you sell me your stocks lower than 
 
228 DAXIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 before ? " " Not a mill ; not one mill — not the ten 
 hundredth part of a dollar in a hundred I " To ask 
 men to make such a sacrifice, at such a time, from 
 such a motive, is as if you should beg the captain of 
 the steamer " Niagara," in Boston harbor, in fair 
 weather, to throw over all his cargo, because a dandy 
 in the cabin was blowing the fire with his breath ! 
 No, my friends, I shall not insult the majesty of that 
 intellect with the thought that he believed there was 
 danger to the Union. There was not any danger of 
 a storm ; not a single cat's-paw in the sky ; not a 
 capful of bad weather between Cape Sable and the 
 Lake of the Woods ! 
 
 But suppose the worst came to the worst, are there 
 no other things as bad as disunion ? The Constitu- 
 tion — does it " establish justice, insure domestic 
 tranquillity," and " secure the blessings of liberty " to 
 all the citizens ? Nobody pretends it, — with every 
 eighth man made merchandise, and not an inch of 
 free soil covered by the Declaration of Independence, 
 save the five thousand miles which Mr. Webster 
 ceded away. Is disunion worse than slavery ? Per- 
 haps not even to commerce, which the Federalists 
 thought " still more dear " than Union. But what if 
 the South seceded next year, and the younger son 
 took the portion of goods that falleth to him, when 
 America divides her living ? Imagine the condition 
 of the new nation, — the United States South ; a 
 nation without schools, or the desire for them ; with- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 229 
 
 out commerce, without manufactures ; with six mil- 
 lion white men and three million slaves; working 
 with that barbarous tool, slave-labor, an instrument 
 as ill-suited to these times as a sickle of stone to cut 
 grain with ! How would that new " Democracy " 
 appear in the eyes of the Avorld, when the public 
 opinion of the nations looks hard at tyranny ? It 
 would not be long before that younger son, having 
 spent all with riotous living, and devoured his sub- 
 stance with slavery, brought down to the husks that 
 the swine do eat, — would arise, and go to the Nation, 
 and say, " Father, forgive me ; I have sinned against 
 heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to 
 be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired 
 servants." The Southern men know well, that if 
 the Union were dissolved, their riches would take to 
 themselves legs, and run away, — or firebrands, and 
 make a St. Domingo out of Carolina ! They cast off 
 the North ! they set up for themselves !. 
 
 " Tush ! tush ! Fear boys ■with bugs ! " 
 
 Here is the reason. He wanted to be President. 
 That was all of it. Before this he had intrigued, — 
 always in a clumsy sort, for he was organized for 
 honesty, and cunning never throve in his keeping, — 
 had stormed and blustered and bullied. " Gen. Tay- 
 lor the second choice of Massachusetts for the Pres- 
 ident," quoth he : " I tell you I am to be the first, and 
 Massachusetts has no second choice." Mr. Clay 
 
 VOL. I. 20 
 
230 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 must not be nominated in '44; in '48 Gen. Taylor's 
 was a " nomination not fit to be made." He wanted 
 the office himself. This time he must storm the 
 North, and conciliate the South. This was his bid 
 for the Presidency, — fifty thousand square miles of 
 territory and ten millions of dollars to Texas ; four 
 new Slave States ; slavery in Utah and New Mex- 
 ico ; the Fugitive Slave Bill ; and two hundred mil- 
 lions of dollars offered to Virginia to carry free men 
 of color to Africa. 
 
 He never labored so before, and he had been a 
 hard-working man. What speeches he made at 
 Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Albany, Buffalo, 
 Syracuse, Annapolis ! What letters he wrote ! His 
 intellect was never so active, nor gave such proofs of 
 Herculean power. The hottest headed Carolinian 
 did not put his feet faster or further on in the sup- 
 port of slavery. He 
 
 " Stood lip the strongest and the fiercest spirit 
 That fought 'gainst Heaven, now fiercer by despair." 
 
 Once he could say, — 
 
 " By general instruction, we seek as far as possible to purify 
 the whole moral atmosphere ; to keep good sentiments uppermost, 
 and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as 
 the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion, against 
 immorality and crime. We hope for a security beyond the law, 
 and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened and well- 
 principled moral sentiment."* 
 
 * Debate in the Mass. Convention, Dec. 5,1820. "Journal," 
 uhi suj}. p. 145 ; erroneously printed 245. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 231 
 
 In 1820 he could say, " All conscience ought to be 
 respected ; " in 1850 it is only a fanatic who heeds 
 his conscience, and there is no higher law.* In 
 scorn of the higher law, he far outwent his transat- 
 lantic prototype ; for even Strafford, in his devotion 
 to " Thorovgh^^ had some respect for the funda- 
 mental law of nature, and said, — "If I must be a 
 traitor to man or perjured to God, I will be faithful 
 to my Creator." 
 
 The fountains of his great deep were broken up 
 — it rained forty days and forty nights, and brought 
 a flood of slavery over this whole land ; it covered 
 the market, and the factory, and the court house, and 
 the warehouse, and the college, and rose up high 
 over the tops of the tallest steeples I But the Ark 
 of Freedom went on the face of the waters, — above 
 the market, above the factory, above the court house, 
 above the college, high over the tops of the tallest 
 steeples, it floated secure; for it bore the Religion 
 that is to save the world, and the Lord God of Hosts 
 had shut it in. 
 
 What flattery w^as there from Mr. Webster I 
 What flattery to the South ! what respect for 
 Southern nullifiers ! " The Secessionists of the 
 South take a different course of remark ; " they ap- 
 
 •)• See the Speeches at Buffalo, Syracuse, and Albany, in 
 Pamphlet, (New York, 1851). Speech at Capron Springs, etc., 
 etc., etc. 
 
232 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 peal to no higher law I " They are learned and 
 eloquent ; they are animated and full of spirit ; they 
 are high-minded and chivalrous ; they state their 
 supposed injuries and causes of complaint in elegant 
 phrases and exalted tones of speech." * 
 
 He derided the instructions of his adopted State. 
 
 " It lias been said that I have, by the course that I have thought 
 proper to pursue, displeased a portion of the people of Massachu- 
 setts. AVell, suppose I did. Suppose I displeased all the people 
 of that State, — what of that ? 
 
 " What had I to do with instructions from Massachusetts upon 
 a question affecting the whole nation ! " "I assure you, gentle- 
 men, I cared no more for the instructions of INIassachusetts than I 
 did for those of any other State ! " f 
 
 What scorn against the " fanatics " of the North, 
 against the Higher Law, and the God thereof ! 
 
 " New England, it is well known, is the chosen seat of the Abo- 
 lition presses and the Abolition Societies. There it is principally 
 that the former cheer the morning by full columns of lamentation 
 over the fate of human beings free by nature and by a law above 
 the Constitution, — but sent back, nevertheless, chained and 
 manacled to slavery and to stripes ; and the latter refresh them- 
 selves from daily toil by orgies of the night devoted to the same 
 outpourings of philanthropy, mingling all the while their anathe- 
 mas at what they call ' men-catching ' with the most horrid and 
 profane abjuration of the Christian Sabbath, and Indeed of the 
 whole Divine Revelation : they sanctify their philanthropy by 
 
 * Speech at Capron Springs. f Ibid. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 233 
 
 irreligion and pi'ofanity ; tboy manifest tlieir cLarity by contempt 
 of God and his commandments." 
 
 " Depend upon it, the law [the Fugitive Slave Bill] will be 
 executed in its spirit and to its letter. It will be executed in all 
 the great cities, — here in Syracuse, — in the midst of the next 
 Anti-slavery Convention, if the occasion shall arise ; then we shall 
 see what becomes of their ' lives and their sacred honor ! ' " * 
 
 How he mocked at the " higher law," " that exists 
 somewhere between us and the third heaven, I never 
 knew exactly where ! " 
 
 The anti-slavery men were "insane persons," 
 " some small bodies of fanatics," " not fit for a 
 lunatic asylum." f 
 
 To secure his purposes, he left no stone unturned; 
 he abandoned his old friends, treating them with 
 rage and insolence. He revolutionized his own 
 politics and his own religion. The strong advocate 
 of liberty, of justice to all men, the opponent of 
 slavery, turned round to the enemy and went square 
 over ! But his old speeches did not follow him : a 
 speech is a fact ; a printed word becomes immovable 
 as the Alps. His former speeches, set all the way 
 from Hanover to Washington, were a line of for- 
 tresses grim with cannon, each levelled at his new 
 position. 
 
 How low he stooped to supplicate the South, to 
 
 * Speech at Syracuse (New York, 1851). 
 t See speech at Buffalo, 22d May, 1851. Works, vol. ii. p. 544, 
 et seq. 
 
 20* 
 
234 DANIEL WEBSTEK. 
 
 cringe before the Catholics, to fawn upon the Metho- 
 dists at Faneuil Hall I Oh, what a prostitution of 
 what a kingly power of thought, of speech, of will! 
 
 The effect of Mr. Webster's speech on the 7th of 
 March was amazing : at first Northern men ab- 
 horred it ; next they accepted it. Why was this ? 
 He himself has perhaps helped us understand the 
 mystery : — 
 
 " The enormity of some crimes so astonishes men as to subdue 
 their minds, and they lose the desire for justice in a morbid ad- 
 miration of the great criminal and the strangeness of tlie crime." 
 
 Slavery, the most hideous snake which Southern 
 regions breed, with fifteen unequal feet, came crawl- 
 ing North ; fold on fold, and ring on ring, and coil 
 on coil, the venomed monster came : then Avarice, 
 the foulest worm which Northern cities gender in 
 their heat, went crawling South ; with many a wrig- 
 gling curl, it wound along its way. At length they 
 met, and, twisting up in their obscene embrace, the 
 twain became one monster, Hunkerism ; theme un- 
 attempted ♦yet in prose or song : there was no North, 
 no South; they were one poison I The dragon 
 wormed its way along, — crawled into the church of 
 Commerce, wherein the minister baptized the beast, 
 " Salvation." From the ten commandments the 
 dragon's breath effaced those which forbid to kill 
 and covet, with the three between ; then, with malig- 
 nant tooth, gnawed out the chief commandments 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 235 
 
 whereon the law and prophets hang. This amphis- 
 bsBna of the Western World then swallowed down 
 the holiest words of Hebrew or of Christian speech, 
 and in their place it left a hissing at the Higher Law 
 of God. Northward and Southward wormed the 
 thing along its track, leaving the stain of its breath 
 in the people's face ; and its hissing against the 
 Lord rings yet in many a speech : — 
 
 " Religion, blushing, veils lier sacred fires, 
 And, unawares, morality expires." 
 
 Then what a shrinking was there of great con- 
 sciences, and hearts, and minds ! So Milton, fabling, 
 sings of angels fallen from their first estate, seeking 
 to enter Pandemonium : — 
 
 " They but now who seemed 
 In bigness to surpass Earth's giant-sons, 
 Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room 
 
 Throng numberless, 
 
 to smallest forms 
 
 Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, 
 Though without number still, amidst the hall 
 Of that infernal court." 
 
 Mr. Webster stamped his foot, and broke through 
 into the great hollow of practical atheism, which un- 
 dergulfs the State and Church. Then what a caving 
 in was there ! The firm-set base of northern cities 
 quaked and yawned with gaping rents. " Penn's 
 sandy foundation " shook again, and black men fled 
 from the city of brotherly love, as doves, with plain- 
 
236 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 tive cry, flee from a farmer's barn when summer light- 
 ning stabs the roof. There was a twist in Faneuil 
 Hall, and the doors could not open wide enough for 
 Liberty to regain her ancient Cradle ; only soldiers, 
 gi'eedy to steal a man, themselves stole out and 
 in. Ecclesiastic quicksand ran down the hole 
 amain. Metropolitan churches toppled, and pitched, 
 and canted, and cracked, their bowing walls all 
 out of plumb. Colleges, broken from the chain 
 which held them in the stream of time, rushed 
 towards the abysmal rent. Harvard led the way, 
 " Christo et Ecclesice^^ in her hand. Down plunged 
 Andover, " Conscience and the Constitution " 
 clutched in its ancient, failing arm. New Haven 
 began to cave in. Doctors of Divinity, orthodox, 
 heterodox with only a doxy of doubt, ''no settled 
 opinion," had great alacrity in sinking, and went 
 down quick, as live as ever, into the pit of Korah, 
 Dathan, and Abiram, the bottomless pit of lower 
 law, — one with his mother, cloaked by a surplice, 
 hid beneath his sinister arm, and an acknowledged 
 brother grasped by his remaining limb. Fossils of 
 theology, dead as Ezekiel's bones, took to their feet 
 again, and stood up for most arrant wrong. " There 
 is no higher law of God," quoth they, as they went 
 down ; " no golden rule, only the statutes of men." 
 A man with mythologic ear might fancy that he 
 heard a snickering laugh run round the world below, 
 snorting, whinnying, and neighing, as it echoed from 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 237 
 
 the infernal spot pressed by the fallen monsters of 
 ill-fame, who, thousands of years ago, on the same 
 errand, had plunged down the self-same way. What 
 tidings the echo bore, Dante nor Milton could not 
 tell. Let us leave that to darkness, and to silence, 
 and to death. 
 
 But spite of all this, in every city, in every town, 
 in every college, and in each capsizing church, there 
 were found Faithful Men, who feared not the mon-. 
 ster, heeded not the stamping ; — nay, some doctors 
 of divinity were found living. In all their houses there 
 was light, and the destroying angel shook them not. 
 The word of the Lord came in open vision to their 
 eye ; they had their lamps trimmed and burning, 
 their loins girt ; they stood road-ready. Liberty and 
 Religion turned in thither, and the slave found bread 
 and wings. " When my father and my mother for- 
 sake me, then the Lord will hold me up ! " 
 
 After the 7th of March, Mr. Webster became the 
 ally of the worst of men, the forefront of kidnapping. 
 The orator of Plymouth Rock was the advocate of 
 slavery ; the hero of Bunker Hill put chains around 
 Boston Court House ; the applauder of Adams and 
 Jefferson was a tool of the slave-holder, and a keeper 
 of slavery's dogs, the associate of the kidnapper, and 
 the mocker of men who loved the right. Two years 
 he lived with that rabble rout for company, his name 
 the boast of every vilest thing. 
 
 " Oh, lioAv unlike the place from -whence he fell ! " 
 
238 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 In early life, Mr. Hill, of New Hampshire, pursued 
 him with um-elenting bitterness. Of late years IVIr. 
 Webster had complained of this, declaring that 
 " Mr. Hill had done more than any other man to 
 debauch the character of New Hampshire, bringing 
 the bitterness of politics into private life." But after 
 that day of St. Judas, Mr. "Webster pursued the same 
 course which IVIr. Hill had followed forty years be- 
 fore, and the two enemies were reconciled.* The 
 Herod of the Democrats and the Pilate of Federal- 
 ism were made friends by the Fugitive Slave Bill, 
 and rode in the same " Omnibus," — "a blue-light 
 Federalist " and " a genuine Democrat dyed in the 
 wool." 
 
 Think of him ! — the Daniel Webster of Plymouth 
 Rock advocating the " Compromise Measures ! " the 
 Daniel Webster of Faneuil Hall, who once spoke with 
 the. insp nation of Samuel Adams and the tongue of 
 James Otis, honoring the holy dead with his praise ! 
 — think of him at Buffalo, Albany, Syracuse, scoff- 
 ing at modern men, who " perilled their lives, their 
 fortunes, and their sacred honor," to visit the father- 
 less and the widows in their affliction, and to keep 
 themselves unspotted from the world ! — think of 
 him threatening with the gallows such as clothed 
 the naked, fed the hungry, visited the prisoner, and 
 
 * See above pp. 181-192; and tlie Letter of Hon. Isaac Hill 
 (April 1 7, 1850), and Mr. Webster's Reply. 
 
DA]S[IEL WEBSTER. 239 
 
 gave a cup of cold water to him that was ready to 
 perish ! Think of Daniel Webster become the as- 
 sassin of Liberty in the Capitol ! Think of him, 
 full of the Old Testament and dear Isaac Watts, 
 scoffing at the Higher Law of God, while the moun- 
 tains of Virginia looked him in the face ! 
 
 But what was the recompense ? Ask Massachu- 
 chusetts, — ask the North. Let the Baltimore Con- 
 vention tell. He was the greatest candidate before 
 it. General Scott is a little man when the feathers 
 are gone. Fillmore, you know him. Both of these, 
 for greatness of intellect, compared to Webster, were 
 as a single magpie measured by an eagle. Look at 
 his speeches ; look at his forehead ; look at his face ! 
 The two hundred and ninety-three delegates came 
 together and voted. They gave him thirty-two votes I 
 Where were the men of the " lower law," who made 
 a denial of God the first principle of their politics ? 
 Where were they who in Faneuil Hall scoffed and 
 jeered at the " Higher Law ; " or at Capron Springs, 
 who " Laughed" when he mocked at the Law higher 
 than the Virginia hills ? Where were the kidnappers ? 
 
 The " lower law " men and the kidnappers strained 
 themselves to the utmost, and he had thnty-two 
 votes ! 
 
 Where was the South ? Fifty-three times did the 
 Convention ballot, and the South never gave him a 
 vote, — not a vote ; no, not one ! Northern friends — 
 
240 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 I honor their affection for the great man — went to the 
 South, and begged for the poor and paltry pittance 
 of a seeming vote, in order to break the bitterness of 
 the fall I They went " with tears in their eyes," and 
 in mercy's name, they asked that crumb from the 
 Southern board. But the cruel South, treacherous 
 to him whom she beguiled to treason against God, 
 she answered, " Not a vote ! " It was the old fate 
 of men who betray. Southern politicians " did not 
 dare dispense with the services thrust on him, but 
 revenged themselves by withdrawing his well- 
 merited reward." It was the fate of Strafford ; the 
 fate of Wolsey. When Lasthenes and Euthycrates 
 betrayed Olynthus to Macedonian Philip, fighting 
 against the liberties of Greece, they were distin- 
 guished — if Demosthenes be right — only by the 
 cruelty of their fate. Mr. Webster himself had a 
 forefeeling that it might be so ; for, on the morning 
 of his fatal speech, he told a brother Senator, " I 
 have my doubts that the speech I am going to make 
 will ruin me." But he played the card with a heavy, 
 a rash, a trembling, and not a skilful hand. It was 
 only the playing of a card, — but his last card ! Mr. 
 Calhoun had said, " The furthest Southerner is 
 nearer to us than the nearest Northern man." They 
 could trust him with their work, — not with its cove- 
 nanted pay I 
 
 Oh ! Cardinal Wolsey ! there was never such a fall. 
 
 " He fell, like Lucifer, never to hope again I " 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 241 
 
 The telegraph which brought him tidings of his 
 fate was a thunder-stroke out of the clear sky. No 
 wonder that he wept, and said, " I am a disgraced 
 man, a ruined man ! " His early, his last, his fondest 
 dream of ambition broke, and only ruin filled his 
 hand ! What a spectacle ! to move pity in the 
 stones of the street ! 
 
 But it seemed as if nothing could be spared him. 
 His cup of bitterness, already full, was made to run 
 over; for joyous men, full of wine and the nomina- 
 tion, called him up at midnight out of his bed — the 
 poor, disappointed old man ! — to " congratulate him 
 on the nomination of Scott ! " And they forced the 
 great man, falling back on his self-respect, to say 
 that the next morning he should " rise with the lark, 
 as jocund and as gay." 
 
 Was not that enough ? Oh, there is no pity in 
 the hearts of men ! Even that was not enough ! 
 Northern friends went to him, and asked him to 
 advise men to vote for General Scott ! 
 
 General Scott is said to be an anti-slavery man ; 
 but soon as the political carpenters put the " planks " 
 together at Baltimore, he scrambled upon the plat- 
 form, and stands there on all-fours to this day, look- 
 ing for " fellow-citizens, native and adopted," listen- 
 ing for " that rich brogue," and declaring that, after 
 all, he is " only a common man." Did you ever read 
 General Scott's speeches ? Then think of asking 
 Daniel Webster to recommend him for President, — 
 
 VOL. I. 21 
 
242 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Scott in the chair, and Webster out ! That was 
 gall after the wormwood I They say that Mr. 
 Webster did write a letter advocating the election 
 of Scott, and afterwards said, " I still live." If he 
 did so, attribute it to the wanderings of a great 
 mind, shattered by sickness ; and be assured he 
 would have taken it back, if he had ever set his firm 
 foot on the ground again I 
 
 Daniel Webster went down to Marshfield — to 
 die ! He died of his 7th of March speech ! That 
 word indorsed on Mason's Bill drove thousands of 
 fugitives from America to Canada. It put chains 
 round our court house ; it led men to violate the 
 majesty of law all over the North. I violated it, 
 and so did you. It sent Thomas Sims in fetters to 
 his jail and his scourging at Savannah ; it caused 
 practical atheism to be preached in many churches 
 of New York, Philadelphia, Washington ; and, 
 worst of all, in Boston itself I and then, with its own 
 recoil, it sent Daniel Webster to his grave, giving 
 him such a reputation as a man w^ould not wish for 
 his utterest foe. 
 
 No event in the American Revolution was half so 
 terrible as his speeches in defence of slavery and kid- 
 napping, his abrogation of the right to discuss all 
 measures of the government. We lost battles again 
 and again, lost campaigns — our honor we never 
 lost. The army was without powder at Cambridge, 
 in '76 ; without shoes and blankets in '78 ; and the 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 243 
 
 bare feet of New England valor marked the ice with 
 blood when they crossed the Delaware. But we 
 were never without conscience ; never without mo- 
 rality. Powder might fail, and shoes drop, old and 
 rotten, from soldiers' feet. But the love of God 
 was in the American heart, and no American gen- 
 eral said, " There is no law higher than the Blue 
 Ridge I " Nay, they appealed to God's Higher Law, 
 not thinking that in politics religion " makes men 
 mad." 
 
 While the Philip of slavery was thundering at our 
 gate, the American Demosthenes advised us to " con- 
 quer our prejudices " against letting him in ; to 
 throw down the wall " with alacrity," and bid him 
 come : it was a " constitutional " Philip. How silver 
 dims the edge of steel ! When the tongue of free- 
 dom was cut out of the mouth of Europe by the 
 sabres of tyrants, and only in the British Isles and in 
 Saxon speech could liberty be said or sung, the 
 greatest orator who ever spoke the language of Mil- 
 ton and Burke told us to suppress discussion ! In 
 the dark and troubled night of American politics, 
 our tallest Pharo on the shore hung out a false 
 beacon. 
 
 Once Mr. Webster said, " There will always be 
 some perverse minds who will vote the wrong way, 
 let the justice of the case be ever so apparent." * 
 
 * " Columbian Centinel," March 11, 1820. 
 
244 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Did he know what he was doing ? Too well. In 
 the winter of 1850, he. partially prepared a speech in 
 defence of freedom. Was his own amendment to 
 Mason's Bill designed to be its text ? * Some say- 
 so. I know not. He wrote to an intimate and sa- 
 gacious friend in Boston, asking, How far can I go 
 in defence of freedom, and have Massachusetts sus- 
 tain me ? The friend repaid the confidence and said, 
 Far as you like I Mr. Webster went as far as New 
 Orleans, as far as Texas and the Del Norte, in sup- 
 port of slavery! When that speech came, — the 
 rawest wind of March, — the friend declared: It sel- 
 dom happens to any man to be able to disgrace the 
 generation he is born in. But the opportunity has 
 presented itself to IVIr. Webster, and he has done 
 the deed! 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey fell, and lost nothing but his 
 place. Bacon fell ; the " wisest, brightest," lived 
 long enough to prove himself the " meanest of man- 
 kind." Strafford came down. But it was nothing 
 to the fall of Webster. The Anglo-Saxon race never 
 knew such a terrible and calamitous ruin. His down- 
 fall shook the continent. Truth fell prostrate in the 
 street. Since then, the court house has a twist in 
 its walls, and equity cannot enter its door ; the stee- 
 
 * Works, vol. V. p. 373-4. See too, Speech at Buffalo (In 
 Pamphlet), p. 17. He proposed to have "a summary trial by- 
 Jury ! " 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 245 
 
 pies point awry, and the " Higher Law " is hurled 
 down from the pulpit. One priest would enslave all 
 the " posterity of Ham," and another would drive a 
 fugitive from his own door ; a third became certain 
 that Paul was a kidnapper; and a fourth had the 
 " assurance of consciousness that Christ Jesus would 
 have sold and bought slaves I " Practical atheism be- 
 came common in the pulpits of America ; they for- 
 got that there was a God. In the hard winter of 
 1780, if Fayette had copied Arnold, and Washing- 
 ton gone over to the enemy, the fall could not have 
 been worse. Benedict Arnold fell, but fell through, 
 — so low that no man quotes him for precedent. 
 Aaron Burr is only a warning. Webster fell, and 
 he lay there " not less than archangel ruined," and 
 enticed the nation in his fall. Shame on us I — all 
 those three are of New England blood I Webster, 
 Arnold, Burr!. 
 
 My friends, it is hard for me to say these things. 
 My mother's love is warm in my own bosom still, 
 and I hate to say such words. But God is just; 
 and, in the presence of God, I stand here to tell the 
 truth. 
 
 Did men honor Daniel Webster ? So did I. I 
 was a boy ten years old when he stood at Plymouth 
 Rock, and never shall I forget how his clarion-words 
 rang in my boyish heart. I was but a little boy 
 when he spoke those brave words in behalf of 
 21* 
 
246 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Greece. I was helped to hate slavery by the lips of 
 that great intellect; and now that he takes back his 
 words, and comes himself to be Slavery's slave, I 
 hate it tenfold harder than before, because it made a 
 bondman out of that proud, powerful nature. 
 
 Did men love him ? So did I. Not blindly, but 
 as I loved a great mind, as the defender of the Con- 
 stitution and the Unalienable Rights of Man. 
 
 Sober and religious men of Boston yet mourn 
 that their brothers were kidnapped in the city of 
 Hancock and Adams — it was Daniel Webster who 
 kidnapped them. Massachusetts has wept at the 
 deep iniquity which was wrought in her capital — it 
 was done by the man whom she welcomed to her 
 bosom, and long had loved to honor. Let history, as 
 
 " Sad as angels at the good man's sin, 
 Blush to record, and weep to give it in ! " 
 
 Do men mourn for him ? See how they mourn ! 
 The streets are hung with black. The newspapers 
 are sad colored. The shops are put in mourning. 
 The Mayor and Aldermen wear crape. Wherever 
 his death is made known, the public business stops, 
 and flags drop half-mast down. The courts adjourn. 
 The courts of Massachusetts — at Boston, at Ded- 
 ham, at Lowell, all adjourn ; the courts of New 
 Hampshire, of Maine, of New York; even at Balti- 
 more and Washington, the courts adjourn ; for the 
 great lawyer is dead, and Justice must wait another 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. . 247 
 
 day. Only the United States Court, in Boston, try- 
 ing a man for helping Shadrach out of the furnace 
 of the kidnappers, — the court which executes the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill, — that does not adjourn; that 
 keeps on ; its worm dies not, and the fire of its per- 
 secution is not quenched, when death puts out the 
 lamp of life! Injustice is hungry for its prey, and 
 must not be balked. It was very proper ! Symboli- 
 cal court of the Fugitive Slave Bill — it does not 
 respect life, why should it death ? and, scorning lib- 
 erty, why should it heed decorum ? Did the judges 
 deem that Webster's spirit, on its way to God, would 
 look at Plymouth Rock, then pause on the spots 
 made more classic by his eloquence, and gaze at' 
 Bunker Hill, and tarry his hour in the august com- 
 pany of noble men at Faneuil Hall, and be glad to 
 know that injustice was chanting his requiem in that 
 court? They greatly misjudge the man. I know 
 Daniel Webster better, and I appeal for him against 
 his idly judging friends.* 
 
 Do men now mourn for him, the great man elo- 
 
 * I am told that there was some technical reason why that court 
 continued Its session. I know nothing of the motive ; but I be- 
 lieve it was the fact that the only court in the United States which 
 did not adjourn at the intelligence of the death of Mr. Webster, 
 was the court which was seeking to punish a man for rescuing 
 Shadrach from the fiery furnace made ready for him. Here is the 
 item, from the Boston Atlas for Tuesday, Oct. 26, 1851, " Elizur 
 Wright being on trial [for alleged aiding in the attempt to rescue' 
 Shadrach] the court continued its session !" 
 
248 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 quent ? I put on sackcloth long ago ; I mourned for 
 him when he wrote the Creole letter, which surprised 
 Ashburton, Briton that he was. I mourned when 
 he spoke the speech of the 7th of March. I mourned 
 when the Fugitive Slave Bill passed Congress, and 
 the same cannons which have just fired minute-guns 
 for him fired also one hundred rounds of joy at the 
 forging of a new fetter for the fugitive's foot. I 
 mourned for him when the kidnappers first came to 
 Boston, — hated then, now " respectable men," "the 
 companions of princes," enlarging their testimony 
 in the court. I mourned when my ow^n parishioners 
 fled from the " stripes " of New England to the 
 " stars " of Old England. I mourned when Ellen 
 Craft fled to my house for shelter and for succor, and 
 for the first time in all luy life I armed this hand. I 
 mourned when I married William and Ellen Craft, 
 and gave them a Bible for their soul, and a Sword to 
 keep that soul living in a living frame. I luourned 
 when the court house was hung in chains ; when 
 Thomas Sims, from his dungeon, sent out his peti- 
 tion for prayers, and the churches did not dare to 
 pray. I mourned when that poor outcast in yonder 
 dungeon sent for me to visit him, and when I took 
 him by the hand which Daniel Webster was chain- 
 ing in that hour. I mourned for Webster when we 
 prayed our prayer and sang our psalm on Long 
 Wharf in the morning's gray. I mourned then : I 
 shall not cease to mourn. The flags will be removed 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 249 
 
 from the streets, the cannon will sound their other 
 notes of joy ; but, for me, I shall go mourning all 
 my days ; I shall refuse to be comforted ; and at last 
 I shall lay down my gray hairs with weeping and 
 with sorrow in the grave. O Webster I Webster ! 
 would God that I had died for thee ! 
 
 He was a powerful man physically, a man of a 
 large mould, — a great body and a great brain : * he 
 seemed made to last a hundred years. Since Soc- 
 rates, there has seldom been a head so massive huge, 
 save the stormy features of Michael Angelo, — 
 
 " The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Rome ; " 
 
 he who sculptured Day and Night into such ma- 
 jestic forms, — looked them in his face before he 
 chiselled them in stone. The cubic capacity of his 
 head surpassed nearly all former measurements of 
 mind. Since Charlemagne, I think there has not 
 been such a grand figure in all Christendom. A 
 large man, decorous in dress, dignified in deportment, 
 he walked as if he felt himself a king. Men from 
 the country, who knew him not, stared at him as he 
 passed through our streets. The coal-heavers and 
 porters of London looked on him as one of the great 
 
 * See Dr. Jeffries' account of the last illness of the late Daniel 
 Webster, etc. (Phil., 1853), p. 17. 
 
250 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 forces of the globe. They recognized a native king. 
 In the Senate of the United States, he looked an 
 emperor in that council. Even the majestic Calhoun 
 seemed common, compared with him. Clay looked 
 vulgar, and Van Buren but a fox. His countenance, 
 like Strafford's, was " manly black." His mind — 
 
 " Was lodged in a fair and lofty room. 
 On his brow 
 Sat terror, mixed "with wisdom ; and, at once, 
 Saturn and Hermes in his countenance." 
 
 What a mouth he had ! It was a lion's mouth. Yet 
 there was a sweet grandeur in his smile, and a 
 woman's softness when he would. What a brow it 
 was! what eyes I like charcoal fires in the bottom of 
 a deep, dark well ! His face was rugged with vol- 
 canic flames, — great passions and great thoughts. 
 
 " The front of Jove himself ; 
 An eye like Mars to threaten and command." 
 
 Let me examine the elements of Mr. Webster's 
 character in some detail. Divide the faculties, not 
 bodily, into intellectual, moral, affectional, and relig- 
 ious, and see what he had of each, beginning with 
 the highest. 
 
 I. His latter life shows that he had no large devel- 
 opment of the Religious Powers, which join men 
 consciously to the infinite God. He had little 
 religion in the higher meaning of that word : much in 
 the lower, — he had the conventional form of religion, 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 251 
 
 the formality of outward and visible prayer ; rev- 
 erence for the Bible and the name of Christ ; attend- 
 ance at meeting on Sundays and at the " ordinances 
 of religion." He was a " devout man," in the 
 ecclesiastic sense of the word. But it is easy to be 
 devout, hard to be moral. Of the two men, in the 
 parable, who " went up to the temple to pray," only 
 the Pharisee was " devout " in the common sense. 
 Devoutness took the Priest and the Levite to the 
 temple : morality led the good Samaritan to the 
 man fallen among thieves. 
 
 His reputation for religion seems to rest on these 
 facts, — that he read the Bible, and knew more 
 passages from it than most political editors, more 
 than some clergymen ; he thought Job " a great epic 
 poem," and quoted Habakkuk by rote ; — that he 
 knew many hymns by heart ; attended what is called 
 " divine service ; " agreed with a New Hampshire 
 divine " in all the doctrines of a Christian life ; " 
 and, in the " Girard case," praised the popular the- 
 ology, with the ministers thereof, — the latter as 
 " appointed by the Author of the Christian religion 
 himself." 
 
 He seems by nature to have had a religious turn 
 of mind ; was full of devout and reverential feelings ; 
 took a deep delight in religious emotions ; was fond 
 of religious books of a sentimental cast ; loved 
 Watts's tender and delicious hymns, with the 
 devotional parts of the Bible ; his memory was 
 
252 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 stored with the poetry of hymn-books ; he was fond 
 of attendance at meeting. He had no particle of re- 
 ligious bigotry ; joining an Orthodox Church at 
 Boscawen, an Episcopal at Washington, a Unita- 
 rian at Boston, and attending religious services with- 
 out much regard for the theology of the minister. 
 He loved religious forms, and could not see a child 
 baptized without dropping a tear. Psalms and 
 hymns also brought the woman into those great 
 eyes. He was never known to swear, or use any 
 profanity of speech.* Considering the habits of his 
 political company, thaf is a fact worth notice. But 
 I do not find that his religious emotions had any 
 influence on his latter life, either public or private. 
 He read religion out of politics with haughty scorn, 
 — " It makes men mad I " It appeared neither to 
 check him from ill, nor urge to good. Though he said 
 he loved " to have religion made a personal matter," 
 he forsook the church which made it personal in the 
 form of temperance. His " religious character " was 
 what the churches of Commerce tend to form, and 
 love to praise.f 
 
 II. Of the Affections he was well provided by 
 nature, though they were but little cultivated, — 
 attachable to a few who knew him, and loved him 
 
 * So I preached and printed in 1852 and 1853. But the state- 
 ment is also a mistake. 
 
 1 1 think no American had ever so many Eulogies in print. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 253 
 
 tenderly ; and, if he hated like a giant, he loved also 
 like a king. 
 
 He had small respect for the mass of men, — a 
 contempt for the judgment and the feelings of the 
 millions who make up the people. Many w'^omen 
 loved him ; some from pure affection, others fasci- 
 nated and overborne by the immense masculineness 
 of the man. Some are still left who knew him in 
 early life, before political ambition set its mark on 
 his forehead, and drove him forth into the world : 
 they love him with the tenderest of woman's affec- 
 tion. This is no small praise. In his earlier life he 
 was fond of children, loved their prattle and their 
 play. They, too, were fond of him, came to him as 
 dust of iron to a loadstone, climbed on his back, or, 
 when he lay down, lay on his limbs and also slept. 
 
 Of unimpassioned and unrelated love, there are 
 two modes, — friendship for a few ; philanthropy for 
 all. Friendship he surely had, especially in earlier 
 life. All along the shore, men loved him ; men in 
 Boston loved him to the last ; Washington held 
 loving hearts which worshipped him. But, of late 
 years, he turned round to smite and crush his early 
 friends who kept the Higher Law ; ambition tore 
 the friendship out of him, and he became unkind 
 and cruel. The companions of his later years were 
 chiefly low men, with large animal appetites, ser- 
 vants of his body's baser parts, or tide-waiters of his 
 ambition, — vulgar men in Boston and New York, 
 
 VOL. I. 22 
 
254 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 who lurk in the habitations of cruelty, whereof the 
 dark places of the earth are full, seeldng to enslave 
 their brother-men. These barnacles clove to the 
 great man's unprotected parts, and hastened his 
 decay. When kidnappers made their loathsome 
 lair of his bosom, what was his friendship worth ? 
 
 Of Philanthropy, I claim not much for him. The 
 noble plea for Greece is the most I can put in for 
 argument. He cared little for the poor ; charity sel- 
 dom invaded his open purse ; he trod down the 
 poorest and most friendless of perishing men. His 
 name was never connected with the humanities of 
 the age. Soon as the American Government 
 seemed fixed on the side of cruelty, he marched all 
 his dreadful artillery over, and levelled his breaching 
 cannons against men ready to perish without his 
 shot. In later years, his face was the visage of a 
 tyrant. 
 
 in. Of Conscience it seemed to me he had little ; 
 in his later life, exceeding little : his moral sense 
 seemed long besotted; almost, though not wholly, 
 gone. Hence, though he was often generous, he was 
 seldom just. Free to give as to grasp, he was lavish 
 by instinct, not charitable on principle. 
 
 He had little courage, and rarely spoke a Northern 
 word to a Southern audience, save his official words 
 in Consi'ess. In Charleston he was the " school- 
 master that gives us no lessons." He quailed before 
 the Southern men who would " dissolve the Union," 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 255 
 
 when he stood before their eye. They were " high- 
 minded and chivalrous : " it was only the non-resist- 
 ants of the North he meant to ban ! 
 
 He was indeed eminently selfish, joining the 
 instinctive egotism of passion with the self-con- 
 scious, voluntary, deliberate, calculating egotism of 
 ambition. He borrowed money of rich young men 
 — ay, and of poor ones — in the generosity of their 
 youth, and never repaid. He sought to make his 
 colleagues in office the tools of his ambition, and 
 that failing, pursued them with the intensest hate. 
 Thus he sought to ruin the venerable John Quincy 
 Adams, when the President became a Representa- 
 tive. By secret hands he scattered circulars in Mr. 
 Adams's district to work his overthrow ; got other 
 men to oppose him. With different men he suc- 
 ceeded better. He used his party as he used his 
 friends, — for tools. He coquetted with the Demo- 
 crats in '42, with the Free-Soilers in '48 ; but, the 
 suit miscarrying, turned to the Slave Power in '50, 
 and negotiated an espousal which was cruelly broken 
 off in '52. Men, parties, the law,* and the nation, he 
 did not hesitate to sacrifice to the colossal selfishness 
 of his egotistic ambition. 
 
 His strength lay not in the religious, nor in the 
 afFectional, nor in the moral part of man. 
 
 IV. But his Intellect was immense. His power 
 
 * Leges invalidfe prius ; imo nocere coact^e. 
 
256 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of comprehension was vast. He methodized swiftly. 
 If you look at the varieties of intellectual action, you 
 may distribute them into three great modes ; the 
 Understanding, the Imagination, and the Reason ; — 
 the Understanding dealing with details and methods, 
 the practical power ; Imagination, with beauty, the 
 power to create ; Reason, with first principles and 
 universal laws, the philosophic power. 
 
 We must deny to IVIr. Webster the gi'eat Reason. 
 He does not belong at all with the chief men of that 
 department, — with Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Leib- 
 nitz, Newton, Des Cartes, and the other mighties. 
 Nay, he has no place with humbler men of reason, 
 with common philosophers. He had no philosophical 
 system of politics, few philosophical ideas of politics, 
 whereof to make a system. He seldom grasps a 
 universal law. His measures of expediency for to- 
 day are seldom bottomed on universal principles of 
 right, which last for ever. 
 
 I cannot assign to him large Imagination. He 
 was not creative of new forms of thought or of 
 beauty ; so he lacks the poetic charm which gladdens 
 in the loftiest eloquence. 
 
 But his Understanding was exceedingly great. 
 He acquired readily and retained well ; arranged 
 with ease and skill, and fluently reproduced. As a 
 scholar, he passed for learned in the American Sen- 
 ate, where scholars are few ; for a universal man, 
 with editors of political and commercial prints. But 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 257 
 
 his learning was narrow in its range, and not very 
 nice in its accuracy. His reach in history and litera- 
 ture was very small for a man seventy years of age, 
 always associating with able men. To science he 
 seems to have paid scarce any attention at all. It 
 is a short radius that measures the arc of his historic 
 realm. A few Latin authors, whom he loved to quote, 
 made up his meagre classic store. He was not a 
 scholar, and it is idle to claim great or careful scholar- 
 ship for him. Compare him with the prominent 
 statesmen of Europe, or with the popular orators of 
 England, you see continually the narrow range of 
 his culture. 
 
 As a statesman, his lack of what I call the higher 
 Reason and Imagination continually appears. He 
 invented nothing. To the national stock he added 
 no new idea, created out of new thought ; no new 
 maxim, formed by induction out of human history 
 and old thought. The great ideas of the time were 
 not borne in his bosom. 
 
 He organized nothing. There were great ideas of 
 immense practical value seeking lodgement in a 
 body : he aided them not. None of the great meas- 
 ures of our time were his — not one of them. His 
 best bill was the Specie Bill of 1815, which caused 
 payments to be made in national currency. 
 
 His lack of Conscience is painfully evident. As 
 Secretary of State, he did not administer eminently 
 well. When Secretary of State under Mr. Tyler, 
 22* 
 
258 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 he knew how to be unjust to poor, maltreated Mex- 
 ico. His letters in reply to the just complaints of 
 Mr. Bocanegra, the Mexican Secretary of State, are 
 painful to read : it is the old story of the Wolf and 
 the Lamb.* 
 
 The appointments made under his administration 
 had better not be looked at too closely. The affairs 
 of Cuba last year and this, the affairs of the Fisher- 
 ies and the Lobos Islands, are little to his credit. 
 
 He was sometimes ignorant of the affairs he had 
 to treat ; he neglected the public business, — left 
 grave matters all unattended to. Nay, he did worse. 
 Early in August last, Mr. Lawrence had an inter- 
 view with the British Foreign Secretary, in which 
 explanations were made calculated to remove all 
 anxiety as to the Fishery Question. He wrote a pa- 
 per detailing the result of the interview. It was de- 
 signed to be communicated to the American Senate. 
 Mr. Lawrence sent it to Mr. "Webster. It reached 
 the Department at Washington on the 24th of Au- 
 gust. But Mr. Webster did not communicate it to 
 the Senate ; even the President knew nothing of its 
 existence till after the Secretary's death. Now, it is 
 not " compatible with the public interest to publish 
 it," as its production would reveal the negligence of 
 
 * See these letters — to Mr. Thompson, Works, vol. vi. p. 445, 
 et seq.; and those of Mr. Bocanegra to Mr. Webster, p. 442, et 
 seq. 457, et seq. How different is the tone of America to powerful 
 England ! Whom men wrong they hate. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 259 
 
 the Department.* You remember the letter he pub- 
 lished on his own account relating to the Fisheries ! f 
 No man, it was said, could get office under his ad- 
 ministration, " unless bathed in negro's blood : " sup- 
 port of the Fugitive Slave Bill, " like the path of 
 righteous devotion, led to a blessed preferment." 
 
 Lacking both moral principle and intellectual 
 ideas, political ethics and political economy, it must 
 needs be that his course in politics was crooked. He 
 opposed the INIexican war, but invested a son in it, 
 and praised the soldiers who fought therein, as sur- 
 passing our fathers who " stood behind bulwarks on 
 Bunker Hill " I He called on the nation to uphold the 
 stars of America on the fields of Mexico, though he 
 knew it was the stripes that they held up. Now he 
 is for free trade, then for protection ; now for specie, 
 then for bills ; first for a bank, then it is " an obso- 
 lete idea ; " now for freedom and against slavery, 
 then for slavery and against freedom ; now Justice 
 is the object of government, now Money. Now 
 what makes men Christians makes them good citi- 
 zens ; next, religion is good " everywhere but in pol- 
 itics, — there it makes men mad." Now religion is 
 
 * The Letter was read in the secret session of the Senate, 
 March 8, 1853, and published in Senate Doc, Special Sess., No. 
 4, p. 2. See also Lord Malmesburv's letter to Mr. Ci-ampton, 
 (Aug. 10, 1852,) Id. p. 6-8; see too p. 9. 
 
 t July 20, 1852. 
 
260 DANIEL AVEBSTER. 
 
 the only gi'ound of government, and all conscience 
 is to be respected; next, there is no Law higher than 
 the " Omnibus," and he hoots at conscience, and 
 would not reenact the Law of God. 
 
 He began his career as the friend of free trade and 
 hard money; he would restrict the government to 
 the strait line of the Constitution rigidly defined; he 
 would resist the Bank, the protective tariff, the ex- 
 tension of slavery, they exceeded the limits of the 
 Constitution : he became the pensioned advocate of 
 restricted trade and of paper-money ; he interpreted 
 the Constitution to oppress the several States and 
 the citizens ; brought the force of the government 
 against private right, and lent all his might to the 
 extension of slavery. Once he stood out boldly for 
 the right of all men " to canvass public measures and 
 the merits of public men ; " then he tells us that dis- 
 cussion " must be suppressed " ! Several years ago, 
 he called a private meeting of the principal manufac- 
 turers of Boston, and advised them to abandon the 
 protective tariff; but they would not, and so he de- 
 fended it as warmly as ever ! His course was 
 crooked as the Missouri. The Duke of Wellington 
 and Sir Robert Peel were, like him, without a philo- 
 sophical scheme of political conduct, or any great 
 ideas whereby to shape the future into fairer forms ; 
 but the principle of duty was the thread which joined 
 all parts of their public ministration. Thereon each 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 261 
 
 strung his victories. But selfish egotism is the only 
 continuous thread I find thus running through the 
 crooked life of the famous American. 
 
 With such a lack of ideas and of honesty, with a 
 dread of taking the responsibility in advance of pub- 
 lic opinion, lacking confidence in the people, and 
 confidence in himself, he did not readily understand 
 the public opinion on which he depended. He 
 thought himself " a favorite with the people," — 
 " sure of election if nominated ; " it was " only the 
 politicians " who stood between him and the nation. 
 He thought the Fugitive Slave Bill would be popular 
 in the North ; that it could be executed in Syracuse ; 
 and Massachusetts would conquer her prejudices 
 with alacrity ! 
 
 He had little value as a permanent guide : he 
 changed often, but at the unlucky moment. He 
 tacked and wore ship many a time in his life, always 
 in bad weather, and never came round but he fell off 
 from the popular wind. Perseverance makes the 
 saints : he always forsook his idea just as that was 
 about to make its fortune. In his voyaging for the 
 Presidency, he was always too late for the tide ; em- 
 barked on the ebb, and was left as the stream run 
 dry. The Fugitive Slave Bill has done the South 
 no good, save to reveal the secrets of her prison- 
 house, the Cabin of Uncle Tom, and make the North 
 hate slavery with a tenfold hate. So far has he 
 
262 DANIEL "WEBSTER. 
 
 " Websterized " the Whig party, he has done so to 
 its ruin. 
 
 He was a great advocate, a great orator : it is said, 
 the greatest in the land, — and I do not doubt that 
 this was true. Surely he was immensely great. 
 When he spoke, he was a grand spectacle. His 
 noble form, so dignified and masculine ; his massive 
 head ; the mighty brow, Olympian in its majesty ; 
 the great, deep, dark eye, which, like a lion's, seemed 
 fixed on objects afar off, looking beyond what lay in 
 easy range ; the mouth so full of strength and deter- 
 mination, — these all became the instruments of such 
 eloquence as few men ever hear. He magnetized 
 men by his presence ; he subdued them by his will 
 more than by his argument. Many have surpassed 
 him in written words ; for he could not embody the 
 sunshine in such flowers of thought as Burke, Mil- 
 ton, and Cicero wrought into mosaic oratory. But, 
 since the great Athenians, Demosthenes and Pericles, 
 who ever thundered out such spoken eloquence as 
 he? 
 
 Yet he has left no perfect specimen of a great 
 oration. He had not the instinctive genius which 
 creates a beautiful whole by nature, as a mother 
 bears a living son ; nor the wide knowledge, the deep 
 philosophy, the plastic industry, which forms a beau- 
 tiful whole by art, as a sculptor chisels a marble boy. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTEK. 263 
 
 So his greatest and most deliberate efforts of oratory 
 will not bear comparison with the great eloquence of 
 nature that is born, nor the great eloquence of art 
 which is made. Compared therewith, his mighty 
 works are as Hercules compared with Apollo. It is 
 an old world, and excellence in oratory is difficult. 
 Yet he has sentences and paragraphs that I think 
 unsurpassed and unequalled, and I do not see how 
 they can ever fade. He was not a Nile of eloquence, 
 cascading into poetic beauty now, then watering 
 whole provinces with the drainage of tropic mo.un- 
 tains : he was a Niagara, pouring a world of clear 
 waters adown a single ledge. 
 
 His style was simple, the business-style of a strong 
 man. Now and then it swelled into beauty, though 
 it was often dull. In later years, he seldom touched 
 the conscience, the affections, or the soul, except, 
 alas I to smite our sense of justice, our philanthropy, 
 and trust in God. He always addressed the under- 
 standing, not the reason, — Calhoun did that the 
 more, — not the imagination: in his speech there 
 was little wit, little beauty, little poetry. He laid 
 siege to the understanding. Here lay his strength — 
 he could make a statement better than any man in 
 America ; had immense power of argumentation, 
 building a causeway from his will to the hearer's 
 mind. He was skilful in devising " middle terms," 
 in making steps whereby to lead the audience to his 
 
264 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 determination. No man managed the elements of 
 his argument with more practical effect. 
 
 Perhaps he did this better when contending for a 
 wrong, than when battling for the right. His most 
 ingenious arguments are pleas for injustice.* Part 
 of the effect came from the physical bulk of the 
 man ; part from the bulk of will, which marked all 
 his speech, and writing too ; but much from his 
 power of statement. He gathered a great mass of 
 material, bound it together, swung it about his head, 
 fixed his eye on the mark, then let the ruin fly. If 
 you want a word suddenly shot from Dover to 
 Calais, you send it by lightning ; if a ball of a ton 
 weight, you get a steam-cannon to pitch it across. 
 Webster was the steam-gun of eloquence. He hit 
 the . mark less by skill than strength. His shot 
 seemed big as his target.f 
 
 There is a great difference in the weapons which 
 speakers use. This orator brings down his quarry 
 with a single subtle shot, of sixty to the pound. He 
 
 * See examples of this in the Creole letter, and that to Mr. 
 Thompson (Works, vol. vi.), and in many a speech ; — especially 
 in defence of the Fugitive Slave Bill and Kidnapping. 
 
 t " Tu quoque, Piso, 
 
 Judicis affectum, possessaque pectora ducis 
 Victor ; sponte sua sequitur, quocunque vocasti : 
 Et te tlante capit judex, quara non habet iram." 
 Pseudo Lucanus ad Calpurnium Pisonem, Poematiotiiim, v. 44, ei seq. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 265 
 
 carries death without weight in his gun, as sure as 
 fate. 
 
 Here is another, the tin-pedlar of American speech. 
 He is a snake in the grass, slippery, shining, with a 
 baleful crest on his head, cunning in his crazy eye, 
 and the poison of the old serpent in his heart, and 
 on his slimy jaw, and about the fang at the bottom 
 of his smooth and forked and nimble tongue. He 
 conquers by bewitching ; he fascinates his game to 
 death. 
 
 Commonly, Mr. Webster was open and honest in 
 his oratory. He had no masked batteries, no Quaker 
 guns. He had " that rapid and vehement declama- 
 tion which fixes the hearer's attention on the subject, 
 making the speaker forgotten, and leaving his art 
 concealed." He wheeled his forces into line, column 
 after column, with the quickness of Hannibal and 
 the masterly arrangement of Caesar, and, like Napo- 
 leon, broke the centre of his opponent's line by the 
 superior weight of his own column and the sudden 
 heaviness of his fire. Thus he laid siege to the 
 understanding, and carried it by dint of cannonade. 
 This was his strategy, in the court house, in the 
 senate, and in the public hall. There were no 
 ambuscades, no pitfalls, or treacherous Indian sub- 
 tlety. It was the tactics of a great and naturally 
 honest-minded man. 
 
 In his oratory there was but one trick, — that 
 of self-depreciation. This came on him in his later 
 
 VOL. I. 23 
 
266 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 years, and it always failed. He was too big to 
 make any one believe he thought himself little ; so 
 obviously proud, we knew he valued his services 
 high when he rated them so low. That comprehen- 
 sive eye could not overlook so great an object as 
 himself. He was not organized to cheat, to deceive ; 
 and did not prosper when he tried. 'T is ill the lion 
 apes the fox. 
 
 He was ambitious. Cardinal Wolsey's " un- 
 bounded stomach" was also the stomach of Web- 
 ster. Yet his ambition mostly failed. In forty 
 years of public life, he rose no higher than Secretary 
 of State ; and held that post but five years. He 
 was continually outgeneralled by subtler men. He 
 had little political foresight : for he had not the all- 
 conquering religion which meekly executes the Law 
 of God, fearless of its consequence ; nor yet the 
 wide Philanthropy, the deep sympathy with all that 
 is human, which gives a man the public heart, and 
 so the control of the issues of life, which thence pro- 
 ceed ; nor the great Justice which sees the everlast- 
 ing right, and journeys thitherward through good or 
 ill; nor the mighty Reason, which, reflecting, beholds 
 the principles of human nature, the constant mode of 
 operation of the forces of God in the forms of men ; 
 nor the poetic Imagination, which in its political 
 sphere creates great schemes of law : and hence he 
 was not popular. 
 
 He longed for the Presidency ; but Harrison kept 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 267 
 
 him from the nomination in '40, Clay in '44, Taylor 
 in '48, and Scott in '52. He never had a wide and 
 original influence in the politics of the nation ; for 
 he had no elemental thunder of his own — the 
 Tariff was Mr. Calhoun's at first ; the Force Bill 
 was from another hand ; the Fugitive Slave Bill was 
 Mr. Mason's ; " the Omnibus " had many fathers, 
 whereof Webster was not one. He was not a blood- 
 relation to any of the great measures, — to free-trade 
 or protection, to paper-money or hard coin, to free- 
 dom or slavery; he was of their kindred only by 
 adoption. He has been on all sides of most ques- 
 tions, save on the winning side. 
 
 In the case of the Fugitive Slave Bill, he stood 
 betwixt the living and the dead, and blessed the 
 plague. But, even here, he faltered when he came 
 North again, — " The South will get no concessions 
 from me." Mr. Webster commended the first draught 
 of the Fugitive Slave Bill, with Mr. Mason's 
 amendments thereto, volunteering his support thereof 
 " to the fullest extent." But he afterwards and 
 repeatedly declared, " The Fugitive Slave Bill was 
 not such a measure as I had prepared before I left 
 the Senate, and which I should have supported if I 
 had remained in the Senate." * "I was of opinion," 
 
 * Mr. Webster's letter to the Union Committee. Works, vol. 
 vi. p. 578 ; et al. 
 
268 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 he said, " that a summary trial by jury might be had, 
 which would satisfy the prejudices of the people, and 
 produce no harm to those who claimed the services 
 of fugitives." * Nay, he went so far as to introduce 
 a bill to the Senate providing a trial by jury for all 
 fugitives claiming a trial for their freedom.f He 
 thought the whole business of delivering up such as 
 owed service or labor, belonged to the State whither 
 the fugitive fled, and not to the general government. J 
 Of course he must have considered it constitutional 
 and expedient to secure for the fugitive a trial before 
 an impartial jury of "twelve good and lawful men," 
 who should pass upon the whole matter at issue. 
 But, with that conviction, and with that bill ready 
 drafted, as he says, in his desk, he could volunteer 
 his support to one which took away from the States 
 all jurisdiction in the matter, and from the fugitive 
 all " due process of law," all trial by jury, and left 
 him in the hands of a creature of the court, who was 
 to be paid twice as much for enslaving his victim as 
 for acquitting a man ! § 
 
 He had almost no self-reliant independence of 
 
 * Speech at Buffalo, (New York, 1851,) p. 17. 
 
 t See it in Works, vol. v. p. 373-4. 
 
 X Ibid, p. 354. But yet he affirmed the constitutionality of the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill, -which gave the business to the federal gov- 
 ernment. See Works, vol. vi. p. 551, et seq. Speeches at Buf- 
 falo, etc. 
 
 § See Speech at Syracuse, p. 36. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 269 
 
 character. It was his surroundings, not his will, that 
 shaped his course, — " driven by the wind and 
 tossed." 
 
 Mr. Webster's political career began with gener- 
 ous promise. He contended for the rights of the 
 people against the government, of the minority 
 against the majority ; he defended the right of each 
 man to discuss all public measures, and the conduct 
 of public men ; he wished commerce to be unre- 
 stricted, payments to be made in hard coin. He 
 spoke noble words against oppression, — the despot- 
 ism of the " Holy Alliance " in Europe, the cruelty 
 of the Slave-Trade in America. Generously and 
 nobly he contended against the extension of slavery 
 beyond the Mississippi. Not philanthropic by in- " 
 stinct or moral principle, averse to democratic insti- 
 tutions both by nature and conviction, he yet, by 
 instinctive generosity, hated tyranny, hated injustice, 
 hated despotism. He appealed to moral power 
 against physical force. He sympathized with the 
 republics of South America. His great powers tak- 
 ing such a direction certainly promised a brilliant 
 future, large services for mankind. But, alas ! he fell 
 on evil times : who ever fell on any other ? He was 
 intensely ambitious ; not ambitious to serve man- 
 kind, but to hold office, have power and fame. Is 
 this the " last infirmity of noble mind ? " It was not 
 a very noble object he proposed as the end of his 
 life ; the means to it became successively more and 
 
 23* 
 
270 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 more unworthy. " Ye cannot serve God and 
 mammon." 
 
 For some years, no large body of men has had 
 much trust in him, — admiration, but not confidence. 
 In Massachusetts, off the pavements, for the last 
 three years, he has had but little power. After the 
 speech of March 7th, he said, " I will be maintained 
 in Massachusetts." Massachusetts said No ! Only 
 in the cities that bought him was he omnipotent. 
 Even the South would not trust him. Gen. Jackson 
 was the most popular man of our time ; Calhoun 
 was a favorite throughout the South ; Clay, in all 
 quarters of the land ; and, at this day, Seward 
 wields the forces of the Whigs. With all his talent, 
 Webster never had the influence on America of the 
 least of these. 
 
 Yet Daniel Webster had many popular qualities. 
 He loved out-door and manly sports, — boating, fish- 
 ing, fowling. He was fond of nature, loving New 
 Hampshire's mountain scenery. He had started 
 small and poor, had risen great and high, and honor- 
 ably had fought his way alone. He rose early in 
 the morning. He loved gardening, "the purest of 
 human pleasures." He was a farmer, and took a 
 countryman's delight in country things, — in loads of 
 hay, in trees, in turnips, and the noble Indian corn, 
 in monstrous swine. He had a patriarch's love of 
 sheep, — choice breeds thereof he had. He took 
 delight in cows, — short-horned Durhams, Hereford- 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 271 
 
 shires, Ayrshires, Alderneys. He tilled paternal 
 acres with his own oxen. He loved to give the kine 
 fodder. It was pleasant to hear his talk of oxen. 
 And but three days before he left the earth ; too ill 
 to visit them, his cattle, lowing, came to see their 
 sick lord ; and, as he stood in his door, his great 
 oxen were driven up, that he might smell their 
 healthy breath, and look his last on those broad, gen- 
 erous faces, that were never false to him. 
 
 He loved birds, and would not have them shot on 
 his premises ; and so his farm twittered all over with 
 their " sweet jargonings." Though in public his 
 dress was more uniformly new than is common with 
 acknowledged gentlemen, at home and on his estate 
 he wore his old and homely clothes, and had kind 
 words for all, and hospitality besides. He loved his 
 father and brother with great tenderness, which 
 easily broke into tears when he spoke of them. He 
 was kind to his obscurer and poor relations. He had 
 no money to bestow ; they could not share his intel- 
 lect, or the renown it brought. But he gave them his 
 affection, and they loved him with veneration. He 
 was a friendly man : all along the shore there were 
 plain men that loved him, — whom he also loved. 
 He was called " a good neighbor, a good towns- 
 man : " — 
 
 " Lofty and sour to those that loved him not ; 
 But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer." 
 
272 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 His influence on the development of America has 
 not been great. He had large gifts, large opportuni- 
 ties also for their use, — the two greatest things 
 which great men ask. Yet he has brought little to 
 pass. No great ideas, no great organizations, will 
 bind him to the coming age. His life has been a 
 long vacillation. Ere long, men will ask for the 
 historic proof to verify the reputation of his power. 
 It will not appear. For the present, his career is a 
 failure : he was balked of his aim. How will it be 
 for the future ? Posterity wall vainly ask for proof 
 of his intellectual powder to invent, to organize, to 
 administer. The historian must write that he aimed 
 to increase the executive power, the central govern- 
 ment, and to weaken the local power of the States ; 
 that he preferred the Federal authority to State 
 rights, the judiciary to the legislature, the govern- 
 ment to the people, the claims of money to the 
 rights of man. Calhoun will stand as the represent- 
 ative of State rights and free trade ; Clay, of the 
 American system of protection ; Benton, of payment 
 in sound coin ; some other, of the revenue tariff. And 
 in the greatest question of the age, the question of 
 Human Rights, as champions of mankind, there will 
 appear Adams, Giddings, Chase, Palfrey, Mann, Hale, 
 Seward, Rantoul, and Sumner ; yes, one other name, 
 which on the historian's page will shade all these, — 
 the name of Garrison. Men will recount the words 
 of Webster at Plymouth Rock, at Bunker Hill, at 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 273 
 
 Faneuil Hall, at Niblo's Garden ; they will also recol- 
 lect that he declared " protection of property " to be 
 the great domestic object of government; that he said, 
 " Liberty first and Union afterwards was delusion 
 and folly ; " that he called on Massachusetts to con- 
 quer her " prejudices " in favor of unalienable rights, 
 and with alacrity give up a man to be a slave ; turn- 
 ed all the North into a hunting-field for the blood- 
 hound ; that he made the negation of God the first 
 principle of government ; that our New England 
 elephant turned round, tore Freedom's standard 
 down, and trod her armies under foot. They will 
 see that he did not settle the greatest questions by 
 Justice and the Law of God. His parallel lines of 
 power are indeed long lines, — a nation reads his 
 word : they are not far apart, you cannot get many 
 centuries between ; for there are no great ideas of 
 Right, no mighty acts of Love, to keep them wide. 
 
 There are brave words which Mr. Webster has 
 spoken that will last while English is a speech ; 
 yea, will journey with the Anglo-Saxon race, and 
 one day be classic in either hemisphere, in every 
 zone. But what will posterity say of his efforts to 
 chain the fugitive, to extend the area of human 
 bondage ; of his haughty scorn of any Law higher 
 than what trading politicians enact in the Capitol ? 
 " There is a Law above all the enactments of 
 human codes, the same throughout the world, the 
 same in all time ; " " it is the law written by the 
 
274 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 finger of God upon the heart of man ; and by that 
 law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise 
 fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they will 
 reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy 
 that man can hold property in man." * 
 
 Calhoun, Clay, Webster, — they were all able 
 men, — long in politics, all ambitious, grasping at the 
 Presidency, all failing of what they sought. All three 
 called themselves " Democrats," taking their stand 
 on the unalienable rights of man. But all three con- 
 joined to keep every eighth man in the nation a chat- 
 tel slave ; all three at last united in deadly war 
 against the unalienable rights of men whom swarthy 
 mothers bore. O democratic America ! 
 
 Was Mr. Webster's private life good ? There are 
 many depraved things done without depravity of 
 heart. I am here to chronicle, and not invent. I 
 cannot praise a man for virtues which he did not 
 have. This day, such praise sounds empty and im- 
 pertinent as the chattering of a caged canary amid 
 the sadness of a funeral prayer. Spite of womanly 
 tenderness, it is not for me to renounce my rnan- 
 hood and my God. I shall — 
 
 " Naught extenuate and nothing add, 
 Nor set down aujcht in malice." 
 
 * Lord Brougham's speech on Negro Slavery, in the House of 
 Commons, July 13, 1830. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 275 
 
 Before he left New Hampshire, I find no stain 
 upon his conduct there, save recklessness of expense. 
 But in Boston, when he removed here, there were 
 men in vogue, in some respects perhaps, worse than 
 any since as conspicuous, — open debauchees. He 
 fell in with them, and became over-fond of animal 
 delights, of the joys of the body's baser parts; fond 
 of sensual luxury, the victim of low appetites. He 
 loved power, loved pleasure, loved wine. Let me 
 turn off my face, and say no more of this sad theme : 
 others were as bad as he.* 
 
 He was intensely proud. Careless of money, he 
 was often in trouble on its account. He contracted 
 debts, and did not settle ; borrowed of rich and poor, 
 and young and old, and rendered not again. Private 
 money often clove to his hands ; yet in his nature 
 there was no taint of avarice. He lavished money 
 on luxuries, while his washerwoman was left unpaid. 
 Few Americans have squandered so much as he. 
 Rapacious to get, he was prodigal of his own. I 
 wish the charges brought against his public adminis- 
 tration may be disproved, whereof the stain rests on 
 him to this day. When he entered on a lawyer's life, 
 Mr. Gore advised him, " Whatever bread you eat, 
 let it be the bread of independence ! " Oh that the 
 
 * Hoc sat viator : reliqua non sinit pudor ; 
 Tu suspicare et ambula. 
 
 Sannazarius, Epig. 11. 29. 
 
276 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 great mind could have kept that counsel ! But, even 
 at Portsmouth, luxury brought debt, and many an evil 
 on its back. He collected money, and did not pay ! 
 " Bread of independence," when did he eat it last ? 
 Rich men paid his debts of money when he came to 
 Massachusetts ; they took a dead-pledge on the man ; 
 only death redeemed that mertgage. In 1827 he solic- 
 ited the Senatorship of Massachusetts ; it " would 
 put down the calumnies of Isaac Hill ! " He obtained 
 the office, not without management. Then he refused 
 to take his seat until ten thousand dollars was raised 
 for him. The money came clandestinely, and he 
 went into the Senate — a pensioner! His reputation 
 demanded a speech against the tariff of '28 ; his pen- 
 sion required his vote for that " bill of abominations." 
 He spoke one way, and voted the opposite. Was 
 that the first dotation ? He was forestalled before he 
 left New Hampshire. The next gift Avas twenty 
 thousand, it is said. Then the sums increased. 
 What great '• gifts " have been privately raised for 
 him by contributions, subscriptions, donations, and 
 the like ! Is it honest to buy up a man ? honest for 
 a man to sell himself? Is it just for a Judge who 
 administers the law to take a secret bribe of a party 
 at his court ? Is it just for a party to offer such gifts ? 
 Answer Lord Bacon who tried it; answer Thomas 
 More who tried it not. It is worse for a Maker of 
 laws to be bought and sold. New England men, I 
 hope not meaning wrong, bought the great senator 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 277 
 
 in '27, and long held him in their pay. They gave 
 him all his services were worth, — gave more. His 
 commercial and financial policy has been the bane of 
 New England and the North. In 1850 the South 
 bought him, but never paid ! * 
 
 A Senator o'f the United States, he was pensioned 
 by the capitalists of Boston. Their "gifts" in his 
 hand, how could he dare be just ! His later speeches 
 smell of bribes. Could not Francis Bacon warn 
 him, nor either Adams guide ? Three or four hun- 
 dred years ago, Thomas More, when " under Sheriff 
 of London," would not accept a pension from the 
 king, lest it might swerve him from his duty to the 
 town ; when Chancellor, he would not accept five 
 thousand pounds which the English clergy publicly 
 offered him, for public service done as chancellor. 
 But Webster in private took — how much I cannot 
 tell! Considering all things, his buyers' wealth and 
 his unthriftiness, it was as dishonorable in them to 
 bribe, as in him to take their gift ! • 
 
 To gain his point, alas ! he sometimes treated 
 facts, law, constitution, morality, and religion, as an 
 
 * " Sed lateri nullus comitem circuradare qujerlt, 
 
 Quern dat purus amor, sed quern tulit iinpia nierces, 
 Nee quisquam vero pretium largitur amico, 
 Quem regat ex asquo, vicibusque regatur ab illo : 
 Sed miserum parva stipe munerat, ut pudibundos 
 Exercere sales inter consiUa posslt." 
 
 Pseuclo Lucanus, uhi sup. 100, el seq. 
 
 VOL. I. 24 
 
278 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 advocate treats matters at the bar. Was he certain 
 South Carolina had no constitutional right to nul- 
 lify ? I make no doubt he felt so ; but in his lan- 
 guage he is just as strong when he declares the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill is perfectly constitutional ; that 
 slavery caimot be in California and New Mexico ; 
 just as confident in his dreadful mock at conscience, 
 and the dear God's unchanging Law. He heeded 
 not " the delegated voice of God " which speaks in 
 the conscience of the faithful man. 
 
 No living man has done so much to debauch the 
 conscience of the nation ; to debauch the press, the 
 pulpit, the forum, and the bar! There is no Higher 
 Law, quoth he ; and how much of the pulpit, the 
 press, the forum, and the bar, denies its God ! Read 
 the journals of the last week for proof of what I 
 say ; and read our history since March of '50. He 
 poisoned the moral wells of society with his lower 
 law, and men's consciences died of the murrain of 
 Ijjeasts, which came because they drank thereat. 
 
 In an age which prizes money as the greatest good 
 and counts the understanding as the highest human 
 faculty, the man who is to lead and bless the world 
 must indeed be great in intellect, but also great in 
 conscience, greater in affection, and greatest of all 
 things in his soul. Li his later years, Webster was 
 intellect, and little more. If he did not regard the 
 eternal Right, how could he guide a nation to what 
 is useful for to-day? If he scorned the Law of 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 279 
 
 God, how could he bless the world of men ? It was 
 by this fault he fell. " Those who murdered Banquo, 
 what did they win by it ? " 
 
 " A barren sceptre in their gripe, 
 
 Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, 
 No son of theirs succeeding." 
 
 He knew the cause of his defeat, and in the last 
 weeks of his life confessed that he was deceived ; 
 that, before his fatal speech, he had assurance from 
 the North and South, that, if he supported slavery, 
 it would lead him into place and power ; bvit now 
 he saw the mistake, and that a few of the " fanatics " 
 had more influence in America than he and all the 
 South I He sinned against his own conscience, and 
 so he fell ! 
 
 He made him wings of slavery to gain a lofty 
 eminence. Those wings unfeathered in his flight. 
 For one and thirty months he fell, until at last he 
 reached the tomb. There, on the sullen shore, a 
 mighty wreck, great Webster lies. 
 
 " Is this the man in Freedom's cause approved, 
 The man so great, so honored, so beloved ? 
 Where is the heartfelt worth and weight of soul, 
 Which labor could not stoop, nor fear control ? 
 Where the known dignity, the stamp of awe. 
 Which, half abashed, the proud and venal saw ? 
 Where the calm triumphs of an honest cause ? — 
 AVhere the delightful taste of just applause ? 
 
280 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Oh, lost alike to action and repose, 
 
 Unwept, unpitled in the worst of woes ; 
 
 With all that conscious, undissembled pride, 
 
 Sold to the insults of a foe defied ; 
 
 With all that habit of familiar fame. 
 
 Doomed to exhaust the dregs of life in shame ! " 
 
 Oh, what a warning was his fall ! 
 
 " To dash corruption in her proud career. 
 And teach her slaves that vice was born to fear." 
 
 " Oh dumb be jjassion's stormy rage, 
 When he who might 
 Have lighted up and led his age 
 Falls back in night." 
 
 Had he been faithful to his own best words, so oft 
 repeated, how he would have stood ! How different 
 would have been the aspect of the North and the 
 South ; of the press, the pulpit, the forum, and the 
 court ! 
 
 Had he died after the treaty of 1842, how different 
 would have been his fame ! 
 
 Since the Revolution, no American has had so 
 noble an opportunity as Mr. Webster to speak a 
 word for the advancement of mankind. There was 
 a great occasion : slavery was clamorous for new 
 power, new territory ; was invading the State Rights 
 of the North. Earnest men in the North, getting 
 aroused and hostile to slavery, were looking round 
 for some able man to take the political guidance of 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 281 
 
 the anti-slavery feeling, to check the great national 
 crime, and help end it ; they were asking — 
 
 " Who is the honest man, — 
 He that doth still and strongly good pursue, 
 To God, his neighbor, and himself", most true ; 
 
 Whom neither fear nor fawning can 
 Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due ? " 
 
 Some circumstances seemed to point to Mr. Webster 
 as the man ; his immense oratorical abilities, his long 
 acquaintance with public affairs, his conspicuous 
 position, his noble words in behalf of freedom, begin- 
 ning with his college days and extending over many 
 a year, — all these were powerful arguments in his 
 behalf. The people had always been indulgent to 
 his faults, allowing him a wide margin of public and 
 private oscillation ; the North was ready to sustain 
 him in all generous efforts for the unalienable rights 
 of man. But he threw away the great moment of 
 his life, used all his abilities to destroy those rights 
 of man, and builded the materials of honorable 
 fame into a monument of infamy for the warning 
 of mankind. Declaring that " the protection of 
 property" was "the great object of government," he 
 sought to unite the Money power of the North and 
 the Slave power of the South into one great instru- 
 ment to stifle discussion, and withstand religion, and 
 the Higher Law of God. 
 
 Had he lived and labored for freedom as for 
 24* 
 
282 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 slavery, — nay, with half the diligence and half the 
 power, — to-morrow, all the North would rise to 
 make him their President, and put on that Olympian 
 brow the wreath of honor from a people's hand. 
 Then he would have left a name like Adams, Jeffer- 
 son, and Washington ; and the tears of every good 
 man would have dropped upon his tomb ! Had he 
 served his God with half the zeal that he served the 
 South, He would not, in his age, have left him 
 naked to his enemies ! If Mr. Webster had culti- 
 vated the moral, the afFectional, the religious part of 
 his nature with the same diligence he nursed his 
 power of speech, w^hat a man there would have 
 been ! With his great ability as an advocate, with 
 his eloquence, his magnetic power, in his position, 
 — a Senator for twenty years, — if he could have 
 attained the justice, the philanthropy, the religion of 
 Channing or of FoUen, or of many a modest woman 
 in all the Christian sects, what a noble spectacle 
 should we have seen I Then the nation would long 
 since have made him President, and he also would 
 have revolutionized men's ideas of political great- 
 ness ; " the bigot would have ceased to persecute, 
 the despot to vex, the desolate poor to suffer, the 
 slave to groan and tremble, the ignorant to commit 
 crimes, and the ill-contrived law to engender crim- 
 inality." 
 
 But he did not fall all at once. No man ever 
 does. Apostasy is not a sudden sin. Little by little 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 283 
 
 he came to the ground. Long leaning, he leaned 
 over and fell down. This was his great error — he 
 sold himself to the money power to do service 
 against mankind. The form of service became con- 
 tinually worse. Was he conscious of this corrup- 
 tion ? — at first ? But shall he bear the blame alone ? 
 Oh, no ! Part of it belongs to this city, which cor- 
 rupted him, tempted him with a price, bought him 
 with its gold! Daniel Webster had not thrift. 
 " Poor Richard " was no saint of his. He loved 
 luxury, and was careless of wealth. Boston caught 
 him by the purse ; by that she led him to his mortal 
 doom. With her much fair speech she caused him 
 to yield; with the flattery of her lips she deceived 
 him. Boston was the Delilah that allured him ; but 
 oft he broke the withes of gold, until at last, with a 
 pension, she shore off the seven locks of his head, 
 his strength wpnt from him, and the Philistines took 
 him and put out his eyes, brought him down to 
 Washington, and bound him with fetters of brass. 
 And he did grind in their prison-house ; and they 
 said, " Our God, which is slavery, hath delivered 
 into ovir hands our enemy, the destroyer of our in- 
 stitutions, who slew many of us." Then, having 
 used him for their need, they thrust the man away, 
 deceived and broken-hearted! 
 
 No man can resist infinite temptation. There 
 came a peril greater than he could bear. Condemn 
 the sin — pity the offending man. The tone of po- 
 
284 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 litical morality is pitiably low. It lowered him, and 
 then he debased the morals of politics. 
 
 Part of the blame belongs to the New England 
 church, which honors " devoutness," and sneers at 
 every noble, manly life, calling men saints who only 
 pray, all careless of the dead men's bones which glut 
 the whited sepulchre. The churches of New Eng- 
 land were waiting to proclaim slavery, and renounce 
 the law of God. The disgrace is not his alone. 
 But we must blame Mr. Webster as we blame few 
 men. Society takes swift vengeance on the petty 
 thief, the small swindler, and rogues in rags : the gal- 
 lows kills the murderer, while for men in high office, 
 with great abilities, who enact iniquity into law ; 
 who enslave thousands, and sow a continent with 
 thraldom, to bear want and shame and misery and 
 sin ; who teach as political ethics the theory of crime, 
 — for them there is often no earthly, outward pun- 
 ishment, save the indignation with which mankind 
 scourges the memory of the oppressor. From the 
 judgment of men, the appeal lies to the judgment of 
 Cxod : He only knows who sins, and how much. 
 How much ]VIr. Webster is to be pitied, we know 
 right well. 
 
 Had he been a clergyman, as once he wished, he 
 might have passed through life with none of the 
 outward blemishes which now deform his memory ; 
 famed for his gifts and graces too, for eloquence, and 
 " soundness in the faith," " his praise in all the 
 
DANIEL AVEBSTER. 285 
 
 churches." Had he been a politician in a better age, 
 — when it is not thought just for capitalists to buy- 
 up statesmen in secret, for politicians clandestinely 
 to sell their services for private gold, or for clergy- 
 men, in the name of God, to sanctify all popular 
 crimes, — he might have lifted up that noble voice 
 continually for Truth and Right. Who could not in 
 such a time ? The straw blows with the wind. 
 Bi|it, alas ! he was not firm enough for his place ; too 
 weak in conscience to be the champion of Justice 
 while she needs a champion. Let us be just against 
 the wrong he wrought, charitable to the man who 
 wrought the wrong. Conscience compels our formi- 
 dable blame ; the affections weep their pity too. 
 
 Like Bacon, whom Mr. Webster resembles in 
 many things, save industry and the philosophic mind, 
 he had "no moral courage, no power of self-sacrifice 
 or self-denial ; " with strong passions, with love of 
 luxury in all its forms, with much pride, great fond- 
 ness of applause, and the intensest love of power; 
 coming to Boston poor, a lawyer, without thrift, em- 
 barking in politics with such companions for his pri- 
 vate and his public life, with such public opinion in 
 the State, — that honesty is to serve the present pur- 
 poses of your party, or the wealthy men who control 
 it ; in the Church, — that religion consists in belief 
 without evidence, in ritual sacraments, in verbal 
 prayer, — is it wonderful that this great intellect 
 went astray ? See how corrupt the churches are, — 
 
286 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 the leading clergy of America are the anointed de- 
 fenders of man-stealing ; see how corrupt is the 
 State, betraying the red men, enslaving the black, 
 pillaging Mexico ; see how corrupt is trade, which 
 rules the State and Church, dealing in men. Con- 
 necticut makes whips for the negro-driver. New 
 Hampshire rears the negro-drivers themselves. Ships 
 of Maine and Rhode-Island are in the domestic 
 slave-trade. The millionaires of Massachusetts own 
 men in Virginia, Alabama, Missouri! The leading 
 men in Trade, in Church and State, think Justice is 
 not much more needed in a statesman than it is 
 needed in an ox, or in the steel which shoes his hoof! 
 Remember these things, and pity Daniel Webster, 
 ambitious, passionate, unthrifty ; and see the ckcum- 
 stances which weighed him down. We judge the 
 deeds : God only can judge the man. If you and I 
 have not met the temptation which can overmaster 
 us, let us have mercy on such as come bleeding from 
 that battle. 
 
 His calling as a lawyer was somewhat dangerous, 
 leading him " to make the worse appear the better 
 reason ; " to seek " not verity, but verisimilitude; " to 
 look at the expedient end, not to inquire if his means 
 be also just ; to look too much at measures, not 
 enough at principles. Yet his own brother Ezekiel 
 went safely through that peril, — no smell of that fire 
 on his garment. 
 
 His intercourse with politicians was full of moral 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 287 
 
 peril. How few touch politics, and are thence- 
 forward clean! 
 
 Boston now mourns for him ! She is too late in 
 her weeping. She shovild have wept her warning 
 when her capitalists filled his right hand with bribes. 
 She ought to have put on sackcloth when the speech 
 of March 7th first came here. She should have hung 
 her flags at half-mast when the Fugitive Slave Bill 
 became a law ; then she only fired cannons, and 
 thanked her representative. Webster fell prostrate, 
 but was Boston more innocent than he ? Remember 
 the nine hundred and eighty-seven men that thanked 
 him for the speech which touched their " conscience," 
 and pointed out the path of " duty" I It was she that 
 ruined him. 
 
 She bribed him in 1827, and often since. He re- 
 garded the sums thus paid as a retaining fee, and at 
 the last maintained that the Boston manufacturers 
 were still in his debt ; for the services he had ren- 
 dered them by defending the tarifl" in his place as 
 Senator were to them worth more than all the money 
 he received ! Could a man be honest in such a 
 position? Alas that the great orator had not the 
 conscience to remember at first that man shall not 
 live by bread alone ! 
 
 What a sad life was his ! His wife died, — a 
 loving woman, beautiful, and tenderly beloved I Of 
 
288 DANIEL AVEBSTER. 
 
 several children, all save one have gone before him 
 to the tomb. Sad man, he lived to build his chil- 
 dren's monument I Do you remember the melancholy- 
 spectacle in the street, when Major Webster, a vic- 
 tim of the Mexican war, was by his father laid down 
 in yonder tomb ? — a daughter, too, but recently laid 
 low I How poor seemed then the ghastly pageant 
 in the street, empty and hollow as the muffled 
 drum ! 
 
 What a sad face he wore, — furrowed by passion, 
 by ambition, that noble brow scaiTcd all over with 
 the records of a hard, sad life. Look at the prints 
 and pictures of him in the street. I do not wonder 
 his early friends abhor the sight. It is a face of sor- 
 rows, — private, public, secret woes. But there are 
 pictures of that face in earlier years, full of power, 
 but full of tenderness ; the mouth feminine, and in- 
 nocent as a girl's. What a life of passion, of dark 
 sorrow, rolled betwixt the two I In that ambition- 
 stricken face his mother would not have known her 
 child ! 
 
 For years to me, he has seemed like one of the 
 tragic heroes of the Grecian tale, pursued by fate ; 
 and latterly, the saddest sight in all the Western 
 World, — widowed of so much he loved, and grasp- 
 ing at what was not only vanity, but the saddest 
 vexation of the heart. I have long mourned for 
 him, as for no living or departed man. He blasted 
 the friends of man with scornful lightning : him, if 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 289 
 
 1 could, I would not blast, but only bless continually 
 and evermore. 
 
 You remember the last time he spoke in Boston ; 
 the procession, last summer, you remember it well. 
 What a sad and care-worn countenance was that of 
 the old man, welcomed with the mockery of ap- 
 plause I You remember, when the orator, wise- 
 headed and friendly-hearted, came to thank him for 
 his services, he said not a word of " saving the 
 Union ; " of the " compromise measures," not a 
 word. That farce was played out . — it was only the 
 tragic facts which were left ; but for his great ser- 
 vices he thanked him. 
 
 And when Webster replied, he said, " Here in 
 Boston I am not disowned ; at least, here I am not 
 disowned." No, Daniel Webster, you are not dis- 
 owned in Boston. So long as I have a tongue to- 
 teach, a heart to feel, you shall never be disowned.. 
 I must be just. I shall be tender too ! 
 
 It was partly by Boston's sin that the great man 
 fell ! I pity his victims ; you pity them, too. But 
 I pity him more, oh, far more ! Pity the oppressed, 
 will you ? Will you not also pity the oppressor in 
 his sin ? Look there ! See that face, so manly 
 strong, so maiden meek ! Hear that voice ! " Neither 
 do I condemn thee ! Go, and sin no more ! " Listen 
 to the last words of the Crucified : " Father, forgive 
 them ; for they know not what they do." 
 
 The last time he was in Faneuil Hall, — it was 
 
 VOL. I. 25 
 
290 DANIEL WEBSTEK. 
 
 " Faneuil Hall open ; " once it had been shut ; — it 
 was last May — the sick old man — yon remember 
 the feeble look and the sad face, the tremulous voice. 
 He came to solicit the vote of the Methodists, — a 
 vain errand. I felt then that it was his last time, 
 and forbore to look upon that saddened counte- 
 nance. 
 
 The last time he was in the Senate, it was to hear 
 his successor speak. He stayed an hour, and heard 
 Charles Sumner demonstrate that the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill was not good religion, nor good Con- 
 stitution, nor good law. The old and the new 
 stood face to face, — the Fugitive Slave Bill and 
 Justice. What an hour! What a sight! What 
 thoughts ran through the great man's mind, mingled 
 with what regrets ! For slavery never set well on 
 liim. It was a Nessus' shirt on our Hercules, and 
 the poison of his own arrows rankled now in his 
 own bones. Had Mr. Webster been true to his 
 history, true to his heart, true to his intention and 
 his promises, he would himself have occupied that 
 ground two years before. Then there would have 
 been no Fugitive Slave Bill, no chain round the 
 court house, no man-stealing in Boston ; but the 
 " Defender of the Constitution," become the " De- 
 fender of the unalienable rights of man," would 
 have been the President of the United States I But 
 he had not the courage to deliver the speech he 
 made. No man can serve two masters, — Justice 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 2'91 
 
 and Ambition. The mill of God grinds slow but 
 dreadful fine ! 
 
 He came home to Boston, and went down to 
 Marshfield to die. An old man, broken with the 
 storms of State, went home — to die ! His neigh- 
 bors came to ease the fall, to look upon the disap- 
 pointment, and give him what cheer they could. 
 To him, to die was gain ; life was the only loss. 
 Yet he did not wish to die : he surrendered, — he 
 did not yield. 
 
 At the last end, his friends were about him ; his 
 dear ones — his wife, his son (the last of six children 
 he had loved). Name by name he bade them all 
 farewell, and all his friends, man by man. Two 
 colored servants of his were there, — whom, it is 
 said, he had helped purchase out of slavery, and bless 
 with freedom's life. They watched over the bedside 
 of the dying man. The kindly doctor sought to 
 sweeten the bitterness of death with medicated skill ; 
 and, when that failed, he gave the great man a little 
 manna which fell down from heaven three thousand 
 years ago, and shepherd David gathered up and kept 
 it in a psalm : " The Lord is my Shepherd : though I 
 walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I 
 will fear no evil ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort 
 me." 
 
 And the great man faltered out his last words, 
 " That is what 1 want — thy rod, thy rod ; thy staff, 
 thy staff." That heart had never wholly renounced 
 
292 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 its God. Oh, no ! it had scoffed at His " Higher 
 Law ; " but, in the heart of hearts, there was religious 
 feeling still! 
 
 Just four years after his great speech, on the 24th 
 of October, all that was mortal of Daniel Webster 
 went down to the dust, and the soul to the motherly 
 bosom of God ! Men mourn for him : he heeds it 
 not. The great man has gone where the servant is 
 free from his master, where the weary are at rest, 
 where the wicked cease from troubling. 
 
 " No further seek his merits to disclose, 
 
 Or draw his frailties from their dread abode ; 
 There they alike in trembling hope repose, 
 The bosom of his Father and his God ! " 
 
 Massachusetts has lost her great adopted son. 
 Has lost ? Oh, no ! " I still live" is truer than the 
 sick man knew : — 
 
 " He lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes 
 And perfect -witness of all-judging God." 
 
 His memory will long live with us, still dear to many 
 a loving heart. What honor shall we pay ? Let the 
 State go out mindful of his noblest services, yet tear- 
 ful for his fall ; sad that he would fain have filled him 
 with the husks the swine do eat, and no man gave to 
 him. Sad and tearful, let her remember the force of 
 circumstances, and dark temptation's secret power. 
 Let her remember that while we know what he 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 293 
 
 yielded to, and what is sin, God knows what also is 
 resisted, and he alone knows who the sinner is. 
 Massachusetts, the dear old mother of us all I let her 
 warn her children to fling away ambition, and let 
 her charge them, every one, that there is a God who 
 must indeed be worshipped, and a Higher Law 
 which must be kept, though Gold and Union fail. 
 Then let her say to them, " Ye have dwelt long 
 enough in this mountain ; turn ye, and take your 
 journey into the land of Freedom, which the Lord 
 your God giveth you ! " 
 
 Then let her lift her eyes to Heaven, and pray : — 
 
 " Sweet Mercy ! to the gates of heaven 
 This statesman lead, his sins forgiven ; 
 The rueful conflict, the heart riven 
 
 With vain endeavor, 
 And memory of earth's bitter leaven, 
 
 Effaced for ever ! " 
 
 But 
 
 " why to him confine the j^rayer, 
 
 While kindred thoughts and yearnings bear, 
 On the frail heart, the purest share 
 
 With all that live ? 
 The best of what we do and are, 
 
 Great God, forgive ! " 
 
 25* 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 SOME THOUGHTS 
 
 NEW ASSAULT UPON FREEDOM IN AMERICA, 
 
 GENERAL STATE OF THE COUNTRY 
 
 IN RELATION THEREUNTO, 
 
 SET FORTH IX A DISCOURSE PREACHED AT THE MUSIC HALL, 
 IN BOSTON, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1854. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 THE DARK PLACES OF THE EARTH ARE FULL OF THE HABITA- 
 TIONS OF CRUELTY. — Psalm Ixxiv. 20. 
 
 Before next Sunday it will be nine years since I 
 first spoke to you in this city, coming at your request. 
 In the first discourse I spoke of the Necessity of 
 Religion for the Conduct of the Individual and the 
 State. Since that time several crises have occurred 
 in our national affairs which have led me to en- 
 deavor to apply the great principles of Religion to 
 the political measures of this nation. It is some- 
 thing more than a year since any such event has 
 called for such treatment in this place. But now 
 another assault has been made upon the liberty of 
 man, in America, and so to-day I ask your attention 
 to some Thoughts on the new Assault upon Free- 
 dom in America, and the general State of the Coun- 
 try in Relation thereunto. 
 
298 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 To comprehend the matter clearly, and the cause 
 and the consequences of this special iniquity now 
 contemplated, we must begin far off and study the 
 general course of human conduct in America, — the 
 last new continent left as a stage for the develop- 
 ment of mankind. 
 
 The transfer of the Anglo-Saxon tribe to this 
 Western continent is one of the most important 
 events which has taken place in the last thousand 
 years. Since the Protestant Reformation, which 
 helped forward the ideas that were the banner of the 
 march, nothing has proved so significant as the 
 Westward movement of this swarm of men, not so 
 much coming as driven out from the old close-pent 
 European hive, and then settling down on the new 
 continent. 
 
 A few Romano- Celtic Frenchmen had already 
 moored their venturous shallops in the American 
 water, and pitched their military tents in what was 
 else only the great wilderness of North America, 
 roamed over by wild beasts and wild men, also the 
 children of the woods. 
 
 The Spanish tribe had come before either, and 
 with military greediness were eating up the wealthy 
 South. But Spain could set only a poor and per- 
 ishing scion in the new world. That was always 
 an evil tree to graft from, not producing good fruit. 
 Besides, an old nation, in a state of decay, founds 
 no healthy colonies. The children of a decomposing 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 299 
 
 State, time-worn and debauched, though with a 
 whole continent before them — what could they ac- 
 complish for mankind? They inherited the idleness, 
 the ferocity, the military avarice, the superstition and 
 heinous cruelty of a people never remarkable for any 
 high traits of character. Two thousand years ago, 
 the Celto-Iberic tribe mingled with the Roman ; then 
 with the Visi-Goth, the Moor, the Jew — war pro- 
 claiming the savage nuptials, — and modern Spain 
 is the issue of this six -fold juncture. This composite 
 tribe of men had once some martial vigor; nay, 
 some commercial enterprise, but it has done little to 
 advance mankind by the invention of new ideas, the 
 organization thereof, or the administration of what 
 others devised and organized ; the meanest and most 
 cruel of the Christian nations, to-day she seems 
 made but of the leavings of the world. To Co- 
 lumbus, adventurous Italy's most venturous son, she 
 gave, grudgingly, three miserable ships, wherewith 
 that daring genius sailed through the classic and 
 mediaeval darkness which covered the great Atlantic 
 deep, opening to mankind a new world, and new 
 destination therein. No Queen wore ever a diadem 
 so precious as those pearls which Isabella dropped 
 into the Western sea, a bridal gift whereby the Old 
 World, well endowed with Art and Science, and the 
 hoarded wealth of experience, wed America, rich 
 only in her gifts from Nature and her hopes in time. 
 The three most valuable contributions Spain has 
 
300 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 made to mankind are the Consolato del mare, the 
 Barcelonian bud whence modern mercantile law has 
 slowly blossomed forth ; the Three Scant Ships a 
 wealthy nation furnished to the Genoese navigator 
 whom the world's instinct pushed Westward in quest 
 of continents ; and Don Quixote, a masterly satire 
 on a form of folly then old-fashioned and fast getting 
 extinct. These are the chief contributions Spain 
 has dropped into the almsbox of the world. Coarse 
 olives, huge onions, strong red wine — these are the 
 offerings of the Spanish mind in the world's fair of 
 modern times. Since the days of Seneca and Lu- 
 can, perhaps Servetus is her foremost man, fantastic 
 minded yet rich in germs of fertile thought. Moor- 
 ish and Hebrew greatness has indeed been cradled 
 on her soil, but thereof Spain was not the mother. 
 
 Long before the Anglo-Saxons, the Spaniard 
 came to America ; greedy of money, hungering for 
 reputation — the glory of the Gascon stock. He 
 brought the proud but thin and sickly blood of a 
 decaying tribe ; the traditionary institutions of the 
 past — Theocracy, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Despot- 
 ocracy, the dominion of the master over the ex- 
 ploitered slave. He brought the mass-book and 
 legends of unnatural saints, — the symbols of super- 
 stition and ecclesiastic tyranny ; the sword, — the 
 last argument of Spanish kings, the symbol of mili- 
 tary despotism ; fetters and the bloodhound. He 
 brought no great ideas, new trees started in the old 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 301 
 
 nursery of the past ; no noble sentiments, the seed- 
 corn of ideal harvests yet to be. He shared only 
 the material momentum of the human race which 
 dashed his Eastern body on the Western world. 
 He butchered the Indians who disbelieved " the Im- 
 maculate conception of our blessed Lady" as taught 
 by men of most Titanic, all-devouring lust. He set 
 up the Inquisition, and soon had monks and nuns 
 believing what heathen Guatemozin would have 
 found bitterer than fire. The Spaniard attempted 
 to found no institution which was an improvement 
 on what he left behind — he reproduced only the 
 Church, the State, the Community, and Family, of 
 the middle ages. He hated arts, letters, liberty ; 
 even the mass of the people seemed to care nothing 
 for freedom of body or of mind. 
 
 The Spaniard settled in the fairest parts of the 
 new found land, amongst tribes already far ad- 
 vanced toward civilization — the world's foremost 
 barbarians. He slew them with merciless rapacity ; 
 took their stone-built cities ; occupied their land 
 better tilled than the gardens of Castile ; he seized 
 their abundant gold ; stole their wives and their 
 maidens. At home the people were wonted to bull- 
 fights, wherein the valiant Matador risks his own 
 worthless body, and to Autos da Fe where the 
 cowardly priests burn their freethinking sister with- 
 out hazarding their own miisance of a life ; in 
 America the Spaniard rioted in the murder of men. 
 
 VOL. I. 26 
 
302 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 The pictured horrors of De Bry report only a drop 
 of the blood so torturously shed ; yet two hundred 
 and fifty years ago they terrified all Europe — Latin, 
 German, French, English, Dutch. 
 
 To America, Spain transferred the superstition 
 and tyranny of mediaeval Europe, its four-fold des- 
 potism, — ecclesiastical, political, social, domestic. 
 She reinvented Negro Slavery. Six thousand years 
 ago, before the " flood," yea before mythological 
 Cain had been conceived by a Hebrew head, Egypt, 
 it seems, was guilty of this crime. In the middle 
 ages Negro Slavery was an art wellnigh lost. 
 Spain, first of the Christian nations, enforced re- 
 ligion with the knife, and beheaded men for heresy ; 
 she rolled the Inquisition as a sweet morsel under 
 her tongue ; her sovereigns, who extinguished the 
 brand which smoked on the national hearth yet 
 warm with Gothic liberty, who butchered the Moors 
 and banished the plundered Jews, were for such 
 services styled " the Catholic ! " Spain reannexed 
 Negro Slavery to herself, and therewith stained the 
 soil of America. Therein she broke not the con- 
 tinuity of her history, the succession of rapine, 
 piracy, cruel outpouring of blood. Not Italian 
 Columbus, but Iberian Cortes and Pizarro, were the 
 types of Spain ; not Las Casas, but Torquemada. 
 
 Behold now the condition of Spanish America. 
 Its most flourishing part is an empire, Avith the 
 house of Braeranza at its head — an imitation of 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 303 
 
 the old world, a despotism throned on bayonets. 
 There are two empires in Tropic America — Hayti 
 and Brazil ; the foremost tradition of Africa, the hind- 
 most of Europe set down on American soil. The 
 Negro empire appears the most successful, the most 
 promising. There alone is no hereditary slavery. 
 Over Cuba, France and England still hold up the 
 feeble hands of Spain — whence at last freedom 
 seems dropping into the Slave's expectant lap. The 
 rest of Spanish America has the form of a republic — 
 a republic whose only permanent constitution is a 
 Cartridge-box, which blows up once a year. Look 
 at Mexico — I am glad she is going swiftly back to 
 the form of despotism ; she is capable of no other re- 
 ality. How the Western vultures fly thitherward ! 
 Where the carcass of a nation rots there will the filli- 
 busters be gathered together. Every raven in the 
 hungry flock of American politicians looks that way, 
 wipes his gi'cedy beak, prunes his wings, and screams 
 " Manifest Destiny ! " 
 
 In South America there are ten " Republics." 
 They cover three and a half millions of square miles, 
 and contain twelve million men. But they do less 
 for mankind than Holland ; nay, Basil and Zwrich 
 do more for the human race than these " Republics," 
 which only blot the continent. No Idea is cradled 
 in Spanish America ; no books are written there ; 
 none read but books of " Devotion," which Igno- 
 rance long since wrote. Old Spain imports from 
 
304 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 France the filthiest novels of the age ; new Spain 
 only the yet more deadly books of Catholic " Devo- 
 tion." The " laws " of the Chilian " Republic " are 
 printed in Spain, where no Chilian ship ever sailed. 
 The Amazon has eighty thousand miles of navigable 
 water, — near a hundi-ed thousand, say some, the 
 survey is conjectural, — and drains into the lap of 
 America, a tropic basin, the largest, the richest on 
 the globe, with more good land than all Europe 
 owns ; therein streams larger than the Danube dis- 
 charge their freight. But only a single steamer 
 disturbs the alligator on its mighty breast — that 
 steamer built and owned at New York. Para at its 
 mouth is more than three hundred years old, yet has 
 not twenty thousand souls. If the South American 
 " Republics " were to perish this day, the world 
 would hardly lose a valuable experiment in Spanish 
 political or social life, hardly a visible promise of 
 future prosperity ; so badly flourish the Spanish 
 scions set in the green soil of America, and sur- 
 rounded by the old institutions of the middle ages. 
 Slavery is the one idea of the Spanish tribes — here 
 African, there Indian or Caucasian. 
 
 One hundred and thirty years after Genoese Co- 
 lumbus had planted the Spanish Cross in the new 
 world — " sword in hand and splendidly arrayed," 
 — from a little vessel, leaky, and with a "^\Tack 
 in the main beam amidships," the Anglo-Saxons 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 305 
 
 dropped their anchor in Massachusetts bay, circled 
 then with savage woods ; they drew up a " compact," 
 chose their " Governor " for one year ; rested and 
 worshipped on Sunday ; the next day landed at 
 " New Plymouth," thanking God. They came, a 
 slip from a young tree full of hardy life. Four stout 
 roots — Angle, Saxon, Danish, Norman, — united 
 their old fantastic twists and joined in this one 
 tough and rugged stem, then quadruply buttressed 
 below, now how widely branched abroad in every 
 climate of the world! Fresh blood was in those 
 Anglo-Saxon veins ; strong, red, heathen blood, not 
 long before inoculated with Christianity which yet 
 took most kindly in all Teutonic veins. 
 
 These Pilgrims had in them the ethnologic idio- 
 syncrasy of the Anglo-Saxon — his restless disposi- 
 tion to invade and conquer other lands ; his haughty 
 contempt of humbler tribes, which leads him to sub- 
 vert, enslave, kill, and exterminate ; his fondness for 
 material things, preferring use to beauty ; his love of 
 personal liberty, yet coupled with most profound re- 
 spect for peaceful and established law ; his inborn 
 skill to organize things to a mill, men to a company, 
 a community, tribes to a federated State ; and his 
 slow, solemn, inflexible, industrious, and unconquer- 
 able will. 
 
 They brought with them much of the tradition of 
 the human race, the guidings and warnings of expe- 
 rience ; a great deal of superstition, of tyranny not 
 
 26* 
 
306 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 a little, — ecclesiastical, political, social, domestic. 
 They brought the sword, — that symbol of military 
 despotism must yet fight on freedom's side; but 
 they loved better the axe, the wooden shovel — the 
 best they had, — the plough, the swine, the ox, tools 
 of productive industrial civilization, types of toil and 
 cooperative freedom. For the Mass-Book they had 
 the Bible : it w^as a free Bible ; let him read that 
 listeth. No doubt the Bible contained the imperfec- 
 tion of the men and ages concerned in writing it. 
 The hay tastes of the meadow where it grew, of the 
 weather when it w^as made, and smells of the barn 
 wherein it has been kept ; nay the breath of the 
 oxen housed underneath comes down to market in 
 every load. But in its many-colored leaves, the 
 Bible likewise holds the words of great men, free 
 and making free ; it was full of the old blossoms of 
 piety, and rich in buds for new and glorious life, aye, 
 and beauty too. The cup of prophets mainly, not 
 of priests, it ran over with water of life from the 
 mythologic well in the wilderness and Bethesda's 
 pool which angels stirred to healing power ; — it gave 
 men vigorous strength and hardy life. Instead of 
 the bloodhound, the Pilgrims sent the schoolmaster 
 to his work ; — they put their fetters on the little 
 streams that run among the hills, and those river- 
 gods must saw, and grind, and spin for mortal men ; 
 not the Inquisition, but the Printing Press, was the 
 type and symbol of this Northern work. 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 307 
 
 They had the traditions of the human race, but 
 also its momentum acquired in the movement of 
 many a thousand years. They brought the best po- 
 litical institutions the world had then known. They 
 had the English Common Law, — which had slowly 
 got erected in the practice of this liberty-loving peo- 
 ple, its Cyclopean Walls built up by the Lesbian 
 rule, — with its forms and precedents, its methodical 
 schemes of procedure, itself a popular judicium rus- 
 ticmn; they had the habit of local self-government; 
 the right — though then not well understood — of 
 popular legislation, also founded in immemorial 
 usage ; dim notions and the certain practice of rep- 
 resentative government — the Democracy of Law- 
 makmg ; the trial by Jury — the Democracy of Law- 
 administration. They brought Congregational Prot- 
 estantism — the Democracy of Christianity, involving, 
 what they neither granted nor knew, the universal 
 right of search for truth and justice, the natural right 
 to take or reject, as a man's own spirit should require. 
 
 Besides the organized institutions — visible as 
 tools of industry or politics, or invisible in literature, 
 science, settled and admitted principles of private 
 morality or of public law, — which represent the 
 history and achievements of mankind, they brought 
 also Ideas not organized in either form of institution, 
 and sentiments not then translated into conscious 
 thought. These represented man's natural instinct 
 of progress and the momentum he had gained in 
 
308 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 history ; they were to become institutions and facts 
 in future time. 
 
 When the Puritan founded his colonies in New 
 England, there were other Anglo-Saxon settlements 
 on the Atlantic Coast. Jamestown was founded in 
 1607. Other settlements followed. The same Anglo- 
 Saxon blood flowed South as well as North ; the 
 same traditions and institutions were with both. 
 But the Anglo-Saxons North brought institutions, 
 ideas, and feelings quite unlike those of their South- 
 ern fellows. The motive for immigrating was alto- 
 gether unlike. New England was a religious colony, 
 — mainly composed of persecuted men who fled 
 Westward because they had ideas which could not 
 be set up in the Eastern world. Thrice the May- 
 flower crossed the sea, coming to Plymouth, to Sa- 
 lem, to Boston ; each time bringing veritable Pil- 
 grims who came from a religious motive, and sought 
 religious ends. This was likewise the case with the 
 primitive settlers of Pennsylvania. The South was 
 not settled by religious colonies. The primitive dif- 
 ference in the seed has continually appeared in the 
 growth thence accruing ; in the policy and the char- 
 acter of the South and North. The same year 
 which brought the Puritan Pilgrims to New Eng- 
 land bore a quite different freight to Virginia. In 
 1620, a Dutch captain carried thither some twenty 
 Africans who were sold as slaves into perpetual 
 
THE NEBKASKA QUESTION. 309 
 
 bondage — themselves and their children. Thus the 
 old sin of Egypt, half omitted and half forgotten in 
 classic and mediaeval times, rediscovered by the 
 Spaniards, and fixed by despots, — a loathly plague- 
 spot — on the tropic regions of America, was brought 
 North, adopted by the Anglo-Saxons of the South, 
 and set a going at Jamestown. It excited no aston- 
 ishment. All the " Christian " world then sold pris- 
 oners of M^ar for slaves. Thus early did Negro 
 Slavery become an " institution " of the South. 
 
 But all things are double : in the Anglo-Saxon 
 North there were two contending elements. One 
 represented old institutions, and wished to stop 
 therewith. It loved despotocracy in the family, 
 aristocracy in the community, monarchy in the 
 state, and theocracy in the church : it opposed the 
 natural human rights of the servant in the family, 
 of the laborer in the community, of the people in 
 the State, of the layman in the church ; it favored 
 the rule of the master, the lord, the king, the priest. 
 This element was old, ancestral, stationary if not 
 retrogressive ; it was also powerful. In this the 
 Anglo-Saxon and the Spaniard were alike. 
 
 The other element was the instinct for progressive 
 development ; the Sentiments not idealized into con- 
 scious thoughts ; the Ideas not organized into insti- 
 tutions. There was a feeling of the equality of all 
 men in the substance of their human nature, and 
 
310 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 consequently in all natural rights, howsoever diverse 
 in natural powers, in transmitted distinction and 
 riches, or in acquired culture, money, and station. 
 Now and then this feeling had broken out in a 
 " Jack Cade's insurrection," or a " Peasant's war." 
 But in the seventeenth century it found no distinct 
 expression as a thought. Perhaps it was not an 
 idea with any man a hundred and fifty years ago ; 
 it was the stuff ideas are made of. What other 
 feelings are there, one day to become ideas, then 
 acts, the world's victorious life ! Lay down your 
 ear to the great ocean of humanity, and as the spirit 
 of God moves on the face of this deep, listen to the 
 low tone of the great ground swell, and interpret the 
 ripple at the bottom of the sea while, all above, the 
 surface is calm as a maiden's dreamless sleep. In 
 these days, what is it that we hear at the bottom of 
 the world as the eternal tide of human history meets 
 with the sand bars cast down in many an ancient 
 storm ! Thereof will I speak not now. 
 
 This feeling came slowly to an idea. With many 
 stumblings and wanderings it went forth, blindfold 
 as are all the instinctive feelings — whereunto only 
 God not man is Eye, — not knowing whither it 
 went or even intended to go. See what has been 
 done, or at least commenced. 
 
 I. They protested against Theocracy in the church. 
 " Let us have a church without an altar or a Bishop ; 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 311 
 
 a service with no mass-book, no organ, no surplice, 
 each congregation subject only to the Lord, not to 
 man," said the Puritan — and he had it : " Yea," 
 answered the Quaker, " and with no hireling minis- 
 ter, no outward sacrament, no formal prayer of 
 words ; the church is they that love the Lord ; it 
 takes all the church to preach all the gospel, and 
 without that cannot all mankind be saved ! " " No 
 vicarious sprinkling of babies, but the voluntary 
 plunging of men," cried the Anabaptist. Thereat 
 the theocratic Puritan lifted his hands and scourged 
 the Baptist and smote the Quaker stone dead. But 
 the palm-tree of toleration sprang out of Mary 
 Dyer's grave. The theocracy got routed in many 
 a well-contested fight ; in this city of the Puritans, 
 the Catholic, the Quaker, the Anabaptist, the Jew, 
 and the Unitarian may worship or worship not, just 
 as they will. But this fight is not over ; yet it is 
 plain how the battle is going. The Theocracy is 
 doomed to the cave of Pope and Pagan. Let us 
 give it our blessing — as it goes. The Puritan fled 
 from Episcopal England to tolerant Holland, to the 
 wilderness of America. But he brought more than 
 Puritanism along with him, — Humanity came in the 
 same ship. The great warfare for the right of man's 
 nature to transcend all the accidents of his history, 
 began in the name of religion — the instinct where- 
 unto is the deepest in us, the innermost kernel and 
 germinal dot in the human spirit ; Luther's hammer 
 
312 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 shook the world. During mid-winter, in Switzer- 
 land, when the snow overhangs heavily from every 
 cliff, if the traveller but clap his hands and shout 
 aloud, the mountains answer with an avalanche. 
 When Martin lifted up his voice amid the medieval 
 snows of Europe, half Christendom came down in 
 that great land-slip of churches. Other snows have 
 since fallen; other voices will be lifted up; other 
 church-slides will follow — for every mountain shall 
 be levelled, and the valleys filled. The Bible took 
 the place of the Mass-book, the minister of the 
 priest, the independent society of the Papal church. 
 The glorious liberty of the children of God is to be 
 the final result for all. 
 
 II. Next came the protest against Monarchy. 
 The Anglo-Saxons never loved single-headed, abso- 
 lute despotism. How the Barons fought against it ! 
 But it was left for " His Majesty's faithful Com- 
 mons " to do the work. The dreadful axe of Puri- 
 tanic Oliver Cromwell shore off the divine right of 
 kings, making a clean cut between the vicarious 
 government of the middle ages, and the personal 
 self-rule of modern times. On the 30th of January, 
 1648, the executioner held up the head of Charles I. 
 with a " Behold the Head of a Traitor," and 
 " Royalty disappeared in front of Whitehall : " a 
 ghastly, dreadful sight. Peasant Luther pushed the 
 Latin Mass-book aside with his German Bible, say- 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 313 
 
 ing, " Thus I break the succession of the Priests." 
 With his sword Cromwell, the brewer, pushed aside 
 the Crown of England, " Thus I break the succes- 
 sion of Kings." 
 
 New England loved Cromwell ; and while dwell- 
 ing in the wilderness exercised the rights of sov- 
 ereignty many times before it was known what she 
 did, both destroying and building, — as likewise do 
 all of us, — greater and wiser than she knew. 
 Luther's hammer broke also the neck of kings, who 
 disappear, and in their place came up governors and 
 presidents not born to adverse rule, but voted in for 
 official service. 
 
 III. Then came the protest against Aristocracy. 
 God made men not in classes but as individuals — 
 each man a person with all the substantive rights of 
 humanity : the same law must serve for all ; all 
 must be equal before it and the social institutions of 
 the community. That was the dim utterance of 
 many a man who grumbled in his beard : — 
 
 " When Adam delved and Eve span 
 Where was then the gentleman ? " 
 
 How idly they dreamed — looking back for the Para- 
 dise that lay before them! But between it and 
 them Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and a fourth stream, 
 nameless as yet, rolled torrents of blood ; and a fiery 
 sword of selfishness turned every way to keep men 
 VOL. I. 27 
 
314 THE NEBKASKA QUESTION. 
 
 from the Tree of Life, whose very leaves are for the 
 healing of the nations — could they but get to it. 
 Could they — aye ! Can they not ? 
 
 Little by little, man's nature prevailed over Aris- 
 tocracy, one accident of his development. The Anglo- 
 Saxon Briton had restricted the Nobility he brought 
 with him from the Continent ; — only the eldest son 
 inherits his father's land, title, and rank, the later- 
 born all commoners. The Anglo-Saxon American 
 broke up Primogeniture : the children are equal in 
 blood and rank ; the fu'st son has no more of his 
 father in him than the last ; all must share equally in 
 his goods. Rank is not heritable. If a coward, the 
 Captain's son is no Captain ; by human substance, 
 eminent manhood, bravery, skill, is the new man 
 made Captain ; not by the historic accident of legiti- 
 mate descent from an old Captain. To be born well 
 is to be well born ; tall men are of a high family. 
 The corporal's child, yea, the sons of Rank and File, 
 are also men. In the woods of Nature, new human- 
 ity takes precedence of all the artificial distinctions 
 of old time. The crime of the father must work no 
 attainder in the baby's blood ; by the sour grapes of 
 his own eating only shall a man's teeth be set on 
 edge. Estates must not be entailed in perpetuity. 
 Land must be held in fee-simple, with no quitrents, 
 or other servitudes of vassalage ; on terms which all 
 can understand. The vicarious land-tenures of the 
 INIiddle Ages are for ever broken. All men may hold 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 315 
 
 land ; and cheaply convey it to whom they will. For 
 the first time the majority have a stake in the public 
 hedge ; the mediaeval " Noble," the conventional 
 " Gentleman " gradually withdraws and moves out 
 from New England. " It is not a good place for 
 Gentlemen," so a governor wrote two hundred years 
 ago. Everybody is " Mr." ; then " Esquire." The 
 born magistrate vanishes, the " Select Men " are an- 
 nually voted in. Still the social aristocracy, bot- 
 tomed on accident, is far from being ended. But it 
 rests no longer on the immovable accident of birth, 
 but on the changeable block of money, and like that 
 can be struggled for and acquired by all. It rests on 
 golden sands or fickle votes. 
 
 IV. There yet remains the protest against Despot- 
 ocracy — the adverse rule of the master over the ser- 
 vant, the hostile subordination of the weak to the 
 strong in the family. In a military despotism, war 
 confers dignity : " it is the part of a man to fight," 
 says Homer, "of a slave to work;" and they "who 
 exercise lordship are called Benefactors." In a The- 
 ocracy, the priest is a sacred person : his work is " di- 
 vine service," he enters the temple ; but the people 
 are profane, and must stand without ; their work is 
 menial ! In a Theocracy, Monarchy, Aristocracy — 
 founded and maintained by violence or cunning — 
 labor is thought degrading ; the laborer is for the 
 State, not it also for him. This exploitering of 
 
816 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 the weak by the strong belongs to the essence 
 of those three institutions. Domestic Slavery co- 
 heres therewith, and in dark ages this adverse 
 rule of the strong over the weak appears in all the 
 collective action of men — ecclesiastical, political, 
 social, domestic ; the God, the King, the Noble, the 
 Master, the Husband, the Father, — all are tyrants ; 
 all rule is despotism — the strong for his interest 
 coercing the weak against theirs. In such a soil, 
 Slavery is at home, and grows rank and strong. 
 
 But in an iftdustrial community, with a printed 
 Bible bought by the Parish and belonging thereunto ; 
 with a minister chosen by the laymen's votes, ordain- 
 ed by their hands, paid by their free-will offerings, 
 nay, educated, perhaps, by their charity, criticized by 
 their judgment, removable at their will ; with a creed 
 voted in by the congregation — and voted out when 
 they change their mind ; with no monarch ruling by 
 divine right, but only a Governor chosen by the 
 people at their annual meeting ; with no " Nobles," 
 no " Gentlemen," but an elected assembly, a general 
 court, — sworn on a constitution made by the people, 
 — democratically making laws ; with magistrates cho- 
 sen by the people, or responsible thereto ; with dem- 
 ocratic trial by jury for all men ; with the idea that a 
 man's nature is before all the accidents of his ances- 
 try or estate — the old domestic Despotocracy must 
 gradually become impossible. Labor will be thought 
 honorable — idleness a disgrace. Productive activity 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 317 
 
 will be deemed a glory, and riches its result, the 
 greatest of all mere outside and personal distinctions. 
 The tools must be for whoso can handle them. So 
 the threefold movement, destroying the triple tyr- 
 anny already mentioned, must presently achieve the 
 emancipation of man from all personal servitude and 
 domestic subordination : the substance of man must 
 be inaugurated above the accidents of his history. 
 This must be done not only in the Church, the State, 
 the Community, but also in the Family. It must set 
 the bondman free. If the Church, State, and Com- 
 munity rest on natural Law, so likewise must the 
 Family as well. 
 
 To accomplish this, two things were needful. This 
 was the first. 
 
 1. To affirm as a principle and establish in 
 measures the idea that all men, rich and poor, strong 
 and weak, are equal in all their natural rights ; that 
 as the accident of birth makes no man Priest, King, 
 or Noble, with a right, thence derived, to rule over 
 men against their will in the Church, State, or Com- 
 munity ; so the accident of superior power gives no 
 man a right in the Family to hold others in bondage 
 and subordination, for his advantage and against 
 theirs. It is only to admit that all are Men, for man- 
 hood carries all human rights with it, as land the 
 crops, and the substance its primary qualities. It 
 seems a small thing to do ; — especially for men 
 27* 
 
318 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 able, to dispense and make way with the other 
 mediaeval forms of vicarious rule — theocracy, mon- 
 archy, and aristocracy. How easy it seemed to in- 
 augurate personality and individualism in the family ! 
 But as matters were, this was the most difficult 
 thing of all. For the Priests, the Kings, the Nobles 
 did not come over — only the tradition thereof, and 
 the habit of subordination thereto, with a few feeble 
 scions of the sacerdotal, royal, and noble stocks — 
 and preaching against these always was popular, — 
 while the Masters came over in large numbers, 
 bringing their slaves. They brought the substance of 
 Despotocracy along with them, not merely its tradi- 
 tion. To preach against that was always a " sin " 
 to the American Church. But Man wants unity of 
 consciousness. Accordingly, in New England good 
 men began early to feel that absolute and perpetual 
 Slavery was a wicked thing. Had not the letter of 
 the Old Testament and of certain passages in the 
 New blinded their eyes, I think the Puritan would 
 have seen more clearly than he did see. Still, with 
 so much of the spirit of the Old Testament in him, 
 he could not but see it was ^\Tong to steal men for 
 the purpose of making them Slaves and their chil- 
 dren after them. So Slavery was always a contra- 
 diction in the consciousness of New England. The 
 white Slaves became free on expiration of their term 
 of service, or were set free before. There were many 
 such. The red men would not work — and were let 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 319 
 
 alone, or quietly shot down. The Indians killed the 
 white man and scalped him ; the Puritan omitted 
 the scalping — it was not worth his while ; the scalp 
 was of no use. 
 
 The Slavery of the Blacks never prevailed exten- 
 sively in New England. It was not found very prof- 
 itable. True it prevailed : it had the laws and the 
 tradition of the elders on its side. But it was yet 
 felt, known, and confessed to be at variance with the 
 ecclesiastical, political, and social ideas of the people. 
 There was always a good deal of conscience in New 
 England. The religious origin of the first colonies is 
 not yet a forgotten fact. The Puritan still looked up 
 to a Higher Law. Did he keep his powder dry ? He 
 also trusted in God. Coveting the end, he looked for 
 the means thereto. The gain from the compulsory 
 labor of the African Slave was not motive enough 
 to keep up the contradiction in the New England 
 consciousness. So before the Revolution this institu- 
 tion was much weakened, and with that disappeared 
 from New England ; and soon after vanished out of 
 all the States which she bore or taught. 
 
 2. The other thing was to affirm as a principle and 
 establish as a measure the natural equality of Men 
 and Women in all that pertained to human rights. 
 It was only to affirm that Woman is human, and 
 has the same quality of human substance with man. 
 If difference in condition, as rich and poor, or ability. 
 
320 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 as strong or weak, does not affect the substance of 
 manhood, and the rights thence accruing, no more 
 does difference of sex, masculine or feminine, make 
 one master and the other slave. Not only the prole- 
 tary, the servant, the slave, but exploitered woman 
 also must rise as Despotocracy goes down. 
 
 In the Southern part of the North American Con- 
 tinent other Anglo-Saxon colonies goL planted and 
 grew up. None of them was a religious settlement ; 
 the immigrants came not for the sake -of an idea too 
 new or too great for toleration at home. They came 
 as Adventurers, seeking their fortune ; not as Pilgrims, 
 to found the " Kingdom of Heaven on Earth." The 
 Southern Settlers had not the New England hostility 
 to mediaeval institutions. Theocracy, Monarchy, 
 Aristocracy, were not so unwelcome further South. 
 In 1671, the Governor of Virginia said that she " had 
 no free schools nor printing-press. Learning has 
 brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the 
 world, and printing has divulged them, and libels 
 against the best governments. God keep us from' 
 both ! " Despotocracy had its home in the Southern 
 States. African Slavery came to Virginia in the 
 same year which brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth. 
 It suited the idleness of the self-indulgent master, 
 and became an institution fLxed and beloved in the 
 Southern colonies, so diverse in their ideas from the 
 stern but bigoted North. Still the ideas of the age 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 821 
 
 found their way to these colonies — and led to acts. 
 There also was a protest against theocracy, monar- 
 chy, aristocracy, and even against despotocracy. 
 Mutuality of origin, community of position — that is 
 all the Northern and Southern colonies at first had in 
 common. Sentiments, ideas, institutions, were quite 
 diverse. By and by a little trade helped unite the 
 two. The South wanted Slaves. The North — 
 especially Rhode Island — overcame its scruples, and, 
 spite of the Old Testament, stole men in Africa to sell 
 them at enormous profit in the colonies of the South. 
 
 This great human protest against that four-fold 
 despotism continually went on — no man under- 
 standing the great battle between the substance of 
 man's progressive nature and the stationary institu- 
 tions which were the accidents of his history. At 
 length, things came to such a pass that connection 
 between new America and old England could not 
 be borne. Between the Old and the New there had 
 ceased to be that mutuality of Sentiment and Idea 
 which makes unity of institutions and unity of ac- 
 tion possible. The Daughter was too strong to bear 
 patiently the dictation and the yoke of her parent ; 
 the Mother was too distant and too feeble to enforce 
 her selfish commands. 
 
 America published to the world a part of the new 
 ideas which lay in her mind. The Declaration of 
 Independence contained the American Programme 
 
322 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 of Political Principles. The motive thereto is to be 
 found in the general human instinct for progress, but 
 more especially in the old Teutonic spirit, the love 
 of individual liberty, which has marked the ancient 
 Germans, and still more eminently their Anglo- 
 Saxon descendants, as well in Christian as in 
 Heathen times. The form of speech — self-evident 
 maxims, universal truths resting on the consciousness 
 of mankind — seems derived from European writers 
 on Natural Law; the influence of continental free- 
 thinkers .is obvious therein. But the first express 
 declaration, that there are natural, unalienable Rights 
 in man, seems to have been made a few years before, 
 in New England, in Boston. Is it here thought an 
 honor to the town ? — Nay, perhaps a disgrace I 
 
 Here is the American Programme of Political 
 Principles : All men are endowed by their Creator 
 with certain natural Rights ; these Rights can be 
 alienated only by the possessor thereof; in respect 
 thereto all men are equal; amongst them are the 
 Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happi- 
 ness ; it is the function of government to preserve 
 all these natural, unalienable, and equal Rights for 
 each man ; government is amenable to the people, 
 deriving its sanction from the consent of the 
 governed. 
 
 In time of peace the thirteen distinct colonies 
 could not have united in that Declaration of Princi- 
 ples. The political ideal was a severe criticism on 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 323 
 
 the actual legislation of the Americans. Talk of 
 natural law and equal rights when every colony held 
 Slaves in perpetual bondage ! When the North 
 stole men in Africa to sell them in Carolina ! But 
 America was then in her agony and bloody sweat. 
 European Despotism was the Angel which strength- 
 ened her. External violence pressed the colonies to- 
 gether into a Confederation of States ; that alone 
 gave unity of action when there was no unity of 
 humane sentiment or political idea. The union was 
 only military — for defence. 
 
 The New conquered; but the Old did not die. 
 Not every Tory went over to the British side. After 
 the war was over, the nation must organize itself on 
 that new Platform of Principles. Bnt, alas, much 
 of the old selfishness remained — theocratic, mo- 
 narchic, aristocratic, and still more despotocratic ; it 
 would appear in the new government. There was 
 no real unity of Idea between the extreme South 
 and the North, between Carolina and Connecticut. 
 Nothing is done by leaps. In organizing the Inde- 
 pendence won in battle, the People proclaimed their 
 Programme of Political Purpose. It is the Preamble 
 to the Constitution: " To form a more perfect Union, 
 establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, pro- 
 vide for the common Defence, promote the general 
 Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty." 
 The Purpose was as noble as the Principles. But 
 the means to that end, the Constitution itself, is by 
 
324 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 no means unitary ; it is a provisional compromise 
 between the ideal political Principles of the Declara- 
 tion, and the actual selfishness of the people North 
 and South ; it is a measure which did not so much 
 suit the ideal Right, as it favored one great ac- 
 tual tyranny. National theocracy was given up. 
 How could the Americans allow a " national re- 
 ligion ? " Monarchy went also to the ground ; the 
 Puritan bosom that bore Cromwell — 
 
 " Would have brooked 
 Th' eternal Devil to keep his state .... 
 As easily as King." 
 
 Aristocracy found more favor, but likewise perished ; 
 " no title of nobility shall be granted ; " honors are 
 not devisable. Despotocracy, the worst institution 
 of the middle ages — the leprosy of society — came 
 over the water: the Slave survived the Priest, the 
 Noble, the King. Must the axe of a more terrible 
 Cromwell shear that also away ? Shall it be a black 
 Cromwell? History points to St. Domingo. The 
 Future also has much to teach us. The Declaration 
 of Principles and of Purposes would annihilate Sla- 
 very ; the Constitution nowhere forbids it, but broods 
 over that egg which savage selfishness once laid. 
 How could the liberty -loving North join with Caro- 
 lina, which rejoiced to fetter men? The unity of 
 action was no longer military — it was commercial, 
 union for trade. Thus the Idea of America became 
 an Act! 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 325 
 
 The truths of the Declaration went abroad to do 
 their work. The French Revolution followed with 
 its wide-reaching consequences, so beneficial to man- 
 kind ; it still goes on. The ground-swell has come 
 near the surface, and all the European sea now 
 foams with tumult. Foreign opposition withdrew ; 
 America was left to herself, the sole republic of the 
 world, with the wilderness for her stage and scene, 
 and her great ideas for plot. The two antagonistic 
 elements, the old selfishness which loves those four 
 traditions of the past, the new benevolent instinct of 
 progress which seeks the development of all man's 
 nobler powers, were to fight their battle, while with 
 hope and fear the world looks on. The New World 
 has now broken with the old — once and for ever. 
 
 The peculiar characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon 
 appear now more prominent in the American than 
 in the Britons ; yet he is not altered, only developed. 
 The love of individual liberty triumphs continually ; 
 the white man becomes more democratic — in 
 Church, State, Community, and Family. The in- 
 vasive character appears in the individual and 
 national thirst for land, and our rapid geographic 
 spread. Materialism shows itself in the swift growth 
 of covetousness, in the concentration of the talent 
 and genius of the nation upon the acquisition of 
 riches. The power to organize things and men 
 comes out in the machines, ships, and mills, in little 
 and great confederations, from a lycenm to the 
 
 VOL. I. 28 
 
326 THE NEBKASKA QUESTION. 
 
 Federal Union of thirty-one States. The natural 
 exclusiveness appears in the extermination of the red 
 man, in the enslavement of the black man, in the 
 contempt with which he is treated — turned out of 
 the tavern, the church,, and the graveyard. The lack 
 of high qualities of mind is shown in the poverty of 
 American literature, the meanness of American 
 religion, in the neglect and continual violation of the 
 idea set forth in our national programme of Prin- 
 ciples and Purpose. Since the Revolution, the im- 
 mediate aim of America appears to have changed. 
 
 At first, during the period of America's coloniza- 
 tion and her controversy with England, and her 
 affirmation and establishment of her programme of 
 political principles, — the great national work of the 
 disunited provinces was a struggle for local self- 
 government against despotic centralization beyond 
 the sea. It was an effort against the vicarious rule 
 of the middle ages, which allowed the people no 
 power in the State, the laity none in the Church, the 
 servant none in the family. It was a great effort — 
 mainly unconscious — in favor of the direct govern- 
 ment of each State by itself, of the whole people by 
 the whole people ; a national protest against Theoc- 
 racy, — the subordination of man in religious affairs 
 to the accident of his history ; Monarchy, the subor- 
 dination of the mass of men to a single man ; Aris- 
 tocracy, the subordination of the many to the few, 
 of the weak to the strong ; yes, in part also against 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 327 
 
 Despotocracy, the subordination of the slave who 
 toils to the master that enjoys, — in their rights they 
 were equal. This forced men to look inward at the 
 natural rights of man ; outward at the general 
 development thereof in history. It led to the at- 
 tempt to establish a Democracy, which, so far as 
 Measures are concerned, is the government of all, 
 for all, by all ; so far as moral Principle is concerned, 
 it is the enactment of God's" Justice into human 
 laws. There was a struggle of the many against 
 the few; of man's nature, with its instinct of pro- 
 gressive and perpetual development, against the ac- 
 cidents of man's history. It was an effort to estab- 
 lish the Eternal Law of God against the provisional 
 caprice of tyrants. I do not mean to say that these 
 gi'eat purposes and ideas existed consciously in the 
 minds of men. They were in men's character, not 
 in their convictions ; they came out in their life more 
 than in their speech. They were in men as botany 
 is in this plant, as chemistry in this drop of water, as 
 gravitation which rounds it to a globe and brings it 
 to the ground. But the camelia know^s not the 
 botany it lives ; the drop of water knows nothing of 
 the chemistry which has formed it, arranging its par- 
 ticles " by number and measure and weight ; " it 
 knows not the gi-avitation which brings it to the 
 ground. So it was the great soul of humanity that 
 stirred in our fathers' heart ; it was the Providence 
 of God working by the men who formed the State. 
 
328 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 From 1620 to 1788 there was a rapid development 
 of ideas. But since that time the outward pressure 
 has been withdrawn. The nation is no longer called 
 to protest against a foreign foe ; no despot forces us 
 to fall back on the great principles of human nature, 
 and declare great universal truths. Even the Anglo- 
 Saxon people are always metaphysical in revolution. 
 We have ceased to be such, and have become 
 material. We have let the programme of political 
 principles and purposes slip out of the nation's con- 
 sciousness, and have betaken ourselves, body and 
 soul to the creation of riches. Wealth is the great 
 object of American desire. Covetousness is the 
 American passion. This is so — nationally in the 
 political affairs of the country ; ecclesiastically, so- 
 cially, domestically, individually. Our national char- 
 acter, political institutions, geographic situation, — 
 all favor the accumulation of riches. I thank God 
 that we are thus rich I 
 
 No country was ever so rich before, nor got rich 
 so fast ; in none had wealth ever such power, or was 
 so esteemed. It is counted as the end of life, not as 
 the material basis to higher forms thereof. It has 
 no conventional check in the institutions of the land, 
 and only two natural checks in the heart of the peo- 
 ple. One is the talent and genius — intellectual, 
 moral, affectional, and religious — that is born in rare 
 men ; and the other is the desire, the caprice, the 
 opinion, of the great majority of men, who oppose 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 329 
 
 their collective human will against the material glit- 
 ter of mere accumulated money. But money can 
 buy intellectual talent and intellectual genius ; at 
 least it can buy American talent and American 
 genius. Money, and the men of cultivated minds 
 whom it buys, can deceive the people, so that the 
 majority shall follow the dollar wherever it rolls. 
 The clink of the dollar, — that is the reveille, the 
 morning drum-beat, for the American people. In 
 America, money is inaugurated as a power to con- 
 trol all other powers. It has itself become an " In- 
 stitution " — master of all the rest. 
 
 Three of those bad institutions that I named, 
 whereof our fathers brought the traditions from the 
 old world, have mainly perished. The mediaeval 
 Theocracy has gone out from the Protestant Church ; 
 Monarchy has wholly faded from the consciousness 
 of the people; Aristocracy, sitting unmovable on 
 her cradle, has had her heart pierced through and 
 through by the gigantic spear of American Industry 
 horsed on a steam-engine. Money has taken the 
 place of all three. It has got inaugurated into the 
 Church, — it is a Church of commerce; in the State 
 — it is a State of commerce ; in the Community not 
 less, — it is a society of commerce ; and money 
 wields the triple power of those three old masters, 
 Theocracy, Monarchy, Aristocracy. It is the Al- 
 mighty Dollar. 
 
 In the American Church, money is God. The 
 28* 
 
330 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 peculiar sins of money, and of the rich, they are 
 never preached against ; it is a Church of commerce, 
 wealth its heaven and the millionaire its saint ; its 
 ministers should be ordained, not " by the imposition 
 of hands," but of bank-bills — of small denomina- 
 tion. In the American State, money is the Consti- 
 tution : officers ought to be sworn on the federal cur- 
 rency; they should make the sign of the dollar, ($) 
 as their official symbolic cross ; it is a State of com- 
 merce. In the community, money is Nobility ; it is 
 transmissible social power; it is Aristocracy, it 
 makes a man who has got it a vulgar " gentleman ; " 
 it is a Society of commerce. Nay, in the family, 
 money is thought better than love, and the daughter 
 who fascinates and coaxes and courts and weds a 
 bag of gold, gets the approbation of her mother and 
 her father's benediction, " Many daughters have done 
 virtuously, but thou excellest them all." 
 
 " None but the rich deserve the fair." 
 
 The fourth bad institution whose tradition our 
 fathers brought, Despotocracy, the rule of the master 
 over the slave whom he exploiters, — that has not 
 yet shared the fate of Theocracy, Monarchy, and 
 Aristocracy. It is still preserved ; it leagues itself with 
 money, and builds up anew in America the old cor- 
 rupt family of the middle ages. In New York, it 
 clothes the white flunkeys of the Hon. Dives Gotrich 
 with an imitated livery ; in New Orleans, and in 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 331 
 
 more than half the land, it takes those whom Nature 
 has clothed in a sable livery, and makes them its 
 slaves. Despotocracy alone could not accomplish 
 this. The wickedness is foreign to the American 
 Idea of a State, a community, or a church. But 
 leaguing with money, which has taken the place of 
 all those old institutions, it is this day the strongest 
 power in the nation. 
 
 Money having taken the place of these three insti- 
 tutions, it must be politically represented in the 
 nation by a party ; for a party is the provisional or- 
 ganization of a tendency. So there is a party organ- 
 ized about the Dollar as its central nucleus and idea. 
 The dollar is the germinal dot of the Whig party ; 
 its motive is pecuniary ; its motto should be, to state 
 it in LtB-i'm, pecimia pecuniata, money moneyed, money 
 made. It sneers at the poor ; at the many ; has a 
 contempt for the people. It legislates against the 
 poor, and for the rich ; that is, for men pecuniarily 
 strong; the few who are born with the desire, the 
 talent, and the conventional position to become rich. 
 " Take care of the rich, and they will take care of the 
 poor," is its secret maxim. Every thing must yield 
 to money : that is to have universal right of way. 
 Down with Mankind ! the Dollar is coming ! The 
 great domestic object of Government, said the great- 
 est Expounder of this party, " is the protection of 
 property ; " — that is to say, the protection of money 
 
332 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 moneyed, money got. With this party there is no 
 Absolute Right, no Absolute Wrong. Instead there- 
 of, there is Expediency and Inexpediency. There is 
 no law higher than the power to wield money just as 
 you will. Accordingly a millionaire is reckoned by 
 this party as the highest production of society. He 
 is the Whig ideal ; he alone has attained " the meas- 
 ure of the stature of a perfect man." 
 
 Singular to say, most of the great public charities 
 of America have been founded by men of this party ; 
 most of the institutions of learning, the hospitals and 
 asylums of all kinds. Drive out Nature with a dollar, 
 still she comes back. 
 
 But man is man, can a dollar stop him? For 
 ever ? The instinct of development is as inextin- 
 guishable in man as the instinct of perpetuation in 
 blackbkds and thrushes, who build their procreant 
 nests under all administrations, theocratic or demo- 
 cratic. So there is another party which represents 
 the Majority of the people ; that majority who have 
 not money which is coveted, only the covetous 
 desire thereof. This represents the acquisitive in- 
 stinct of the people ; not acquired wealth ; not money 
 moneyed, but money moneying, — pecunia pecunians, 
 to state it Latin-wise. This is the Democratic party. 
 It loves money as well as the Whig party, but has 
 got less of it. However, with all its love of money, 
 it has something of the momentum of the nation, 
 something also of the instinct of mankind. 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 333 
 
 To the Whig party belong the rich, the educated, 
 the decorous; the established, — those who lookback, 
 and count the money got. To the other party be- 
 long the young, the poor, the bold, the adventurous, 
 everybody that is in want, everybody that is in debt, 
 everybody who complains. The audacious are its 
 rulers; — often men destitute of lofty character, of 
 great ideas, of Justice, of Love, of Religion — bold, 
 smart, saucy men. This party sneers at the rich, and 
 hates them ; of course it envies them, and lusts for 
 then- gold. It talks loudly against oppression in all 
 corners of the world, except our own. The other party 
 talks favorably of oppression, and shows its good side. 
 
 The Democratic party appeals to the brute will of 
 the majority, right or wrong; it knows no Higher 
 Law. Its statesmanship is the power to enact into 
 permanent institutions the transient will of the ma- 
 jority : that is the ultimate standard. Popular and 
 unpopular, take the place of right and wrong — vox 
 popuU, vox Dei; the vote settles what is true, what 
 right. It regards money made and hoarded as 
 the foe of human progress, and so is hostile to the 
 millionaire. The Whig calls on his lord, " Money, 
 help us I" To get money, the Democrat can do all 
 things through the majority strengthening him. 
 
 The Catholic does homage to the wafer which a 
 baker made, and a celibate priest addressed in Latin ; 
 it is to him the body of the Catholic God. The 
 Protestant worships the Bible, a book written with 
 
334 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 ink, in Hebrew and Greek, "translated out of the 
 original tongues, appointed to be read in churches." 
 To him it is the word of God, the Protestant God. 
 In the same way the Whig party worships money : 
 it is the body of the Whig God ; there is no Higher 
 Law above it. The Democratic party worships the 
 opinion of the majority : it is the voice of the Demo- 
 crat's God : there is no Higher Law. To the Whig 
 party, — no matter how the money is got, by smug- 
 gling opium or selling slaves, — it is pecimia pecuni- 
 ata, — money moneyed. To the Democratic party it 
 IS of no consequence what the majority wishes, or 
 whom it chooses : Polk is as strong as Jackson, — 
 when voted in ; and Pierce as great as Jefferson, — 
 for office makes all men equally tall. Once the 
 Democracy manfully protested against England's 
 oppressing American sailors — but refused to protect 
 a colored seaman ; — and now it basely protests 
 against America making any black man free. Once 
 it went to war — righteously, perhaps, for aught I 
 know — in order to take a Marblehead fisherman out 
 of a British ship, where he had been wickedly im- 
 pressed. Now the same Democracy covets Cuba 
 and IVIexico, and seeks to make slaves out of mill- 
 ions of men, and spread slavery everywhere. If the 
 majority wants to violate the Constitution of Amer- 
 ica and the Declaration of Independence, or the 
 Constitution of the Universe and the Declaration of 
 God, why ! the cry is — " there is no higher law ! " 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 335 
 
 " the greatest good of the greatest number I " — What 
 shall become of the greatest good of the smaller 
 number ? 
 
 There is, therefore, no vital difference between the 
 "Whig party and the Democratic party ; no difference 
 in moral principle. The Whig inaugurates the 
 Money got ; the Democrat inaugurates the Desire to 
 get the money. That is all the odds. So in the 
 times that try the passions, which are the souls of 
 these parties, the Democrat and the Whig meet on 
 the same Baltimore platform. One is not higher and 
 the other lower ; they are just alike. There is only 
 a hand rail between the two, which breaks down if 
 you lean on it, and the parties mix. In common 
 times, it becomes plain that a Democrat is but a 
 Whig on time ; a Whig is a Democrat arrived at 
 maturity; his time has come. A Democrat is a 
 young Whig who will legislate for money as soon 
 as he has got it ; the Whig is an old Democrat who 
 once hurrahed for the majority — "Down with 
 money ! that is a despot I and up with the desire for 
 it ! Down with the rich, and up with the poor ! " 
 The young man, poor, obscure, and covetous, in 
 1812 was a Democrat, went a-privateering against 
 England ; rich, and accordingly " one of our eminent 
 citizens," in 1851 he was a Whig, and went a-kid- 
 napping against Ellen Craft and Thomas Sims. 
 
 Bedini 's hand is " thicker than itself with brother's 
 blood." Young Democrats very properly burnt him 
 
336 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 in effigy. Old Democrats, wanting to be President, 
 took him to their hearts. The young ones will also 
 grow up in time to honor such future Nuncios of 
 the Pope. I once knew a crafty family which had 
 two sons ; both men of ability, and of remarkable 
 unity of " principle." The family invested one in 
 each party, and as it had a head on either side of 
 the political penny thrown into the air, the family 
 was sure to win. A New England Family, wise in 
 its generation ! 
 
 Now, I do not mean to say that all Democrats or 
 all Whigs are of this way of thinking. Quite the 
 contrary. There is not a Whig or Democrat who 
 would confess it. The majority, so far as they have 
 convictions, are very different from this ; but the 
 Whig would say in his convention, that I told the 
 truth of the Democratic party ; the Democrat, in his 
 convention, would say, I told the truth of the Whigs. 
 These ideas, — they reside in the two parties, as 
 botany in this camelia, as chemistry in the water, as 
 in the drop the gravitation which brings it to the 
 ground : not a conviction, but a fact. Each of these 
 parties has great good to accomplish. Both seem 
 indispensable. Money must be looked after. It is 
 a valuable thing; the human race could not do 
 without property. It is the ladder whereby we scale 
 the heavens of manhood. But property alone is 
 good for nothing. The will of the majority must 
 be respected. I honor the ideas of the Democratic 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 337 
 
 party, and of the Whig party, so far as they are 
 just. But man is not made merely for money ; the 
 majority are the standard of power, not of Right. 
 There is a law of God which directs the chink of 
 every dollar ; it cannot roll except by the laws of the 
 Eternal Father of Earth and Heaven. What if the 
 majority enact iniquity into a statute ! Can millions 
 make Wrong right? Justice is the greatest good 
 of all. 
 
 With little geographical check or interference from 
 other nations, we are going on solving our problem 
 of " manifest destiny." Since the establishment of 
 Independence, America has made a rapid develop- 
 ment. Her population has increased with unex- 
 ampled rapidity; her territory has enlarged to receive 
 her ever greatening family ; riches have been multi- 
 plied faster even than their possessors. But some of 
 the least lovely qualities of the Anglo-Saxon tribe 
 have become dreadfully apparent. We have exter- 
 minated the Indians ; we keep no treaties made with 
 the red men ; they keep all. The national material- 
 ism and indifference to great universal principles of 
 Right shows itself clearer and clearer. Submission 
 to Money or the Majority is the one idea that per- 
 vades the nation. There are few great voices in the 
 American churches which dare utter the Eternal 
 Justice of the Infinite God and rebuke the wicked- 
 ness of the nation, or talk as with a trumpet, Come 
 
 VOL. I. 29 
 
338 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 UP HIGHER. We have taken a feeble tribe of men 
 and made them Slaves ; we kidnap the baby newly 
 born ; tear him from his mother's arms, sell him like 
 swine in the market; the children of Jefferson and 
 Madison are Slaves in the Christian Republic. The 
 American treats his African victims with the intens- 
 est scorn. Even in Boston, spite of Constitution 
 and Statute Law, they are ignominiously thrust out 
 of the common school. The Clergy are the anointed 
 defenders of Slavery. The Whig party loves Slavery 
 as a tool for making money ; the Democratic party, 
 however, has the strongest antipathy to the African, 
 and uses him for the same purpose. How many 
 great American politicians care for him ? 
 
 To obtain any considerable office in America, a 
 man must conciliate one of these two — the Money 
 power or the Majority power. But the particular 
 body which sways the destinies of the nation, or its 
 politics, is an army of Slaveholders, some three hun- 
 dred thousand strong. They direct the money ; they 
 sway the majority ; and are the controlling force in 
 America. They have been so for more than sixty 
 years. I cannot now stop and weary you with 
 showing how they acquired the power, and how they 
 administer it. 
 
 In the history of mankind, this is the first attempt 
 to found a State on the natural rights of man. It 
 is not to be supposed that there should be national 
 unity of action on so high a platform as that which 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 339 
 
 the genius of Adams and Jefferson presented for the 
 people then militant against oppression. There is a 
 contradiction in the consciousness of the nation. In 
 our industrial civilization, under the stimulus of love 
 of wealth, and its consequent social and ptolitical 
 power, we have made such a rapid advance in popu- 
 lation and riches as no nation ever made. The 
 lower powers of the understanding have also had a 
 great development. We can plan, organize, and 
 administer material means for material ends, as no 
 nation has ever done. But it is not to be supposed 
 that any people could pass all at once from the mili- 
 tary civilization, with its fourfold despotism, to an 
 industrial civilization with democracy in its Church, 
 State, Community, and Family. How slowly we 
 learn ; with what mistakes do we come to the true 
 Idea, and how painfully enact it into a deed I But 
 see what results have come to pass. 
 
 In 1776, there were about 784,093 miles of terri- 
 tory ; now there are 3,347,451. Then there were 
 about two and a half millions of people ; now there 
 are four and twenty. In 1790, the annual revenue 
 of America was less than four millions of dollars. 
 Last year it was more than sixty-one. Then we had 
 less than 698,000 Slaves ; now we have more than 
 3,204,000. In 1776, Slavery was exceptional ; the 
 nation was ashamed of it. In 1774, Mr. Jefferson 
 had more democratic and Christian ideas than all 
 
340 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 Virginia has now. He said, " The abolition of domes- 
 tic Slavery is the greatest desire of the American peo- 
 ple." In the first draft of the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence, he condemned England for fastening Slavery 
 upon us, forbidding us to abolish the Slave-trade. He 
 trembled when he remembered that " God is just." 
 The leading men of the nation disliked Slavery on 
 principle. Some excused themselves for it, — " Eng- 
 land forced it on us ; " some thought it " expedient 
 as a measure ; " all thought it wrong as a principle. 
 During the Revolution, the white Slaves who had 
 been soldiers, became free ; there has not been any 
 white Slavery — of the old kind — since '76. I 
 know some families in this city whose parents came 
 to America as Slaves — white Slaves, I mean. 
 They were bought in England ; they were sold in 
 America — sold under cruel laws. I should not like 
 to mention their names ; but in 1850, they were the 
 most desperate Hunkers that could be found. Born 
 of Slaves, the iron had entered their contaminated 
 souls, and they sought to enslave your brethren and 
 my parishioners. These were the children of white 
 Slaves. The Indians were set free by laws. In 
 most of the States, attempts were made to free the 
 blacks. All the New England States set them free ; 
 — partly by the programme of principles in their 
 Constitutions ; partly by the decisions of Courts ; 
 partly by statute law, enacted by the Legislature. 
 New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, soon followed. 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 341 
 
 In twelve years after the Declaration of Indepen- 
 de^ice, seven of the thirteen States had begun efforts 
 to abolish Slavery forever. The truths of the Decla- 
 ration, carried forward New England and other 
 Northern States ; nay, the momentum of the Revo- 
 lution carried the whole of Congress forward, and 
 erelong, America performed two great acts, restrict- 
 ing Despotocracy — establishing Freedom and not 
 Bondage. Here they are. 
 
 I. In 1787, the General government had jurisdic- 
 tion over the North-Western territory, and decreed 
 that therein Slavery should never exist, to all time, 
 save as a punishment for crime " duly convicted." 
 On that spot, there have since grown up five great 
 States ; Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wis- 
 consin. Five great States, with four and a half mil- 
 lions of men, and not a Slave. Near a million 
 children went to the Schools of those States last 
 year, and there is not a Slave. Out of 239,345 
 square miles, there is not an inch of Slave soil, ex- 
 cept what stands in the shoes of Senator Douglas 
 and his coadjutors. That is the first thing. 
 
 II. In 1808, America abolished the Slave-trade. 
 Before that it was carried on from the harbors of 
 New England ; Boston, Bristol, Newport, New 
 York, added to their wealth by enslaving men. 
 These were the great ports whence men cleared for 
 
 29* 
 
342 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 Africa, to take in a cargo of Slaves. It is still car- 
 ried on from New York and Boston — but secret]^ ; 
 then it was openly done. Some of you, whose 
 hoary heads dignify and give a benediction to this 
 audience, may perhaps remember the Great Rhode 
 Island Slave-trader, who occasionally visited this 
 city, and if your eyes ever saw him, I know that 
 your hearts — then hot with youth — recoiled with 
 indignation at such a sight — a stealer of men ! He 
 seemed to be born for a Slave-trader ; he had a kid- 
 napper's name on him at his birth. He was called 
 Wolf! 
 
 These are the two acts of the Federal government 
 against Slavery since the Declaration of Indepen- 
 dence. That is all that America has done against 
 Slavery, in eight and seventy years. She has multi- 
 plied her population tenfold, her revenue fifteen fold, 
 and has abolished the Slave-trade, and prohibited 
 Slavery in the North- Western territory. Now see 
 what has been done in favor of Slavery. 
 
 I. This is the first step : in 1787, America inau- 
 gurated Slavery into the Constitution. 
 
 1. She left it in the Slave States, as part of the 
 " Republican " Institutions. 
 
 2. Next, she provided that the owners of Slaves 
 should have their property represented in Congress, 
 five Slaves counting the same as three Freemen ; 
 and, at this day, in consequence of this Iniquitous 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 343 
 
 Act, for the 3,204,000 Slaves which she has stolen 
 and unjustly holds, the South has delegates in Con- 
 gress equal to the representation of almost two rail- 
 lions of Freemen in New England. 
 
 3. It was agreed, also, that Slaves escaping from 
 the service of their masters into a Free State, 
 should not thereby recover their freedom, but should 
 be " delivered up." 
 
 Here were three concessions made to Slavery at 
 first. They were at variance with the programme 
 of principles in the Declaration; the programme of 
 purpose in the Constitution's Preamble. They were 
 known to be at variance with the religion of Jesus 
 in the New Testament; at variance with the laws 
 of Nature and of God. The Convention was 
 ashamed of the whole thing, and added hypocrisy to 
 its crime : it did not dare mention the word Slave. 
 That was the first great step against Freedom. It 
 has cost us millions of people. We should have 
 had a population counting millions more. It has 
 cost us hundreds of millions of money. The Whig 
 is poorer, the Democrat has a smaller majority. 
 Aye, it has cost us what is worth more than both 
 money and human life — it has cost manhood ; it 
 has caused us crime, falseness to our nature and 
 our God. Just now the " Christian Republic " com- 
 mits a greater offence against the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of all morality, all religion, than the Russian 
 
344 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 or the Turk, or any Pagan despotism in the wide 
 World ! 
 
 How came it ? The North wanted a special 
 privilege of Navigation ; and it let Slavery into the 
 Constitution for that pitiful price. Mr. Gorham, a 
 representative from Massachusetts, a Boston man, 
 in the Convention, declared that Massachusetts 
 wanted Union, not to defend herself, she could do 
 so, and had done so, and had defended others along 
 with her ; but she wanted a special privilege to 
 trade. I am ashamed to confess it, — that was the 
 Massachusetts which had just come out of the 
 Revolutionary war. Here was a " compromise " be- 
 tween the covetousness of the North, wanting a 
 special privilege of navigation, and the idleness of 
 the South wishing to eat but not to earn. Between 
 these two mill-stones the African man was crushed 
 into a Slave — a mere chattel " to all intents, con- 
 structions, and purposes whatsoever." That was 
 the first step. 
 
 II. In 1792, America admitted Kentucky as a 
 new State, made out of old soil, and established 
 Slavery therein. That was the first act of Congress 
 establishing new Slavery so far as she had power. 
 Since then, America has thrice repeated the experi- 
 ment ; — in 1796, establishing Slavery in Tennessee ; 
 in 1817, in Mississippi; and in 1819, in Alabama — 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 34'5 
 
 three new States made afresh out of old Slave soil. 
 That was the second step. 
 
 III. In 1793, America adopted Slavery as a 
 Federal Institution ; undertook herself, the Federal 
 government, to seize and deliver up the Fugitive 
 Slave. She took no such charge of other fugitive 
 " property." She was not Field-driver for horses 
 and mules, only the Hog-reeve for fugitive men, 
 " endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
 rights," " to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness." That was the third step ; and the great 
 " Expounder of the Constitution " declared it was 
 "wholly unconstitutional;" every free man, who 
 thinks with a free mind, I am confident will say the 
 same. 
 
 IV. In 1803, Louisiana was purchased from 
 France and organized into a territory, with Slavery 
 in it. This was the first attempt of America to carry 
 the hateful institution upon new soil, acquired since 
 the Declaration of Independence. In 1812, Louisiana 
 was admitted as a State with Slavery in it ; the first 
 Slave State made out of new soil, acquired after the 
 Declaration. Hitherto Slavery had been confined to 
 the Atlantic slope of the continent ; in 1792 the Fed- 
 eral government established it in the valley of the 
 Mississippi ; in 1803, for the first time, she carried it 
 West of the great river. That was the fourth step. 
 
346 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 V. In 1819-20, Missouri was organized as a State ; 
 in 1821, admitted with Slavery in it. Before this 
 time. Slavery had receded from the North. On the 
 Atlantic, it did not reach up to the fortieth parallel 
 of latitude ; on the Mississippi, it sunk below the 
 thirty-seventh. But by admitting Missouri, it all at 
 once rose to the fortieth parallel of latitude. Here, 
 however, there was a great battle. The South 
 wanted Slavery to extend all the way from the Gulf 
 of Mexico to the British line. The North wanted to 
 restrict Slavery by the Mississippi river, and not 
 carry it West. A few Northern men were bought 
 up ; nothing is more marketable than Northern poli- 
 ticians. Whig or Democrat, it makes no odds, both 
 are lieges of the Almighty Dollar. Wickedness pre- 
 vailed ; Missouri came in with her slaves. However, 
 there was a " Compromise ; " — the celebrated Mis- 
 souri Compromise, by which Slavery was restricted 
 in the Louisiana territory North of 36° 30'. Then, 
 all the territory South thereof was made over to that 
 institution. In 1836, Arkansas was organized as a 
 territory, and came in as a State with Slavery. In 
 the territory of Louisiana, bought in 1803, there are 
 now 423,172 Slaves. That was the fifth step. 
 
 VI. In 1845, Florida was admitted as a Slave 
 State, with a Constitution providing that the " Gen- 
 eral Assembly shall have no power to pass laws 
 emancipating Slaves," or to forbid emigrants to bring 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 347 
 
 their Slaves with them. Here, Slavery was ex- 
 tended over territory acquired for that purpose from 
 Spain in 1819-21 ; made perpetual therein. It went 
 down to the Gulf of Mexico, reaching far in. That 
 was the sixth step. 
 
 VII. In 1845, Texas was "reannexed" and ad- 
 mitted as a State. This was territory whence the 
 Mexicans had banished Slavery. Slavery was in 
 the Constitution of Texas ; was carried West of the 
 territory purchased of France, and spread over 
 325,520 square miles. It was established in a terri- 
 tory forty-three times greater than Massachusetts, by 
 and by to be carved into more Slave States. This 
 was the first time that America had ever established 
 Slavery in a land whence any government had posi- 
 tively driven it out. That was the seventh step. 
 
 VIII. In 1848, at the conclusion of the war for 
 plundering Mexico, by conquest and treaty, we ac- 
 quired California, Utah, and New Mexico — a terri- 
 tory of more than 596,000 square miles. This was 
 coveted as new ground for the extension of Slavery. 
 The Mexican war was begun and continued for 
 Slavery ; the land was to be Slave soil. This was 
 the first time we had conquered new land in battle 
 for the sake of putting Slavery on it. That was the 
 eighth step. 
 
348 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 IX. In 1850, you remember the cry, " The Union 
 is in clanger ! " — How lustUy men roared : " The 
 Union is in danger ! " — How the politicians talked, 
 and the ministers I The " pedlars of oratory " took 
 the stump. You remember the " Boston eloquence " 
 that screamed, and tottered and stood a tiptoe, and 
 spread its fingers, and tore its hair, and invaded the 
 very heavens with its scary speech ; — " The Union 
 is in danger — this hour!" The celebrated Com- 
 promise measures were passed. So far as it con- 
 cerns this question, they consisted of the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill — of which I do not think you wish me, 
 at least, to speak again ; of the establishment of a 
 territorial government in New Mexico and Utah, ex- 
 tending Slavery over 407,667 square miles, — a terri- 
 tory larger than fifty-three States of the size of Mas- 
 sachusetts ; it paid Texas ten millions of money as 
 a gift to Slavery. 
 
 That was the greatest step of all since Slavery 
 was inaugurated in the Constitution. It was the 
 most insulting to the North ; it was most revolting 
 to our political ideas and the principles of our pro- 
 fessed religion. You remember the stir, and tumult, 
 and storm. You have not forgotten the promise that 
 " agitation was to cease." In 1852, the Whigs de- 
 cided to " discountenance " agitation ; and the Dem- 
 ocrats, being stronger and more audacious, declared 
 that they would resist all attempts to renew the agi- 
 tation on the question of Slavery, in Congress or out, 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 349 
 
 in whatsoever shape. That was the ninth great 
 step. 
 
 In 1776, African Slavery existed in all the thirteen 
 States. In a few years it shrunk Southward. In 
 1790, the end of Delaware in 40° was its Northern 
 Atlantic limit; on the Mississippi, it fell away to 
 less than 37°. Below the snaky line which separates 
 Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, on 
 the South, from New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, 
 on the North, East of the " Father of Waters," on 
 the Atlantic slopes of the continent — the monster 
 had scope and verge enough. North and West of 
 these limits he dared not show his head. But in 
 that year, America bought of Maryland and Vir- 
 ginia a field " ten miles square," as Capital of the 
 United States ; in 1800, the seat of government was 
 transferred from Philadelphia to the District of Co- 
 lumbia ; in 1802, Congress reenacted the Slave codes 
 of Virginia and Maryland, extending them over the 
 Capital of the nation. Behold the Federal govern- 
 ment of the sole Christian Republic of the world has 
 its head-quarters on Slave soil I Congress had gone 
 South — ominous change! Since that day, no 
 State has abolished Slavery. It still exists in the 
 six old States : Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North 
 Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. It has 
 spread into Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Missis- 
 sippi, four new States, in twenty years made out of 
 
 VOL. I. 30 
 
350 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 the territory of the old States. It has been put 
 anew into Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, 
 Texas, — five new States made out of territory ac- 
 quired for extending the area of Slavery. It has 
 been carried to Utah and New Mexico, — land plun- 
 dered from Mexico for this purpose. The white 
 polygamy of .Joe Smith, and the black polygamy of 
 men yet more shameless, there flourish side by side. 
 It has spread over 1,051,523 square miles, where 
 there was no legal Slavery at all in 1788. It has 
 blotted the Mississippi Valley with more than 
 1,580,000 Slaves. It has put Slavery in a popula- 
 tion of 3,250,303 white persons, which else would 
 never have had an entailment of this curse upon 
 then- property, their education, and their morality 
 and their religion ! 
 
 Why was all this ? Has the South the most 
 money, and so can buy up the North ? the most 
 votes, and so can scare us by overwhelming num- 
 bers ? Not at all ; the South is poor in money ; in 
 numbers she is weak. The North is strong in both. 
 The South wanted Slavery, the North did not want 
 Freedom for the African. Before 1808, Northern 
 clergymen occasionally ventured their little savings 
 in the Slave-trade : since 1808, they obey with 
 alacrity all attempts of the Slave power to blas- 
 pheme the Higher Law of God ! At each step, the 
 South becomes more imperious, more insulting. 
 She has served us right! Nine times she has de- 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 351 
 
 manded a sacrifice — nine times the North has 
 granted the demand. In some twenty-four millions 
 of men, every seventh man is a Slave ; the children 
 of Jefferson and Madison are sold at public vendue. 
 Senator Foote roared in the Capitol ; his father's 
 sons were Slaves in the same street I It is " a great 
 country ; " a " Union " worth saving I 
 
 But who is to blame for all this ? The North has 
 had the majority in the Federal councils from the 
 beginning. It is the North who is to blame for 
 these nine steps — for establishing, spreading, foster- 
 ing, and perpetuating the worst institution where- 
 with the Spaniard has dared to blot the Western 
 continent. Who put Slavery in the Constitution ; 
 made it Federal ? who put it in the new States ? 
 who got new soil to plant it in ? who carried it 
 across the Mississippi — into Louisiana, Florida, 
 Texas, Utah, New Mexico ? who established it in 
 the Capital of the United States ? who adopted 
 Slavery and volunteered to catch a runaway, in 
 1793, and repeated the act in 1850, — in defiance of 
 all law, all precedent, all right ? Why, it was the 
 North. " Spain armed herself with bloodhounds," 
 said Mr. Pitt, " to extirpate the wretched natives of 
 America." In 1850, the Christiai^ Democracy set 
 worse bloodhounds afoot to pursue Ellen Craft ; 
 offered them five dollars for the run, if they did not 
 take her ; ten if they did ! The price of blood was 
 Northern money ; the bloodhounds — they were 
 
352 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 Kidnappers born at the North, bred there, kennelled 
 in her chiirch, fed on her sacraments, blessed by her 
 priests ! In 1778, Mi-. Pitt had a yet harsher name 
 for the beasts wherewith despotic Spain hunted the 
 red man in the woods — he called them " Hell 
 Hounds.'''' But they only hunted " savages, heathens, 
 men born in barbarous lands." What would he say 
 of the pack which in 1851 hunted American Chris- 
 tians, in the " Athens of America," and stole a man 
 on the grave of Hancock and Adams — all Boston 
 looking on, and its priests blessing the dead ! 
 
 The Slave Power is now ready to take the tenth 
 step. It wants these things : the acquisition of 
 Cuba, the Mesilla Valley, the enslavement of Ne- 
 braska. Of the first and second, I shall not now 
 say any thing. The third is a most important mat- 
 ter. It is an attempt to establish Slavery in a new 
 country. First, in a country w^here it never existed 
 to any extent. There is only one American in the 
 territory known to have ever held a Slave. That is 
 a missionary w^ho went thither from Boston, and, for 
 a thousand dollars, bought a man in Missouri, to 
 serve as help for his sick wife, — the only Slave ever 
 held by an American in Nebraska, so far as Senator 
 Douglas is informed ; and of all men the most, he 
 ought to know. 
 
 Next, it is an attempt by the Federal government 
 to establish it in a territory where it has been pro- 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 353 
 
 hibited by the Federal government itself, by the 
 solemn enactment of Congress, made thirty-three 
 years ago, at a time when all the North swore 
 solemnly that it would not suffer Slavery to come 
 North another inch. 
 
 Do you know what is the population of Nebraska ? 
 There are not one thousand Americans in it. There 
 is a delegate from Nebraska at "Washington. He had 
 seventy votes, out of this vast territory ! There were 
 two competitors, and I suppose there could not have 
 been more than two hundred votes cast ; I doubt if 
 there were one hundred. 
 
 It is an immense territory, 485,000 square miles ; 
 larger than sixty-two States of the size of Massachu- 
 setts. It contains as much land as all the Thirteen 
 States that fought the Revolution, and more than 
 121,000 square miles besides. Draw a line from 
 Trieste to Amsterdam, — Nebraska is larger than the 
 part of Western Europe thus cut off. It contains 
 more than all the Fourteen Free States East of the 
 Mississippi : — Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, 
 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New 
 York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, 
 Indiana, Elinois, and Wisconsin — and 83,393 
 square miles over and above. It reaches from the 
 Western boundary of Missouri to the Rocky Moun- 
 tains. It extends from 37° North latitude to 49° — 
 twelve degrees of latitude ; and from 94° longitude 
 to 114° — twenty degrees of longitude. Its waters 
 30* 
 
354 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 run to the Gulf of Mexico, to the Pacific Ocean, and 
 to Hudson's Bay. The blood of the Slave will reach 
 " Greenland's icy mountains," and stain the waters 
 at the mouth of Baffin's Bay; the Saskatchawan, 
 its great Northern river, will drain the Slave soil into 
 Lake Winnepeg, and the keel of Captain Kane's 
 ship, returning from his adventurous quest in the 
 Arctic sea, will pass through waters that are dark- 
 ened by the last great crime of America ! 
 
 The Slave power has long been seeking to extend 
 its jurisdiction. It has eminently succeeded. It fills 
 all the chief offices of the nation ; the Presidents are 
 Slave Presidents; the Supreme Court is of Slave 
 Judges, every one ; the District Judges, — you all 
 know Judge Sprague, Judge Grier, Judge Kane. In 
 all that depends on the political action of America, 
 the Slave power carries the day. In what depends 
 on industry, population, education, it is the North. 
 The Slave power seeks to extend its institutions at 
 the expense of humanity. The North works with it. 
 Li this century, the South has been foiled in only two 
 efforts : to extend Slavery to California and Oregon : 
 nine times it has succeeded. 
 
 Now see why the South wishes to establish Sla- 
 very in Nebraska. 
 
 1. She wishes to gain a direct power in Congress. 
 So she wants new Slave States, that she may have 
 new Slave Senators to give her the uttermost power 
 in the Senate of the United States. 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 355 
 
 2. Next, she wishes indirectly to gain power by 
 directly checking the rapid growth of the free States 
 of the North. If Nebraska is free, the tide of immi- 
 gration will set thither, as once to Ohio, Michigan, 
 Illinois, as now to Wisconsin, Iowa, Minesota. 
 There will be a rapid increase of free men, with their 
 consequent wealth, education, ideas, democratic in- 
 stitutions, free States, with consequent political 
 power. 
 
 All this the South wishes to avoid ; for the South 
 — I must say it — is the enemy of the North. She 
 is the foe to Northern industry — to our mines, our 
 manufactures, and our commerce. Thrice, in my 
 day, has she sought to ruin all three. She is the foe 
 to our institutions — to our Democratic politics in 
 the State, our Democratic culture in the school, our 
 Democratic work in the community, our Democratic 
 equality in the family, and our Democratic religion in 
 the Church. Hear what a great Slave organ says of 
 religion: — "The Bible has been vouchsafed to man- 
 kind for the purpose of keeping us out of hell-fire and 
 getting us into Heaven by the mysteries of faith and 
 the inner life — not to teach us ethnology, govern- 
 ment," etc. It is the Editor of the Richmond Exam- 
 iner who says that ; the American Charge at Turin. 
 
 I say the South is the enemy of the North. Eng- 
 land is the rival of the North, a powerful rival, often 
 dangerous; sometimes a mean and dishonorable 
 
356 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 rival. But the South is oxirfoe, — far more danger- 
 ous, meaner, and more dishonorable. England keeps 
 treaties; the South breaks faith. She broke faith 
 individually, and Webster lies there a wreck on the 
 shore of his own estate ; breaks it nationally, " and 
 renews the agitation ! " I always knew she would ; 
 I never trusted her lying breath ; I warned my broth- 
 ers and sisters against it : now she fulfils the ex- 
 pectation. She is the enemy of our material welfare 
 and our spiritual development. Her success is our 
 ruin. Our welfare shames her institutions, her ideas, 
 and is the destruction to her " peculiar institution." 
 She has been beaten in her effort to blot the Territory 
 of Oregon with Slavery ; but she never surrenders. 
 This I honor in the South, — she is always true to 
 her own institution, and her own idea. I honor the 
 man who, on Plymouth Rock, when the sons of the 
 Puritans crouched and shrunk down, and scarce one 
 brave word could get spoken for humanity and the 
 great rights of man which om* fathers brought across 
 the sea, — I honor the Southern man who stood up 
 and claimed that Slavery should be protected, on 
 Plymouth Rock, and told one Northern candidate 
 for the Presidency that he also had once offered and 
 volunteered to shoulder his musket, " the old Middle- 
 sex musket," and march South to put down an in- 
 surrection of Slaves. I say, I honor a man's fidelity 
 to his own principle, even if it is a base one. 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 357 
 
 Such are the two general reasons why the South 
 wishes Slavery in this new territory. But here is a 
 third reason, quite special. 
 
 3. There must be communication with the West. 
 Three railroads are possible ; one lies through Mexi- 
 can territory, but we have not got it, for the Gadsden 
 treaty is not yet a fact accomplished : — two others 
 lie through Nebraska territory. One or the other of 
 them must be built. If Nebraska is free soil, the 
 Slave master cannot take his slave across, for the 
 law of the free soil makes the black man free. But 
 if Nebraska is a Slave State, then the master can go 
 there and carry his " chattels personal," — coffles of 
 men, droves of women, herds of children, attended by 
 the " missionary from Boston," and the bloodhounds 
 of the kidnapper. She wants right of way for her 
 institution ; a slave railroad from the Mississippi to 
 the Pacific. Such are the reasons why she wants to 
 establish Slavery there. 
 
 See what encourages the South to make new en- 
 croachments. She has been eminently successful in 
 her former demands, especially with the last. The 
 authors of the Fugitive Slave Bill did not think that 
 enormity could be got through Congress : it was too 
 atrocious in itself, too insulting to the North. But 
 Northern men sprang forward to defend it — power- 
 ful politicians supported it to the fullest extent. The 
 worse it was, the better they liked it. Northern 
 merchants were in favor of it — it " would conciliate 
 
358 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 the South." Northern ministers in all the churches 
 of commerce baptized it, defended it out of the Old 
 Testament, or the New Testament. The Senator of 
 Boston gave it his mighty aid, — he went through 
 the land a huckster of Slavery, peddling Atheism : 
 the Representative of Boston gave it his vote. Their 
 constituents sustained both ! All the great cities of 
 the North executed the bill. The leading Journals of 
 Boston advised the merchants to withhold all com- 
 mercial intercourse from Towns which opposed Kid- 
 napping. There was a " Union Meeting " at Faneuil 
 Hall. You remember the men on the platform : the 
 speeches are not forgotten. The doctrine that there 
 is a Law of God above the passions of the multitude 
 and the ambition of their leaders, was treated with 
 scorn and hooting : a loud guffaw of vulgar ribaldry 
 went up against the Justice of the Infinite God ! All 
 the great cities did the same. Atheism was inaugu- 
 rated as the first principle of Republican govern- 
 ment; in politics, religion makes men mad I Mr. 
 Clay declared that " no Northern gentleman will ever 
 help return a fugitive Slave ! " What took place at 
 Philadelphia ? New York ? Cincinnati ? — nay, at 
 Boston ? The Northern churches of commerce 
 thought Slavery was a blessing. Kidnapping a 
 " grace." The Democrats and Whigs vie with each 
 other in devotion to the Fugitive Slave Bill. The 
 " Compromises " are the golden rule. The North 
 conquered her prejudices. The South sees this, and 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 359 
 
 makes another demand. Why not ? I am glad of 
 it. She serves us right. 
 
 There is one thing more which helps her. The 
 South, weak in numbers, weak in money, has yet a 
 certain unity of idea, — that of Slavery. She has the 
 political skill to control the money and the numbers 
 of the North. She always makes the Presidents. 
 As the Catholic priest takes a bit of baker's bread, 
 and says, " Bread thou art, become a God ! " and the 
 dough is God, — so the South takes any man and 
 transubstantiates him, — " Thou art a man ! become 
 a President!" And by political transubstantiation 
 Polk and Pierce are Presidents, to be "lifted up," to 
 be " exhibited," set on high, and worshipped accord- 
 ingly. Now the Northern lump covets exceedingly 
 this presidential transubstantiation ; but to attain 
 thereunto, it must be of the right leaven for the 
 South. A new President is presently to be kneaded 
 together, to be baked to the requisite hardness, tran- 
 substantiated, and then set up in 1856. Several old 
 Ephraims, alas ! cakes " not turned," begin to swell, 
 and bubble, and crack, and break, hoping presently 
 to be in condition to be transubstantiated. Some 
 Northern dough is leavening itself to suit the South- 
 ern taste. Alas I " It is not in man that walketh to 
 direct his steps." Many are leavened, but few rise. 
 A Northern man, a bold adventurer, a bar-room poli- 
 tician of Illinois, born in Vermont, they say, has long 
 
360 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 coveted Presidential transubstantiation. He has 
 tempered his measures of meal with Southern 
 leaven : he is a Slaveholder — not born so ; he 
 courted Slavery and " married on ; " he has stirred 
 into his character a great amount of appropriate 
 leaven, — the " emptyings " of Southern firkins, the 
 leavings of Southern feasts, the yeasty scum and 
 iroth of the Southern consciousness where Slavery 
 heats and swelters and keeps up a perpetual fermen- 
 tation. In 1852, all his leaven was of no avail ; even 
 the heat of the Baltimore Convention could not 
 make him rise to the requisite degree. Now he adds 
 more potent leaven, and drugs his Northern dough, 
 hoping the lump will rise a Presidential loaf! 
 
 Mr. Douglas has made his bid for the Presidency. 
 He claims that the Missouri Compromise was 
 abolished in 1850. Nobody knew it then ; not he 
 himself: it is his last discovery. Then he claims 
 that Congress has no right to say that Slavery shall 
 not be in the territory. 
 
 So the question is, shall we let Slavery into the 
 two great territories of Kanzas and Nebraska ? 
 That is a question of political Economy. Here it 
 is. Shall men work with poor industrial tools, or 
 with good ones ? Shall they have the varied indus- 
 try of New England and the North, or the Slave 
 labor of Virginia and Carolina ? Shall their land 
 be worth five dohars and eight cents an acre, as in 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 361 
 
 South Carolina, or thirty dollars and a half as in 
 Connecticut ? Shall the people all be comfortable, 
 engaged in honest work, which enriches while it 
 elevates ; or shall a part be the poorest of the world 
 that a few may be idle and rich ? 
 
 It is a question of political Morality. Shall the 
 Government be a commonwealth where all are citi- 
 zens, or an aristocracy where man owns his brother 
 man ? Shall there be the schools of Ohio, or the 
 ignorance of Tennessee? Shall it be a virtue and 
 a dignity to teach, as it is in the public schools of 
 Boston ; a great charity, as some of you are admin- 
 istering in private schools for the ignorant and poor ; 
 or shall it be a crime, as in Virginia, where Mrs. 
 Douglas, by sentence of Court, is now serving out 
 her time in the House of Correction, for teaching a 
 black child its letters ? Shall there be the public 
 libraries, newspapers, lectures, lyceums, of Massa- 
 chusetts ; or the ignorance, the ignoble sloth of Mis- 
 sissippi and Alabama ? Aye ! it is a question of 
 domestic morality. Shall a man have a right to his 
 own limbs, his liberty, his life ? Shall the mother 
 own the babe that is born from her bosom ? Shall 
 she be a maid, and keep her innocence and her 
 honor? Shall she be a wife, faithful to him that 
 she loves, or shall she be the instrument of a master's 
 lust, who has the law to enforce rape and violence ? 
 That is the question. 
 
 It is a great religious question. Shall the pas- 
 
 VOL. I. 31 
 
362 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 sions and ambition of base men have rule in Ne- 
 braska, or the natural law of the most High God ? 
 The Unitarian Autumnal Convention at Worcester, 
 debated the gi-eat question, whether men should 
 have a Litany in the Churches. The American 
 Tract Society, the American Missionary Society, 
 have questions of similar magnitude, which come 
 before them. This is not thought a religious ques- 
 tion. It is only one which concerns the welfare of 
 millions of men, in hundreds of years yet to come ; 
 aye ! thousands I The prayer of the Puritan, his 
 self-denial, his trust in God, and love of the right, — 
 they are the best inheritance New England ever got 
 — shall w^e extend the best institutions of New Eng- 
 land to Nebraska ; or shall we send there the Slave- 
 driver with his whip, with his bloodhound, with his 
 
 politician and his 1 shall I say the next word ? 
 
 I pass it by. That question must be answered in a 
 month ; in one short month ; aye I perhaps, in a 
 week. 
 
 In sixty years, Virginia has not doubled, her popu- 
 lation, while New York has ten times the population 
 of 1790. The most valuable export of Virginia, is 
 her Slaves, enriched by the " best blood of the old 
 dominion ; " the " Mother of Presidents " is also the 
 great Slave Breeder of America. Since she ceased 
 to import bondmen from Africa, her Slaves become 
 continually paler in the face ; it is the " effect of 
 the climate " — and Democratic Listitutions. One 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 363 
 
 quarter of her Slaves have but one-fourth African 
 blood in their veins ; half of her Slaves are half 
 white. The Ethiopian is changing his skin. Be- 
 neficent " effect of the climate " — and Democratic 
 Institutions ! By the laws of Virginia, it is a crime 
 punishable by imprisonment, to deny the master's 
 right to hold his Slave ; it was lately proposed in 
 her Legislature, to exclude from the jury-box all per- 
 sons guilty of this opinion. Her present law pro- 
 vides that men of three fourths white descent shall 
 be free — it is now proposed to enslave all who have 
 less than nine tenths Caucasian blood ; so the blood 
 of "Jefferson and Sally," micontaminated by any 
 new African admixture, must pass through yet four 
 other Slave-breeding Presidents before it is entitled 
 to freedom ! New York has 862,507 children at her 
 Public Schools. Virginia makes it a crime to teach 
 writing and reading to Slaves. Her highest litera- 
 ture is partisan newspapers and speeches ; her no- 
 blest men are nothing but party politicians ; her chief 
 manufacture is Slaves — children of her own Cau- 
 casian loins, begotten for exportation. She stocks 
 the plantations of Alabama and the bagnios of New 
 Orleans. Shall we establish in Nebraska the insti- 
 tutions of Virginia? Let the North answer. . 
 
 I know Northern politicians say, " Slavery will 
 never go there ! " Do they believe their own word ? 
 They believe it ! In 1820, they said it could not go 
 to Missouri ; then, there were but 10,222 therein ; 
 
364 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 now, 87,422 ! more than a quarter of all the Slaves 
 in the United States are North of 36° 30'. Despe- 
 rate men from the Slave States of the Atlantic and 
 the Mississippi, too miserable to reach California, 
 will find then- El Dorado in Nebraska, take Slaves 
 there and work their lives out I It will be a better 
 breeding State than Virginia herself. 
 
 Congi-ess, it is said, has no right to legislate for 
 the people of the territory against Sla\ery. It must 
 be left to the inhabitants thereof. There are 485,000 
 square miles, — not 1,000 men, not two hundred 
 voters. Shall two hundred squatters entail Slavery 
 on a country as large as all Germany, Switzerland, 
 France, Belgium, and Holland ? Is it " democratic " 
 for Congress to allow two hundred stragglers in the 
 wilderness, cheating the Indians, swearing, violent, 
 half of them unable to write or read, — is it demo- 
 cratic in Congress to allow these vagabonds of the 
 wilderness to establish the worst institution which 
 Spain brought out of the middle ages ; which West- 
 ern Europe casts off with scorn ; which Russia 
 treads under her feet ; which Turkey rejects with in- 
 dignation, — and spread this over a country larger 
 than the whole Roman Empire, when Julius Caesar 
 was cradled in his mother's arms ? If it is so, let 
 me go back and, O, most Imperial Nicholas I let me 
 learn political justice from thee, thou last great ty- 
 rant of the Western world ! 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTIOX. 365 
 
 Suppose we grant this, — will that be the end? 
 Suppose Slavery flows into Nebraska, — is that all ? 
 This is the tenth time that Slavery has demanded a 
 great wrong, and the North has said, " Yes, I will do 
 it." Eaeh time it has been a greater and worser 
 wrong. Our great enemy demands sacrifices, not 
 of interests but of principle; the sacred principle 
 of natural right, allegiance to the Eternal God. 
 " Grant it," say they, " or we will dissolve the Union." 
 Presently that cry will be raised again, " Save the 
 Union ! Oh ! save the Union." " The Union is in 
 danger — this hour ! " will be rung again in our 
 deceived ears. Suppose it is granted. Only once 
 in seventy years has the Southern demand been re- 
 jected, — when she asked to put Slavery into Ore- 
 gon. But the conscience of the North, — there is 
 not much of it, — not enough to act, only to grum- 
 ble, or perchance to swear. The conscience of the 
 North complains. " Stop that agitation, or I will 
 dissolve the Union at once," says the South. Then 
 the North says again, " Hush I Save the Union ! " 
 and there will not be a whisper from Whig or 
 Democrat. The Church has got its mean mouth 
 sewed up with an iron thread. 
 
 Then the South will demand again, " Grant us 
 this demand, or we will dissolve the Union ! " — and 
 the same thing goes over and over again. Do you 
 think the North fears a dissolution of the Union? 
 As much as I fear that this handful of flowers shall 
 31* 
 
366 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 rise and strike the life out of my soul. No I No I 
 Think not of that. Is it love of Country which 
 prompts the Northern sacrifice of conscience ? No ! 
 never ! Never, no ! It is love of the dollar. It is 
 love of the power of the majority, of the Slave- 
 holder's power, not love of man, but love of money. 
 While the North can make money by the Union, 
 there is no danger of dissolution ! 
 
 Grant this, and see what follows. I omit the 
 probable acts of individual States, over which Con- 
 gress has no direct control. 
 
 I. The South will claim that the master has a 
 right to take his Slaves into a free State — spite of 
 its laws to the contrary — and hold them there — 
 first, for a definite time, say seven years ; next, for 
 an indefinite period in perpetuity. That will restore 
 Slavery to the North and enable the sons of New 
 England to return to their native land with their 
 " chattels personal." Perhaps it will require no Act 
 of Congress to do this — and " supersede " the Ordi- 
 nance of 1787, or declare it " inoperative and void." 
 The whole may be done any day by the Supreme 
 Court of the United States ; any day when the 
 President shall say, " Down with you, Judges. Do 
 as you are bid." Whigs and Democrats can do all 
 things through money, which strengtheneth them! 
 will the North consent? Why not, nothing is so 
 supple as the Northern neck. 
 
THE NEBKASKA QUESTION. 867 
 
 II. Then the South will seek more Slave terri- 
 tory. Here is what is wanted : — a part of Mexico, 
 — the Gadsden treaty stipulates for about 39,000,000 
 acres, eight States as large as Massachusetts ; Cuba, 
 which the Slave power has long coveted ; Porto 
 Rico ; Hayti, which the Democratic Christians hate 
 with such bitterness ; Jamaica and the other West 
 Indies ; the Sandwich Islands ; other parts of the 
 Northern and Southern continent. Slavery must be 
 put in all these places. Will the North consent? 
 Why not ? habit makes all things easy. What an 
 excellent " field for religious enterprise " Hayti would 
 be, if this Republic should restore Slavery to St. 
 Domingo ! Conquer your prej udices ! 
 
 III. Then she will seek to restore the African 
 Slave-trade. Here are the steps. 1, to authorize 
 any State to import Slaves ; 2, to authorize any in- 
 dividual to do so in spite of the adverse laws of any 
 State which will be declared "inoperative and void," 
 or " superseded." I can foresee the arguments for 
 the measure — Whig and Democratic — Yes, the 
 theological arguments, drawn from the Bible, from 
 " conscience and the Constitution." Some future 
 Unitarian Doctor of Divinity, I suppose, for a " con- 
 sideration " will be afraid of a " dissolution of the 
 Union" and solve the problem of human destina- 
 tion by offering to sacrifice his own brother, sister, 
 wife, daughter, mother ! Will the North consent ? 
 
368 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 Why stop at the thirteenth demand and not at the 
 first, at the ninth ? Is it worse to steal Northern 
 men in Africa, than Christian babies in Virginia ? 
 Worse to steal the son of Pumbo Jumbo than the 
 daughters of Jefferson ! Why should not the North 
 consent — all the Slaves are to be voluntary " Mis- 
 sionaries for civilization and Christianity I " What 
 is there which the North will not consent to ? 
 
 Some of you may live long enough to see all this. 
 The Union has been in danger five times, and five 
 times saved by sacrifice of those principles which lie 
 at the basis of the nation, and are its glory. Is that 
 too sad a prophecy, even to be spoken ? It is not 
 worse for the fifty years to come, than for the fifty 
 years past; it is only the history of the last fifty 
 years. 
 
 In 1775, what if it had been told the men all red 
 with battle at Lexington and Bunker Hill, — " your 
 sons will gird the Court House with chains to kid- 
 nap a man ; Boston will vote for a Bill which puts 
 the liberty of any man in the hands of a Commis- 
 sioner, to be paid twice as much for making a Slave 
 as for declaring a freeman ; and Boston will call out 
 its soldiers to hunt a man through its streets!" 
 What if on the 19th of April, 1775, when Samuel 
 Adams said, " Oh ! what a glorious morning is 
 this ! " as he heard the tidings of war in the little 
 village where he passed the night, — what if it had 
 been told him, — "that on the 19th of April, seventy- 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 369 
 
 six years from this day, will your City of Boston 
 land a poor youth at Savannah, having violated her 
 own laws, and stained her Magistrates' hands, in 
 order to put an innocent man in a Slave-master's 
 jail?" What if it had been told him that Ellen 
 Craft must fly out of Democratic Boston, to Mon- 
 archic, Theocratic, Aristocratic England, to find 
 shelter for her limbs, her connubial innocence, and 
 the virtue of her woman's heart ? I think Samuel 
 would have cursed the day in which it was said a 
 man-child was born, and America was free ! What 
 if it had been told May hew and Belknap, that in the 
 pulpits of Boston, to defend kidnapping should be 
 counted to a man as righteousness ? They could 
 not have believed it. They did not know what base- 
 ness could suck the Northern breast, and still be 
 base. 
 
 Who is to blame ? The South ? Well, look and 
 see! In the House of Representatives there are 
 eighty-eight Southern men ; there are one hundred 
 and forty-four from the North. In the Senate, the 
 South has thirty, the North thirty-two. But out of 
 the two and thirty Northern Senators, not twelve 
 men can be found to protest against this wicked 
 Bill. The President is a Northern man ; the Cabi- 
 net has a majority from the North ; the Committee 
 of Senators who reported this Bill has a majority of 
 Northern men ; its Chairman is a Northern man. 
 
 The very men who enacted the Fugitive Slave 
 
370 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 Law turn pale ; but what do they do ? They do 
 nothing! Where is the North? Where has it been 
 these fifty years back — at the feet of the South. 
 Where are the Northern ideas — where is the North- 
 ern conscience, the Northern right I O, tell me, 
 where ? Is it in your Legislature ? Listen ! See 
 if you can hear any faint breathings of the great 
 Northern heart, that fought the war of Independence. 
 At least, it is in the Cities. Listen I In Boston, 
 the " great men " who control Church and State — 
 they have called Conventions, have they ; prepared 
 resolutions — got them ready — had preliminary 
 meetings — have they? Nothing of it. There is 
 not a mouse stirring amongst them. It is all right, 
 I suppose, in the little towns ? There is the North- 
 ern heart — a great conscience, that says, " Give me 
 Liberty or give me Death I " — " Resistance to 
 tyrants is obedience to God!" Listen to Massa- 
 chusetts ! Can you hear any thing ? Well, I am a 
 Minister. It is in the pulpits of the North, perhaps. 
 Hark ! The Bible rustles, as that Southern wind, 
 heavy with Slavery, turns over its leaves rich in 
 benedictions; and I hear the old breath come up 
 again — "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" 
 — " Inasmuch as ye have not done it unto one of 
 the least of these my brethren, ye have not done 
 it unto me." Is that the voice of the pulpit? O, 
 no ! That is the voice of a Hebrew peasant ; a poor 
 woman's son. In his own time, they said " He hath 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 371 
 
 a devil." They hung him as a "blasphemer," an 
 "infidel." That is not the Pulpit's voice. Listen 
 again. Here it is : "I would send back my own 
 mother." That is the answer of the American Pul- 
 pit. Eight and twenty thousand Protestant Minis- 
 ters ! The foremost sect of them all debated, a little 
 while ago, whether it should have a Litany, and on 
 what terms it should admit young men to the com- 
 munion table — allow them to drink "grocers' wine," 
 and eat " bakers' bread," on the " Lord's day," in the 
 " Lord's house ; " and never dared to lift that palsied 
 hand, in which was once the fire and blood of Chan- 
 ning, against the world's mightiest sin. Eight and 
 twenty thousand Protestant ministers, and not a sect 
 that is opposed to Slavery I O, the Church I the 
 Church of America ! False to the great prophets of 
 the Old Testament, the great world's Prophet of the 
 New ; false to the fathers whose bloody knees once 
 kissed the Rock of Plymouth ! 
 
 The Northern conscience, the Northern religion, 
 the Northern faith in God — where is it? Is it in 
 the midst of the people — the young men and the 
 young women ; in your hearts and in my heart ? 
 Let us see. Let our actions speak. Now is the 
 time ; a month hence may be too late ; aye, a week, 
 and the deed may be done. Let us, at least, be 
 manly, and do our part. 
 
 Well let us contend bravely against this wicked 
 device of men who are the enemies alike of America 
 
372 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 and Mankind. I call on all men who love man and 
 love God, to oppose this extension of Slavery. Talk 
 against it, preach against it, print against it — by all 
 means, act against it. Call meetings of the Towns 
 to oppose it, of the Congressional districts, of the 
 State, yea, of all the Free States. Make a fire in 
 the rear of your timid servants in Congress. Let us 
 fight manfully, contesting the ground inch by inch, 
 till at last we are driven back to the Rock of Ply- 
 mouth. There let us gather up the wreck of the 
 Old Ship which brought over the three churches of 
 Plymouth, Salem, Boston, — whose children have so 
 often proved false, — therewith let us build anew our 
 Mayflower, make Plymouth our Delft-haven, launch 
 again upon the sea, sailing to Greenland or to Africa, 
 by prayer to lay other deep foundations, and in the 
 wilderness to build up the glorious liberty of the 
 sons of God. 
 
 But we shall not toil in vain. Slavery is nothing. 
 It exists only by a whim. Theocracy is nothing. 
 Monarchy is nothing. Aristocracy nothing. America 
 has no "Pope," no "King," no"N6ble;" a breath 
 unmakes them as a breath once made. Slavery is no 
 more if we say it ; the monster dies. In one day the 
 North could annihilate all the Slavery which depends 
 on the Federal Government — abolish it on the Fed- 
 eral soil, the Capital^ and the Territories ; abolish the 
 American Slave- Trade, declare it piracy, or other 
 felony. That would be only common legislation. 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 373 
 
 The next day we could abolish it in the Slave States. 
 That would be Revolution. 
 
 America has one great enemy — Slavery, our 
 deadliest foe. Do you believe it is always to last ? 
 I tell you no ! O, young America ! are you sure 
 there is no law higher than love of money and 
 power ? sure there is no Justice ? no God ? Quite 
 sure of that ? Men have sometimes been mistaken 
 who reckoned without that Host. 
 
 Political economy is against Slavery ; it is a poor 
 tool to work with. Compare Kentucky and Ohio^ 
 Virginia with Pennsylvania and New York! Do 
 you believe that shifty Americans will always use 
 the poor, rude instrument of the savage ! They love 
 riches too well. How weak Slavery makes a nation ! 
 In time of war how easy it would be for the enemy 
 to raise up the 385,000 Slaves of South Carolina 
 against the 283,000 whites ! Where would then be 
 the " chivalry " of that medisBval State ? 
 
 Slavery hinders the education and the industry of 
 the people ; it is fatal to their piety. Think of a 
 religious kidnapper! a Christian Slave-breeder! a 
 Slave-trader loving his neighbor as himself, receiving 
 the " sacraments " in some Protestant Church from 
 the hand of a Christian Apostle, then the next day 
 selling babies by the dozen, and tearing young 
 women from the arms of their husbands, to feed the 
 lust of lecherous New Orleans ! Imagine a religious 
 man selling his own children into eternal bondage I 
 
 VOL. I. 32 
 
374 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 Think of a Christian defending slavery out of the 
 Bible, and declaring there is no Higher Law, but 
 Atheism is the first principle of Republican govern- 
 ment! 
 
 "Slavery is the sum of all villanies;" what can 
 save it ? Things refuse to be mismanaged for ever. 
 All the world is against us. It is only in America 
 that Slave-trading, Slave-breeding is thought Chris- 
 tian and Democratic. Mr. Slatter, who had become 
 rich by trading in the souls of men, and famous for 
 preserving the Union, in his Slave-pen at the Capital 
 of the Christian Republic, once entertained the Presi- 
 dent of the United States at his costly house in Bal- 
 timore ; — I forget whether it was Southern Mr. 
 Polk, or Northern Mr. Fillmore ; Slavery has thrown 
 down the partition wall between Whig and Demo- 
 crat. What European Despot would have eaten 
 salt with a man whose business was to sell misery 
 by the wholesale, and to retail the agony of women ? 
 Even the medieeval Pope, the slave of stronger des- 
 pots, who appropriately sends us his red-handed 
 Bedini, to be lauded by aspirants for the Presidency 
 — would shrink from this. No Russian despot has 
 his sons as slaves to wait on him at table. You 
 must come to America to find a Cossack President 
 who could boast that honor ! Do you believe this 
 wickedness is always to continue ? Can the Anglo- 
 Saxon become Spanish ? New England like Bolivia, 
 Peru, Laguna. Mexico ? The wheels of time turn 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 375 
 
 not back. We cannot break the continuity of human 
 history. See how mankind marches towards freedom, 
 each step a Revolution. See what has been done in 
 four hundred years, for the freedom of man in Italy, 
 France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, or even in 
 Spain! Lay down your ear to the great deep of 
 Humanity, and hearken to the ground-swell which 
 goes on therein. That roar of mighty waters, does it 
 whisper security to the tyrant ? The next four hun- 
 dred years what shall it do against Theocracy, Mon- 
 archy, Aristocracy, Despotocracy ? 
 
 See what the Anglo-Saxon in Europe has done 
 for freedom since the first James ! Compare the 
 England of 1854, with the England of 1604. What 
 a growth of liberal institutions ; of freedom in the 
 people I England loving liberty, loving law, goes 
 on still building up the Cyclopsean walls of Human- 
 ity, the Bulwark of Freedom for mankind. See 
 what the same Anglo-Saxon has done in America. 
 Compare the Colonies of 1754, with the States of 
 1854. What a progress ! Are we to stop here ? 
 
 See what Massachusetts has done. Slavery was 
 always a contradiction in the consciousness of New- 
 England. So in 1641, Massachusetts enacted that 
 " there shall never be any bond Slavery, villanage, or 
 captivity amongst us, unless it be lawful captives 
 taken in just wars," etc. In 1646, the Colony bore 
 " witness against the heinous and crying sin of man- 
 stealing," and restored to Guinea some captives 
 
376 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 wickedly taken thence. But yet Slavery existed, and 
 cruel laws afflicted its victims. Listen to the follow- 
 ing. In 1636, " it is ordered that no servant shall be 
 set free — until he have served out the time cove- 
 nanted : " that " when any servants shall run away 
 from their masters .... it shall be lawful for the 
 next magistrate, or the constable and two of the 
 chief inhabitants where no magistrate is, to press 
 men and boats or pinnaces at the public charge, to 
 pursue such persons by sea or land, and bring them 
 back by force of arms." In 1703, a law forbade 
 negi'o, mulatto, or Indian servants or Slaves " to be 
 found abroad in the night time after nine o'clock." 
 They were " to be openly whipped by the constable." 
 If a negro or mulatto should strike any person of 
 the English, — he was to be " severely whipped at 
 the discretion of the Justices." In 1705, a duty of 
 four pounds was levied on each Slave imported, and 
 a drawback allowed in case he was " exported with- 
 in the space of twelve months." Marriage between 
 white and black was illegal ; a fine of fifty pounds 
 punished the officer who joined the parties. It is 
 not a hundred years since Slaves were sold in Mas- 
 sachusetts, children were torn fi-om their parents. 
 The charms of young women were advertised in the 
 public print. In less than a hundred years, two 
 Slaves were burned alive on Boston Neck for poison- 
 ing their master. Now Massachusetts has torn these 
 wicked laws from her Statute-book. It is only Bos- 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 377- 
 
 ton which turns a black boy out of her Public School. 
 Do you think the Northern men love Slavery, the 
 people love it? In all the parties there are noble 
 men who hate American Slavery. They know it is 
 a wicked thing ; they despise their politicians who 
 seek to perpetuate it, and loathe the purchased 
 Priests who justify the iniquity in the name of God! 
 Each of the nine sacrifices to Slavery has been un- 
 popular at the North. Only the politicians approved 
 them. The Constitution was adopted with difficulty. 
 New England hated its inauguration of Slavery as 
 a power in the Republic. The Fugitive Slave Bill 
 of 1793 — why, even Washington did not venture to 
 pursue his Slave by its authority and seize her. She 
 was safe even in the native State of Webster and of 
 Pierce ! The Mexican War was unpopular. It 
 was not " with alacrity " that the North obeyed the 
 wicked act of 1850. Boston saw her saddest day 
 when she kidnapped Thomas Sims. It could not be 
 done but with chains round the Court House, Judges 
 crawling under, and a regiment of flunkeys billeted 
 in Faneuil Hall. If the question of the enslavement 
 of Nebraska were this day put to the vote of the 
 people, in nineteen twentieths of all the towns of the 
 North, nineteen twentieths of the voters would say 
 No. The people are right, though, alas, not very 
 earnest. There are a few politicians, also, who hate 
 Slavery. There are noble ministers of all sects save 
 the Catholic, true to their high calling, honoring the 
 
 32* 
 
378 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 great Philanthropist they worship, who hate Ameri- 
 can Slavery, and preach against it in spite of the 
 Pharisee, the Sadducee, and the Hypocrite, who 
 thereupon tighten against the minister the strings of 
 the Parish purse. I have no words to teU how much 
 I honor such men ! True ministers of Christ, they 
 put the churches of commerce to continual shame. 
 I never knew of a Catholic Priest who favored free- 
 dom in America ; a Slave himself, the mediseval the- 
 ocracy eats the heart out from the celibate Monk! 
 
 Slavery is one great enemy of America, but there 
 is one other foe — corrupt politicians fillibustering for 
 the Presidency, defending Slavery out of the New 
 Testament, volunteering to shoulder their musket 
 and shoot down men claiming their unalienable 
 rights ; politicians who deny God's Higher Law, 
 who call upon us to conquer our prejudices against 
 wickedness, inaugurating Atheism as the first princi- 
 ple of Government. In 1788, they put Slavery into 
 the Constitution ; in 1850, they enacted iniquity into 
 Law ; and in 1854, they are about their old work 
 *' saving the Union." Shall such men always pre- 
 vail ! the mediaeval Catholic against the free minister 
 of piety ! The corrupt politician fillibustering for 
 office against the people — the American idea in 
 their heads, and Humanity in their hearts ! Even 
 the Catholic shall learn. 
 
 Slavery must die. See how Monarchy withdrew 
 in front of White Hall in 1648 ! How Slavery dis- 
 
THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 379 
 
 appeared from Saint Domingo in 1790 ! Shall 
 American Slavery end after that sort, or as it ended 
 in New England ; as Old England put it down in 
 Jamaica ? Down it must. God does not forget. 
 His Justice is wrought into the world's great heart. 
 See what changes perplex the monarchs of the world 
 — with what strides Mankind goes forward ! The 
 fourth tyrant must follow to the same tomb with the 
 rest. It is for you and me to slay him ! 
 
 Half a million immigrants annually find a shelter 
 on our shores. " Westward the star of empire takes 
 way." Aye, it will come Eastward — and Asia 
 already begins to send us her children. What a 
 noble destination is before us if we are but faithful. 
 Shall politicians come between the people and the 
 eternal Right — between America and her history! 
 When you remember what our fathers have done ; 
 what we have done — substituted a new industrial 
 for a military state, the self-rule of this day for the 
 vicarious government of the middle ages ; when you 
 remember what a momentum the human race has 
 got during its long run — it is plain that Slavery is 
 on the way to end. 
 
 As soon as the North awakes to its ideas, and uses 
 its vast strength of money, its vast strength of num- 
 bers, and its still more gigantic strength of educated 
 intellect, we shall tread this monster underneath our 
 feet. See how Spain has fallen — how poor and 
 
380 THE NEBRASKA QUESTION. 
 
 miserable is Spanish America. She stands there a 
 perpetual warning to us. One day the North will 
 rise in her majesty, and put Slavery under our feet, 
 and then we shall extend the area of freedom. The 
 blessing of Almighty God will come down upon the 
 noblest people the world ever saw — who have tri- 
 umphed over Theocracy, Monarchy, Aristocracy, 
 Despotocracy, and have got a Democracy — a gov- 
 ernment of all, for all, and by all — a Church with- 
 out a Bishop, a State without a King, a Community 
 without a Lord, and a Family without a Slave. 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 CONDITION OF AMERICA, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 NEW YORK CITY ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 
 
 FIEST ANNIVERSARY, 
 
 HELD AT THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE, 
 
 MAY 12, 1854. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — I shall ask your atten- 
 tion, this evening, to some few thoughts on the pres- 
 ent condition of the United States in respect to 
 Slavery. After all that has been said by wise, 
 powerful, and eloquent men in this city, this week, 
 perhaps I shall have scarce any thing to present that 
 is new. 
 
 As you look on the general aspect of America to- 
 day, its main features are not less than sublime, 
 while they are likewise beautiful exceedingly. The 
 full breadth of the continent is ours, from sea to sea, 
 from the great lakes to the great gulf. There are 
 three million square miles, with every variety of cli- 
 mate, and soil, and mineral ; great rivers, a static 
 force, inclined planes for travel reaching from New 
 Orleans to the Falls of St. Anthony, from the mouth 
 of the St. Lawrence to Chicago ; smaller rivers, a 
 dynamic force, turning the many thousand mills of 
 
384 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 the industrious North. There is a coast most richly 
 indented, to aid the spread of civilization. The 
 United States has more than twelve thousand miles 
 of shore line on the continent ; more than nine thou- 
 sand on its islands ; more than twenty-four thousand 
 miles of river navigation. Here is the Material 
 Groundwork for a great State — not an empire, 
 but a Commonwealth. The world has not such 
 another. 
 
 There are twenty-four millions of men ; fifteen and 
 a half millions with Anglo-Saxon blood in their 
 veins — strong, real Anglo-Saxon blood ; eight mill- 
 ions and a half more of other families and races, just 
 enough to temper the Anglo-Saxon blood, to furnish 
 a new composite tribe, far better, I trust, than the 
 old. What a Human Basis for a State to be erected 
 on this material groundwork! 
 
 On the Eastern Slopes of the continent, where the 
 high lands which reach from the Katahdin moun- 
 tains in Maine to the end of the Appalachians in 
 Georgia — on the Atlantic slopes, where the land 
 pitches down to the sea from the 48th to the 28th 
 parallel, there are fifteen States, a million square 
 miles, communicating with the ocean. In the South, 
 rivers bear to the sea rice, cotton, tobacco, and the 
 products of half-tropic agriculture ; in the North, 
 smaller streams toil all day, and sometimes all night, 
 working wood, iron, cotton, and wool into forms of 
 use and beauty, while iron roads carry to the sea the 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 385 
 
 productions of temperate agriculture, mining, and 
 manufactures. 
 
 On the Western slope, where the rivers flow down 
 to the Pacific Ocean from the 49th to the 32d paral- 
 lel, is a great country, almost eight hundred thousand 
 square miles in extent. There, too, the Anglo-Saxon 
 has gone ; in the south, the gold-hunter gathers the 
 precious metals, while the farmer, the miner, and the 
 woodman collect far more precious products in the 
 north. 
 
 In the Great Basin between the Cordilleras of the 
 West and the AUeghanies, where the Mississippi 
 drains half the continent to the Mediterranean of the 
 New World, there also the Anglo-Saxon has occu- 
 pied the ground — twelve hundred thousand square 
 miles ; in the south to rear cotton, rice, and sugar ; 
 in the north to raise cattle and cereal grasses, for 
 beast and for man. 
 
 What a spectacle it is I A nation not eighty 
 years old, still in its cradle, and yet grown so 
 great. Two hundred and fifty years ago, there was 
 not an Anglo-Saxon on all this continent. Now 
 there is an Anglo-Saxon commonwealth twenty-four 
 millions strong. Rich as it is in numbers, there are 
 not yet eight men to the square mile. 
 
 All this is a Republic ; it is a Democracy. There 
 is no born priest to stand betwixt the nation and its 
 God ; no Pope to entail his " nephews " on the 
 Church ; no bishop claiming divine right to rule over 
 
 VOL. I. 33 
 
386 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 the people and stand betwixt them and the Infinite. 
 There is no king, no born king, to ride on the 
 nation's neck. There are noble-men, but none 
 Noble-born to usurp the land, to monopolize the 
 government and keep the community from the bosom 
 of the earth. The people is Priest and makes its 
 own religion out of God's revelation in man's nature 
 and history. The people is its own King to rule 
 itself; its own Noble to occupy the earth. The 
 people make the laws and choose their own magis- 
 trates. Industry is free ; travel is free ; religion is 
 free ; speech is free ; there are no shackles on the 
 press. The nation rests on industry, not on war. 
 It is formed of agriculturists, traders, sailors, miners 
 — not a nation of soldiers. The army numbers ten 
 thousand — one soldier for every twenty-four thou- 
 sand men. The people are at peace ; no nation 
 invades us. The government is firmly fixed and 
 popular. A nation loving liberty, loves likewise 
 law ; and when it sets a plant of liberty, it fences it 
 all round with law as high up as the hands can reach. 
 We annually welcome four hundred thousand im- 
 migrants who flee from the despotism of the Old 
 World. 
 
 The country is rich — after England, the richest 
 on earth in cultivated lands, roads, houses, mills. 
 Four million tons of shipping sail under the Ameri- 
 can flag. This year we shall build half a million 
 tons more, which, at forty dollars a ton, is worth 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 387 
 
 twenty millions of dollars. That is the ship crop. 
 Then, the corn crop is seven Imndred millions of 
 bushels of Indian corn. What a harvest of coal, 
 copper, iron, lead, of wheat, cotton, sugar, rice, is 
 produced I 
 
 Over all and above all these there rises the great 
 American Political Idea, a " self-evident truth " — 
 which cannot be proved — it needs no proof; it is 
 anterior to demonstration ; namely, that every man 
 is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable 
 rights, and in these rights all men are equal ; and on 
 these the government is to rest, deriving its sole 
 sanction from the governed's consent. 
 
 Higher yet above this material groundwork, this 
 human foundation, this accumulation of numbers, of 
 riches, of industry — as the cross on the top of a 
 tall, wide dome, whose lantern is the great American 
 political idea — as the cross that surmounts it rises 
 the American Religious Idea — one God; Chris- 
 tianity the true religion ; and the worship of God 
 by Love ; inwardly it is Piety, love to God, — out- 
 wardly love to man — morality, benevolence, philan- 
 thropy. 
 
 What a spectacle to the eyes of the Scandinavian, 
 the German, the Dutchman, the Irishman, as they 
 view America from afar ! What a contrast it seems 
 to Europe. There liberty is ideal ; it is a dream ; 
 here it is organic, an institution ; one of the Estab- 
 lishments of the land. 
 
388 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 That, ladies and gentlemen, is the aspect which 
 America presents to the oppressed victims of Euro- 
 pean despotism in Church and in State. Far off on 
 the other side of the Atlantic, among the Apennines, 
 on the plains of Germany, and in the Sclavonian 
 lands, I have met men to whom America seemed 
 as this fair-proportioned edifice that I have thus 
 sketched out before your eyes. But when they 
 come nearer, behold half the land is black with 
 Slavery. In 1850, out of more than two hundred 
 and forty hundred thousand Americans, thirty- 
 two hundred thousand were slaves — more than 
 an eighth of the population counted as cattle ; not 
 as citizens at all. They are only human material, 
 not yet WTOught into citizens : — nay, not counted 
 human. They are cattle, property; not counted 
 men, but animals and no more. Manhood must 
 not be extended to them. Listen while I read to 
 you from a Southern print. It was recommended 
 by the Governor of Alabama that the Legislature 
 should pass a law prohibiting the separation of fam- 
 ilies ; whereupon the Richmond Enquirer discourses 
 thus : " This recommendation strikes us as being 
 most unwise and impolitic. If slaves are property, 
 then should they be at the absolute disposal of the 
 master, or be subject only to such legal provisions as 
 are designed for the protection of life and limb. If 
 the relation of master and slave be infringed for one 
 purpose, it would be difficult to fix any limit to the 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 389 
 
 encroachment." They are property, no more, and 
 must be treated as such, and not as men. 
 
 Slavery is on the Atlantic slopes of the con- 
 tinent. There are one million six hundred thou- 
 sand slaves between the Alleghany range and the 
 Atlantic coast. Slavery is in the central basin. 
 There are a million and a half of slaves on the land 
 drained by the Mississippi. Spite of law and con- 
 stitution, Slavery has gone to the Pacific slopes, 
 travelling with the gold-hunter into California. The 
 State whose capital county "in three years com- 
 mitted over twelve hundred murders " has very ap- 
 propriately legalized Slavery for a limited time. I 
 suppose it is only preliminary to legalizing it for a 
 time limited only by the Eternal God. In the very 
 capital of the Christian Democracy there are four 
 thousand purchased men. In the Senate-house, a 
 few years ago, a Mississippi Senator belched out his 
 imprecations against that one New Hampshire Sen- 
 ator who has never yet been found false to humanity. 
 Mr. Foote was a freeman, a citizen, and a " demo- 
 crat " ; and while, in the halls of Congress, he was 
 threatening to hang John P. Hale on the tallest pine 
 tree in Mississippi, there toiled in a stable, whose 
 loft he slept in by night, one of that Senators own 
 brothers. The son of Mr. Foote's father was a slave 
 in the capital of the United States, while his half- 
 brother — by the father's side — threatened to hang 
 on the tallest pine in Mississippi the only Senator 
 33* 
 
390 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 that New Hampshire sent to Washington who dared 
 be true to truth and free for freedom. 
 
 But a few years ago, JNIr. Hope H. Slatter had his 
 negro market in the capital of the United States ; 
 one of the greatest slave-dealers in America. He 
 was a member also, it is said, of a " Christian 
 church." The slave-pen is a singular institution for 
 a democratic metropolis, and the slave-trader a pecu- 
 liar ornament for the Christian church in the capital 
 of a democracy. He grew rich, went to Baltimore, 
 had a fine house, and once entertained a " President 
 of the United States " in his mansion. The slave- 
 trader and the democratic President met together — 
 Slatter and Polk I fit guest and fitting host ! 
 
 In all the three million square miles of American 
 land there is no inch of free soil, from the St. Johns 
 to the Rio Gila, from Madawasca to San Diego. 
 The star-spangled banner floats from Vancouver's 
 Island by Nootka Sound to Key West on the south 
 of Florida, and all the way the flag of om' Union is 
 the standard of Slavery. In all the soil that our 
 fathers fought to make free from English tyr- 
 anny, there is not an inch where the black man 
 is free, save the five thousand miles which Daniel 
 Webster surrendered to Lord Ashburton by 
 the treaty of 1842. The symbol of the Union 
 is a fetter. The President should be sworn on the 
 auction-block of a slave-trader. The New Hampshire 
 President, in his Inaugural, declared, publicly, his 
 
CONDITION OP AMERICA. 391 
 
 allegiance to the slave power — not to the power of 
 northern mechanics, free farmers, free manufactm*ers, 
 free men ; but allegiance to the slave power ; he 
 swears special protection to no property but " prop- 
 erty " in slaves ; specific allegiance to no law but the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill ; devotion to no right but the 
 slaveholder's " right " to his property in man. 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States is a slave 
 court; a majority of the Senate and of the House of 
 Representatives the same. It has been so this forty 
 years. The majority of the House of Representatives 
 are obedient to the lords of the lash ; a majority of 
 Northern politicians, especially of that denomination 
 which is called " dough-faces," are only overseers for 
 the owner of the slave. Mr. Douglas is a great over- 
 seer ; Mr. Everett is a little overseer. 
 
 The nation offers a homestead out of its public 
 land ; it is only to the white man. What would you 
 say if the Emperor of Russia offered land only to 
 nobles ; the Pope only to priests ; Queen Victoria 
 only to lords ? Each male settler in Utah, it seems, 
 is to have four hundred and eighty acres of land, if 
 he is not married, and a hundred and sixty more, I 
 believe, according to one proposition, for every wife 
 that he has got. But if he have the complexion of 
 the only children that Madison left behind him, he 
 can have no land at all. 
 
 Even a Boston school-house is shut against the 
 
392 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 black man's children. The arm of the city govern- 
 ment slams the door in every colored boy's face. His 
 father helps pay for the public school ; the son and 
 daughter must not come in. 
 
 In the slave States, it is a crime to teach the slave 
 to read and write. Out of four millions of children 
 of America at school in 1850, there were twenty-six 
 thousand that were colored. There were more than 
 four hundred thousand free colored persons, and 
 there were more than two hundred and fourteen 
 thousand thereof under the age of twenty ; of these, 
 there were at school only twenty-six thousand — one 
 child in nine ! Out of three and a quarter millions of 
 slaves, there was not one at school. It is a crime by 
 the statute in every slave State to teach a slave to 
 spell " God." He may be a Christian ; he must not 
 write " Christ." He must worship the Bible ; he 
 must not read it I It is a crime even in a Sunday 
 school to teach a child the great letters which spell 
 out " Holy Bible." I knew a minister, he was a 
 Connecticut man, too, who went oif from New Or- 
 leans because he did not dare to stay ; and he did 
 not dare to stay because he tried to teach the slave 
 to read in his Sunday school. He went back to 
 Connecticut, whence he will, perhaps, go as mission- 
 ary to China or Turkey, and find none to hinder his 
 Christian work. 
 
 At the North, the black man is shut out of the 
 
CONDITION OP AMERICA. 393 
 
 meeting-house. In Heaven, according to the the- 
 ology of America, he may sit down with the just 
 made perfect, his sins washed white " in the blood 
 of the Lamb ; " but when he comes to a certain 
 Baptist church in Boston, he cannot own a pew. 
 And there are few churches where he can sit in a 
 pew. The rich and the poor are there ; the one 
 Lord is the Maker of them all ; but the Church 
 thinks He did not make the black as well as the 
 white. Nay ; he is turned out of the omnibus, out 
 of the burial-ground. There is a burial-ground in 
 this State, and in the deed which conveys the land it 
 is stipulated that " no colored person or convict " 
 can ever be buried there. He is turned out of the 
 graveyard, where the great mother of our bodies 
 gathers our dust when the sods of the valley are 
 sweet to the soul. Nowhere but in the jail and on 
 the gallows has the black man equal rights with 
 the white in our American legislation ! 
 
 The American Press — it is generally the foe of 
 the slave, the advocate of bondage. 
 
 In Virginia, it is felony to deny the master's right 
 to own his slaves. There is an old law reenacted in 
 the revision of the Virginia statutes, which inflicts a 
 punishment of not more than one year's confinement 
 on any one guilty of that offence. It was proposed 
 in the Virginia Legislature, last winter, that if a 
 man had conscientious objections to holding slaves, 
 he should not be allowed to sit on any jury where 
 
394 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 the matter of a man's freedom was in question. 
 Nor is that all. There is a law in Virginia, it is 
 said, that when a man has three quarters white 
 blood in his veins, he may recover his freedom in 
 virtue of that fact. It is well known that at least 
 half the slaves in Virginia are half white and one 
 quarter of them three quarters white. Accordingly, 
 it was proposed in one of their newspapers that this 
 old law should be repealed, and another substituted 
 providing that no man should recover his freedom in 
 consequence of his complexion, unless he had more 
 than nine tenths white blood in his veins. 
 
 The slave has no rights ; the ideas of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence are repudiated ; he is not " en- 
 dowed by his Creator " with " certain unalienable 
 rights " to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness." 
 
 Listen to what a Southern editor says. I am 
 quoting now from one of the most powerful South- 
 ern journals, printed at the capital of Virginia, the 
 Richmond Examiner, and the words which I read 
 were written by the American Charg^ d 'Affaires at 
 Turin. He says : " The foundation and right of 
 negro Slavery is in its utility and the fitness of 
 things ; it is the same right by which we hold prop- 
 erty in domestic animals." The negro is " the con- 
 necting link between the human and brute creation." 
 " The negro is not the white man. Not with more 
 safety do we assert that a horse is not a hog. Hay 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 395 
 
 is good for horses — but not for hogs; liberty is good 
 for white men, but not for negroes." " A law ren- 
 dering perpetual the relation between a negro and 
 his master is no wrong, but a right." 
 
 Then in reply to some writer in the Tribune, who 
 had asked, " Have they no souls," he says, " They 
 may have souls, for ought we know to the contrary ; 
 so may horses and hogs." Then, when somebody 
 quotes the Bible in behalf of the rights of men, 
 he answers : " The Bible has been vouchsafed to 
 mankind for the purpose of keeping us out of hell- 
 fire and getting us into heaven by the mysteries of 
 faith and the inner life ; not to teach us govern- 
 ment, political economy," etc. 
 
 The American Church repudiates the Christian 
 religion when it comes to speak about the African. 
 It does not apply the golden rule to the slave. The 
 "servants" of the New Testament, in the Greek 
 language, were " slaves," and the American Church 
 commands them to be obedient to their masters. 
 There must be no marriage — the affectional and 
 passional union of one man and one woman for life 
 — only transient concubinage. Marriage is incon- 
 sistent with Slavery, and the slave wedlock in the 
 American Church is not a Sacrament. " Manifest 
 destiny " is the cry of politicians, and that demands 
 Slavery : " The will of God " is the cry of the 
 priests, and it demands the same thing. I am 
 not speaking of ministers of Christianity ; they are 
 
396 CONDITION OF AMEKICA. 
 
 a very different sort of men, and preach a very differ- 
 ent creed from that — only of the ministers in the 
 Churches of Commerce. According to the popu- 
 lar theology of all Christendom, Jesus Christ came 
 on earth to seek and to save that which is lost. 
 The Good Physician does not go among the whole, 
 but among the sick. If he were to come here to 
 seek to relieve the slave, the leading men in the 
 American denominations would tell him he came 
 before he was called ; he ran before he was sent — 
 that it was no mission from God to break a single 
 American fetter, nor to let the oppressed go free. Is 
 not the " Constitution " above " Conscience," and 
 the Fugitive Slave Bill more holy than the Bible ; 
 the commissioner of more authority than Christ ? 
 
 " Oh, Faith of Christians, hast thou wandered there 
 To waft us home the message of despair, 
 Then bind the palm thy sage's broio to suit 
 Of Masted leaf and death-distilling fruit." 
 
 Such is the aspect of America when the immi- 
 grant comes near and looks the nation in the face. 
 What a spectacle that is to put along-side of the 
 other ! Europe repudiates bondage — Scandinavia, 
 Holland, France, England. Since Britain emanci- 
 pated her slaves, the present Emperor of Russia has 
 set free over seven millions of slaves that belonged 
 to his own private domain, and established more 
 than four thousand schools, free for those seven 
 millions of emancipated slaves ; and did he not fear 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 397 
 
 an outbreak in a country where " revolution is 
 endemic," he would set free the other five and thirty 
 millions that occupy his soil to-day. And when he 
 enlarges his territory, he never extends the area of 
 bondage, only the area of what in Russia is freedom. 
 
 What a spectacle ! A country reaching from sea 
 to sea, from the Gulf of tropic heat to Lake Supe- 
 rior's artic cold, and not an inch of free soil all the 
 way ! Three millions of square miles, and not a 
 foot where a fugitive from Slavery can be safe ! A 
 democracy, and every eighth man bought and sold ! 
 
 It is the richest nation in the world, after England; 
 yet, we are so poor that every eighth man is unable 
 to say that he owns the smallest finger on his fee- 
 blest hand. So poor are we amid our riches, that 
 every eighth woman is to such an extent a pauper 
 that she does not own the baby she has borne ; nor 
 even the baby that she bears. Maternity is put 
 up at public vendue, and the auctioneer says, " So 
 much for the mother and so much for the hopes 
 and expectations of another life that is to be 
 born ! " 
 
 America calls herself " the best educated nation 
 in the world," and yet, in fifteen Democratic States, 
 it is a felony by statute to teach a child to know the 
 three letters which spell " God." What a spectacle 
 is that ! 
 
 Nor is this all ; but able men, well educated and 
 well endowed, come forward to teach us that Slavery 
 
 VOL. I. 34 
 
398 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 is not only no evil, but is " right as a principle," and 
 is "divine" — is a "part of the divine revelation" 
 which the great God miraculously made to man. 
 What a spectacle ! 
 
 Four hundred thousand immigrants come here 
 openly every year, and a thousand fugitives flee oft" 
 by night, escaping from American despotism. They 
 go by the Underground Railroad, shut up in boxes 
 smaller than a coffin, or, as lately happened, riding 
 through the storms of Ocean in the fore-chains of a 
 packet-ship, wet by every dash of the sea, and frozen 
 by the winter's wind. Far off" in the South the 
 spirit of freedom came in the Northern blast to the 
 poor man, and said to him, " It is better to enter 
 into freedom halt and maimed rather than, having 
 two hands and two feet, to continue in bondage for- 
 ever ; " and he puts himself in the fore-chains of a 
 packet-ship, and, half frozen, with the loss of two of 
 his limbs, he reaches the North, and thanks God that 
 he has still one hand and one foot to enter into free- 
 dom with. Alas, he is carried back, halt and 
 maimed, to die ; then he goes from bondage to that 
 other Commonwealth, where even the American 
 slave is free from his master, and Democrats " cease 
 from troubling." 
 
 America translates the Bible — I am glad of it, 
 and would give my mite thereto — into a hundred 
 and forty-seven diff"erent tongues, and sends mission- 
 aries all over the world ; and here at home are three 
 
CONDITION" OF AMERICA. 399 
 
 and a quarter millions of American men who have 
 no Bible, whose only missionary is the overseer. 
 
 In the Hall of Independence, Judge Kane and 
 Judge Grier hold their court. Two great official 
 kidnappers of the middle States hold their slave- 
 court in the very building where the Declaration of 
 Independence was decreed, was signed, and thence 
 published to the world. What a spectacle, it is ! 
 We thought, a little while ago, that Judge Jeffries 
 was a historical fiction ; that Scroggs was impossi- 
 ble; we did not think such a thing could exist. 
 Jeffries is repeated in Philadelphia; Scroggs is 
 brought back to life in New York and Boston and 
 various Northern towns. What a spectacle is that 
 for the Swiss, the German, and the Scandinavian 
 who come here! 
 
 Do these immigrants love American Slavery ? 
 The German, the Swiss, the Scandinavian hate it. 
 I am sorry to say there is one class of men that come 
 here who love it ; it is the class most of all sinned 
 against at home. When the Irishman reaches 
 America, he takes ground against the African. I 
 know there are exceptions, and I would go far to 
 honor them ; but the Lish, as a body, oppose the 
 emancipation of the blacks as a body. Every sect 
 that comes from abroad numbers friends of freedom 
 — except the Catholic. Those who call themselves 
 infidels from Germany do not range on the slave- 
 holder's side. I have known some men who take 
 
400 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 the ghastly and dreadful name of Atheist ; but they 
 said " there is a Law higher than the slaveholder's * 
 statute." But do you know a Catholic priest who 
 is opposed to Slavery ? I 'wish I did. There are 
 good things in the Catholic faith — the Protestants 
 have not wholly outgrown it yet. But I wish I 
 could hear of a single Catholic priest of any 
 eminence who ever cared any thing for the freedom 
 of the most oppressed men in America. I have 
 heard of none. 
 
 Look a little closer. The great interests prized 
 most in America are Commerce and Politics. The 
 great cities are the head-quarters of these. Agricul- 
 ture and the mechanic arts are spread abroad all 
 over the country. Commerce and politics predom- 
 inate in the cities. New York is the metropolis of 
 Commerce ; Washington of Politics. 
 
 What have been the views of American Com- 
 merce in respect to freedom ? It has been against 
 it ; I am sorry to say so. In Europe commerce is the 
 ally of freedom, and has been so far back that the 
 memory of man runs not to the contrary. In Amer- 
 ica, the great commercial centres, ever since the Rev- 
 olution, have been hostile to freedom. In Massa- 
 chusetts we have a few rich men friendly to freedom 
 — they are very few ; the greater part of even Mas- 
 sachusetts capital goes towards bondage — not 
 towards freedom. In general, the chief men of 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 401 
 
 commerce are hostile to it. They want first money, 
 next money, and money last of all ; fairly if they can 
 get it — if not, unfairly. Hence, the commercial 
 cities are the head-quarters of Slavery; all the mer- 
 cantile capitals execute the Fugitive Slave Bill — 
 Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Buffalo, Cincin- 
 nati; — only small towns repudiate man-stealing. 
 The Northern capitalists lend money and take slaves 
 as collateral ; they are good security ; you can realize 
 on it any day. The Northern merchant takes slaves 
 into his ships as merchandise. It pays very well. 
 K you take them on a foreign voyage, it is " pi- 
 racy;" but taken coastwise, the domestic slave-trade 
 is a legal traffic. In 1852, a ship called the " Ed- 
 ward Everett " made two voyages from Baltimore to 
 New Orleans, and each time it carried slaves, once 
 twelve, and once twenty. 
 
 A sea captain in Massachusetts told a story to the 
 commissioners sent to look after the Indians, which 
 I will repeat. He commanded a small brig, which 
 plied between Carolina and the Gulf States. " One 
 day, at Charleston," said he, " a man came and 
 brought to me an old negro slave. He was very old, 
 and had fought in the Revolution, and had been much 
 distinguished for bravery and other soldierly quali- 
 ties. If he had not been a negro, he would have 
 become a Captain at least, perhaps a Colonel. But, 
 in his old age, his master found no use for him, and 
 said he could not afford to keep him. He asked me 
 34* 
 
402 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 to take the revolutionary soldier and carry him South 
 and sell him. I carried him," said the man, " to 
 Mobile, and I tried to get as good and kind a master 
 for him as I could, for I didn't like to sell a man who 
 had fought for his country. I sold the old revolu- 
 tionary soldier for a hundred dollars to a citizen of 
 Mobile, who raised poultry, and he set him to tend a 
 hen-coop." I suppose the South Carolina master, 
 " a true gentleman," drew the pension till the soldier 
 died. " How could you do such a thing ? " said my 
 friend, who was an Anti-Slavery man. " If I didn't 
 do it," he replied, " I never could get another bale of 
 cotton, nor a box of sugar, nor any thing to carry 
 from or to any Southern port." 
 
 In Politics, almost all the leading men have been 
 servants of Slavery. Three " major prophets" of the 
 American Republic have gone home to render their 
 account, where " the servant is free from his master 
 and the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary 
 are at rest." Clay, Calhoun, Webster ; they were all 
 Prophets of Slavery, all against freedom. No men of 
 high political standing and influence have ever lived 
 in this country who were fallen so low in the mire of 
 Slavery as they during the last twenty years. No 
 political footprints have sunk so deep into the soil — 
 all their tracks run towards bondage. Where they 
 marched. Slavery followed. 
 
 Our Presidents must all be pro-slavery men. .Tohn 
 Quincy Adams even, the only American politician. 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 403 
 
 thus far, who inherited a great name and left it 
 greater, as President did nothing against Slavery that 
 has yet come to light ; said nothing against it which 
 has yet come to light. The brave old man, in his 
 latter days, stirred up the nobler nature in him, and 
 amply repaid for the sins of omission. But the other 
 Presidents, a long line of them — Jackson, Van 
 Buren, Harrison, — they are growing smaller and 
 smaller, — Tyler, Polk, Taylor, who was a brave, 
 earnest man, and had a great deal of good in him — 
 and now they begin rapidly to grow very small, — 
 Fillmore, Pierce — can you find a single breath of 
 freedom in these men? Not one. The last slave 
 President, though his cradle was rocked in New 
 Hampshire, is Texan in his latitude. He swears 
 allegiance to Slavery in his inaugural address. 
 
 Is there a breath of freedom in the great federal 
 officers — secretaries, judges ? Ask the Cabinet ; 
 ask the Supreme Court; the federal officers. They 
 are, almost without exception, servants of slavery. 
 Out of forty thousand government officers to-day, I 
 think thirty-seven thousand are strongly pro-slavery ; 
 and of the three thousand who are at heart anti- 
 slavery, we have yet to listen long before we shall 
 hear the first anti-slavery lisp. I have been listen- 
 ing ever since the fourth of March, 1853, and have 
 not heard a word yet. In the English Cabinet there are 
 various opinions on important matters ; here the ad- 
 ministration is a unit, a unit of bondage. In Russia, 
 
404 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 a revolutionary man sometimes holds a high post and 
 does great service ; in America, none but the servant 
 of Slavery is fit for the political functions of Democ- 
 racy. I believe, in the United States there is not a 
 single editor holding a government office who says 
 any thing against the Nebraska bill. They do not 
 dare. Did a Whig office-holder oppose the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill or its enforcement ? I never heard of one. 
 The day of office, like the day of bondage, " takes off 
 half a man's manhood," and the other half it hides ! 
 A little while ago, an Anti- Slavery man in Massa- 
 chusetts carried a remonstrance against the Nebraska 
 bill, signed by almost every voter in his town, to the 
 postmaster, and asked him, " Will you sign it ? " 
 " No, I shan't," said he. » Why not ? " Before he 
 answered, one of his neighbors said, " Well, I would 
 not sign it if I was he." " Why not ? " said the man. 
 " Because if he did, he would be tm*ned out of office 
 in twenty -four hours; the next telegraph would do 
 the business for him." "Well," said my friend, " if I 
 held an office on that condition, I would get the big- 
 gest brass dog-collar I could find and put it round 
 my neck, and have my owner's name on it, in great, 
 large letters, so that everybody might see whose dog 
 I was." 
 
 In the individual States, I think there is not a 
 single Anti-Slavery governor. I believe Vermont 
 is the only State with an Anti-Slavery Supreme 
 Court; and that is the only State which has not 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 405 
 
 much concern in commerce or manufactures. It is 
 a State of farmers. 
 
 For a long time the American Government has 
 been controlled by Slavery. There is an old story 
 told by the Hebrew rabbis, that before the flood 
 there was an enormous giant, called Gog. After 
 the flood had got into the full tide of successful ex- 
 periment, and every man was drowned except those 
 taken into the ark, Gog came striding along after 
 Noah, feeling his way with a cane as long as a 
 mast of the " Great Republic." The water had only 
 come up to his girdle. It was then over the hill 
 tops and was still rising — raining night and day. 
 The giant hailed the Patriarch. Noah put his head 
 out of the window, and said, " Who is there ? " " It 
 is I," said Gog. " Take us in ; it is wet outside ! " 
 " No," said Noah, " You 're too big ; no room. Be- 
 sides, you 're a bad character. You would be a very 
 dangerous passenger, and would make trouble in the 
 ark ; 1 shall not take you in. You may get on top 
 if you like ; " and he clapped to the window. " Go 
 to thunder," said Gog ; " I will ride, after all."» And 
 he strode after him, wading through the waters ; and 
 mounting on the top of the ark, with one leg over 
 the larboard and the other over the starboard side, 
 steered it just as he pleased and made it rough 
 weather inside. Now, in making the Constitution, 
 we did not care to take in Slavery in express terms. 
 
406 CONDITION OP AMERICA. 
 
 It looked ugly. We allowed it to get on the top 
 astride, and now steers us just where it pleases. 
 
 The Slave Power controls the President, and fills 
 all the offices. Out of the twelve elected Presidents, 
 four have been from the North, and the last of them 
 might just as well have been taken by lot at the 
 South anywhere. Mr. Pierce, I just now said, was 
 Texan in his latitude. His conscience is Texan; 
 only his cradle was of New Hampshiie. Of the 
 nine Judges of the Supreme Court, five are frorai 
 the slave States ; the Chief-Justice is from the slave 
 States ; all slave Judges. A part of the Cabinet are 
 fi*om the North — I forget how many ; it makes no 
 difference ; they are all of the same Southern com- 
 plexion ; and the man who was taken from the 
 furthest north, I think is most southern in his 
 Slavery proclivities. 
 
 The nation fluctuates in its policy. Now it is for 
 internal improvements ; then it is against them. Now 
 it is for a bank ; then a bank is " unconstitutional." 
 Now it is for free trade ; then for protection ; then for 
 free tr£|^e again — " protection is altogether unconsti- 
 tutionat." Mr. Calhoun turned clear round. — When 
 the North went for free trade and grew rich by that, 
 Calhoun did not like it, and wanted protection : he 
 thought the South would grow rich by it. But 
 when the North grew rich under protection, he turned 
 round to free trade again. Now the nation is for 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 407 
 
 giving away the public lands. Sixteen millions of 
 acres of " swamp lands " are given, within seven 
 years, to States. Twenty-five millions of the public 
 lands are given away gratuitously to soldiers — six 
 millions in a single year. Forty-seven millions of 
 the public lands to seventeen States for schools, col- 
 leges, etc. Forty-seven thousand acres for deaf and 
 dumb asylums. And look ; just now it changes its 
 policy, and Mr. Pierce is opposed to granting any 
 land — " it is not constitutional " — to Miss Dix, to 
 make the insane sober and bring them to their right 
 minds. He may have a private reason for keeping 
 the people in a state of craziness, for aught I 
 know. 
 
 The public policy changes in these matters. It 
 never changes in respect to Slavery. Be the Whigs 
 in power. Slavery is Whig ; be the Democrats, it is 
 Democratic. At first, Slavery was an exceptional 
 measure, and men tried to apologize for it and excuse 
 it. Now it is a Normal Principle, and the institution 
 must be defended and enlarged. 
 
 Commercial men must be moved, I suppose, by 
 commercial arguments. Look, then, at this state- 
 ment of facts. 
 
 Slavery is unprofitable for the people. America is 
 poorer for Slavery. I am speaking in the great focus 
 of American commerce — the third city for popula- 
 
408 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 tion and riches in the Christian world. Let me, 
 therefore, talk about Dollars. America, I say, is 
 poorer for Slavery. If the three and a quarter mill- 
 ions of slaves were freemen, how much richer would 
 she be ? There is no State in the Union but it is 
 poorer for Slavery. It is a bad tool to work with. 
 The educated freeman is the best working power in 
 the world. 
 
 Compare the North with the South, and see what 
 a difference in riches, comfort, education. See the 
 superiority of the North. But the South started 
 with every advantage of nature — soil, climate, every 
 thing. To make the case plainer, let me take two 
 great States, Virginia and New York. Compare 
 them together. 
 
 In geographical position, Virginia has every ad- 
 vantage over New York. Almost every thing that 
 will grow in the Union will grow somewhere in Vir- 
 ginia, save sugar. The largest ships can sail up the 
 Potomac a hundred miles, as far as Alexandria. The 
 Rappahannock, York, James, are all navigable rivers. 
 The Ohio flanks Virginia more than three hundred 
 miles. There are sixty miles of navigation on the 
 Kanawha*. New York has a single navigable stream 
 with not a hundred and fifty miles of navigation, 
 from Troy to the ocean. Virginia has the best harbor 
 on the Atlantic coast, and several smaller ones. Your 
 State has but a single maritime port. Virginia 
 abounds in water power for mills. I stood once on 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 409 
 
 the steps of the Capitol at Washington and within 
 six miles of me, under my eyes, there was a water 
 power greater than that which turns the mills of 
 Lawrence, Lowell, and Manchester, all put together. 
 In 1836, it did not turn a wheel ; now, I am told, it 
 drives a grist-mill. No State is so rich in water 
 power. The Alleghanies are a great water-shed, and 
 at the eaves the streams rush forward as if impatient 
 to turn mills. Virginia is full of minerals — coal, 
 iron, lead, copper, salt. Her agricultural resources 
 are immense. What timber clothes her mountains ! 
 what a soil for Indian corn, wheat, tobacco, rice ! 
 even cotton grows in the southern part. Washington 
 said the central counties of Virginia were the best 
 land in the United States. Daniel Webster, reporting 
 to Virginians of his European tour, said, he saw " no 
 lands in Europe so good as the valley of the Shen- 
 andoah." Virginia is rich in mountain pastures favor- 
 able to sheep and horned cattle. Nature gives Vir- 
 ginia all that can be asked of Nature. What a 
 position for agriculture, manufactures, mining, com- 
 merce ! Norfolk is a hundred miles nearer Chicago 
 than New York is, but she has no intercourse with 
 Chicago. It is three hundred miles nearer the mouth 
 of the Ohio ; but if a Norfolk man wants to go to 
 St. Louis, I believe his quickest way lies through 
 New York. It is not a day's sail further from Liver- 
 pool ; it is nearer to the Mediterranean and South 
 American ports. But what is Norfolk, with her 
 VOL. I. 35 
 
410 COXDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 23,000 tons of shipping and her fourteen thousand 
 population ? What is Richmond, with her twenty- 
 seven thousand men — ten thousand of them slaves ? 
 Nay, what is Virginia herself, the very oldest State ? 
 Let me cypher out some numerical details. 
 
 In 1790, she had 748,000 inhabitants; now she 
 has 1,421,000. She has not doubled in sixty years. 
 In 1790, New York had 340,000; now she has 
 3,048,000. She has multiplied her population almost 
 ten times. In Virginia, in 1850, there were only 
 452,000 more freemen than sixty years before; in 
 New York, there were 2,724,000 more freemen than 
 there were in 1790. There are only 165,000 dwell- 
 ings in Virginia ; 463,000 in New York. Then the 
 Virginia farms were worth $216,000,000 ; yours, 
 $554,000,000 ; Virginia is wholly agricultural, while 
 you are also manufacturing and commercial. Her 
 farm tools were worth $7,000,000 ; yours, $22,000,- 
 000. Her cattle, $33,000,000; yours, $73,000,000. 
 The orchard products of Virginia were worth $177,- 
 000 ; of New York, $1,762,000. Virginia had 478 
 miles of railroad ; you had 1,826 miles. She had 
 74,000 tons of shipping; you had 942,000. The 
 value of her cotton factories was not two millions ; 
 the value of yours was four and a quarter millions. 
 She produced $841,000 worth of woollen goods; 
 you produced $7,030,000. Her furnaces produced 
 two millions and a half; yours produced eight mil- 
 lions : her tanneries $894,000; yours, $9,804,000. 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 411 
 
 All of her manufactures together were not worth 
 $9,000,000 ; those of the city of New York alone, 
 have an annual value of $105,000,000. Her attend- 
 ance at school was 109,000 ; yours, 693,000. 
 
 But there is one thing in which Virginia is far in 
 advance of you. Of native Virginians, over twenty 
 years old, who could not read the name of " Christ" 
 nor the word "God" — free white people who can- 
 not spell " Democrat" — there were 87,383. That is, 
 out of every five hundred free white persons, there 
 were one hundred and five that could not spell 
 Pierce. In New York there are 30,670 — no more ; 
 so that out of five hundred persons, there are six that 
 cannot read and write. Virginia is advancing rap- 
 idly upon you in this respect. In 1840 she had only 
 58,787 adults who could not read and write ; now 
 28,596 more. So you see she is advancing! 
 
 Virginia has 87 newspapers ; New York, 428. 
 The Virginia newspaper circulation is 89,000 ; the 
 New York newspaper pirculation is 1,622,000. The 
 Tribune — and I think it is the best paper there is in 
 the world — has an aggregate circulation of 110,000 ; 
 20,000 more than all the newspapers of Virginia. 
 Virginia prints every year 9,000,000 copies of news- 
 papers, all told. New York prints 115,000,000. 
 The New York Tribune prints 15,000,000 — more 
 than the whole State of Virginia put together. 
 Such is the state of things counted in the gross, but 
 I think the New York quality is as much better as 
 the quantity is more. 
 
412 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 Virginia has 88,000 books in libraries not private ; 
 New York 1,760,000, — more than twenty times as 
 much. Virginia exports $3,500,000 worth each year ; 
 New York $53,000,000. Vii-ginia imports $426,000 ; 
 New York, $111,000,000. But in one article of ex- 
 port she is in advance of you — she sends to the 
 man-markets of the South about $10,000,000 or 
 $12,000,000 worth of her children every year ; ex- 
 ports slaves! The estimated value of all the prop- 
 erty real and personal in the State of Virginia, in- 
 cluding slaves, is $430,701,882; of New York 
 $1,080,000,000, without estimating the value of the 
 men who own it. Virginia has got 472,528 slaves. 
 I will estimate them at less than the market value — 
 at $400 each ; they come to $189,000,000. I sub- 
 tract the value of the working people of Virginia, 
 and she is worth not quite $242,000,000. Now, the 
 State of New York might buy up all the property of 
 Virginia, including the slaves, and still have $649,- 
 000,000 left ; might buy up all the real and personal 
 property of Virginia, except the working-men, and 
 have $838,000,000 left. The North appropriates the 
 rivers, the mines, the harbors, the forests, fire and 
 water — the South kidnaps men. Behold the com- 
 mercial result. 
 
 Virginia is a great State — very great ! You do not 
 know how great she is. I will read it to you presently. 
 Things are great and small by comparison. I am 
 quoting again from the Richmond Examiner (March 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 413 
 
 24, 1854). " Virginia in this confederacy is the im- 
 personation of the well-born, well-educated, well- 
 bred aristocrat " [well born, while the children of 
 Jefferson and the only children of Madison are a 
 " connecting link between the human and brute cre- 
 ation ; " well educated, with twenty-one per cent, of 
 her white adults unable to read the vote they cast 
 against the unalienable rights of man ; well bred, 
 when her great product for exportation is — the 
 children of her own loins! Slavery is a "patriarchal 
 institution ; " the democratic Abrahams of Virginia 
 do not otfer up their Isaacs to the Lord ; that w ould 
 be a " sacrifice," they only sell them. So] ; " she looks 
 down from her elevated pedestal upon her parvoiuc, 
 ignorant, mendacious Yankee vilifiers, as coldly and 
 calmly as a marble statue ; occasionally, she conde- 
 scends to recognize the existence of her adversaries 
 at the very moment when she crushes them. But 
 she does it without anger, and with no more hatred 
 of them than the gardener feels towards the insects 
 which he finds it necessary occasionally to destroy." 
 " She feels that she is the sword and buckler of the 
 South — that it is her influence which has so fre- 
 quently defeated and driven back in dismay the 
 Abolition party when flushed by temporary victory. 
 Brave, calm, and determined, wise in times of excite- 
 ment, always true to the Slave Power, never rash or 
 indiscreet, the waves of Northern fanaticism burst 
 harmless at her feet ; the contempt for her Northern 
 
 35* 
 
414 ' CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 revilers is the result of her consciousness of her in- 
 fluence in the political world. She makes and un- 
 makes Presidents ; she dictates her terms to the 
 Northern Democracy and they obey her. She selects 
 from among the faithful of the North a man upon 
 whom she can rely, and she makes him President." 
 This latter is true ! The opinion of Richmond is 
 of more weight than the- opinion of New York. 
 Slavery, the political Gog on the outside, steers the 
 ark of commercial Noah, and makes it rough or 
 smooth weather inside, just as he likes. 
 
 " In the early days of the Republic, the superior 
 sagacity of her statesmen enabled them to rivet so 
 firmly the shackles of the slave, that the Abolition- 
 ists will never be able to unloose them." 
 
 " A wide and impassable gulf separates the noble, 
 proud, glorious Old Dominion from her Northern 
 traducers ; the mastiff dare not willingly assail the 
 skunk I " " When Virginia takes the field, she 
 crushes the whole Abolition party ; her slaughter is 
 wholesale, and a hundred thousand Abolitionists are 
 cut down when she issues her commands ! " 
 
 Again, (April 4th, 1854,) "A hundred Southern 
 gentlemen, armed with riding-whips, could chase 
 an army of invading Abolitionists into the Atlantic." 
 In reference to the project at the North of send- 
 ing Northern Abolitionists along with the Northern 
 Slave-breeders to Nebraska, to put freedom into the 
 soil before Slavery gets there, the Examiner says : 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 415 
 
 " Why, a hundred wild, lank, half-horse, half-alli- 
 gator Missouri and Arkansas emigrants would, if so 
 disposed, chase out of Nebraska and Kansas all the 
 Abolitionists who have figured for the last twenty 
 years at Anti-Slavery meetings." 
 
 I say Slavery is not profitable for the Nation nor 
 for a State, but it is profitable for Slave-owners. 
 You will see why. If the Northern capitalist 
 owned the weavers and spinners at Lowell and 
 Lawrence, New England would be poorer ; and the 
 working-men would not be so well off", or so well- 
 educated ; but Undershot and Overshot, Turbine 
 Brothers, Spindle & Co., would be richer and would 
 get larger dividends. Land monopoly in England 
 enfeebles the island, but enriches the aristocracy. 
 How poor, ill-fed and ill-clad were the French 
 peasants before the revolution ; how costly was the 
 chateau of the noble. Monopoly was bad for the 
 people ; profitable for the rich men. How poor are 
 the peasants in Italy; how wealthy the Cardinals 
 and the Pope. Oppression enriches the oppressor ; 
 it makes poorer the downtrodden. Piracy is very 
 costly to the merchant and to mankind ; but it feeds 
 the pirate. Slavery impoverishes Virginia, but it en- 
 riches the master. It gives him money — commer- 
 cial power, — office — political power. The slave- 
 holder is drawn in his triumphal chariot by two 
 chattels ; one, the poor black man, whom he " owns 
 
416 CONDITION OP AMERICA. 
 
 legally;" the other, is the poor white man, whom 
 he " owns morally " and harnesses to his chariot. 
 Hence these American lords of the lash, cleave to 
 this institution — they love it. To the slaveholders, 
 Slavery is money and power ! 
 
 Now the South, weak in numbers, feeble in re- 
 spect to money, has continually directed the politics 
 of America, just as she would. Her ignorance and 
 poverty were more efficacious than the northern 
 riches and education. She is in earnest for Slavery; 
 the North not in earnest for freedom I only earnest 
 for money. So long as the Federal Government 
 grinds the axes of the northern merchant, he cares 
 little whether the stone is turned by the free man's 
 labor or the slave's. Hence, the great centres of 
 northern commerce and manufactures are also the 
 great centres of pro-slavery politics. Philadelphia, 
 New York, Boston, Buffalo, Cincinnati, they all liked 
 the Fugitive Slave Bill ; all took pains to seize the 
 fugitive who fled to a Northern altar for freedom ; 
 nay, the most conspicuous clergymen in those cities 
 became apostles of Kidnapping; their churches 
 were of Commerce, not Christianity. The North 
 yielded to that last most insolent demand. Under 
 the influence of that excitement she chose the pres- 
 ent Administration, the present Congress. Now 
 see the result ! Whig and Democrat meet on the 
 same platform at Baltimore. It was the platform of 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 417 
 
 Slavery. Both candidates — Scott and Pierce — 
 gave in their allegiance to the same measure ; it 
 was the measure which nullifies the fiirst principles 
 of American Independence — they were sworn on 
 the Fugitive Slave Bill. Whig and Democrat 
 knew no " Higher Law," only the statute of slave- 
 holders. Conscience bent down before the Constitu- 
 tion. What sort of a government can you expect 
 from such conduct I What Representatives! Just 
 what you have got. Sow the wind, will you ? then 
 reap the whirlwind. Mr. Pierce said in his Inaugu- 
 ral, " I believe that involuntary servitude is recog- 
 nized by the Constitution ; " " that it stands like any 
 other admitted right. I hold that the Compromise 
 measures, [that is, the Fugitive Slave Bill,] are 
 strictly Constitutional and to be unhesitatingly car- 
 ried into effect." The laws to secure the master's 
 right to capture a man in the free States " should be 
 respected and obeyed, not with a reluctance encour- 
 aged by abstract opinions as to their propriety in a 
 different state of Society, but cheerfully and accord- 
 ing to the decision of the tribunal to which their 
 exposition belongs." These words were historical, 
 — reminiscences of the time when " no Higher 
 Law" was the watchword of the American State 
 and the American Church ; they were prophetic — 
 ominous of what we see to-day. 
 
 I. Here is the Gadsden Treaty which has just been 
 
418 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 negotiated. How bad it is I cannot say ; only this : 
 If I am rightly informed, a tract of 39,000,000 acres, 
 larger than all Virginia, is "reannexed" to the slave 
 soil which the " flag of our Union " already waves 
 over. The whole thing, when it is fairly understood 
 by the public, I think will be seen to be a more 
 iniquitous matter than this Nebraska wickedness. 
 
 II. Then comes the Nebraska bill, yet to be con- 
 summated. While we are sitting here in cold de- 
 bate, it may be the measure has passed. From the 
 beginning I have never had any doubts that it would 
 pass. If it could not be put through this session — 
 as I thought it would — I felt sure that before this 
 Congress goes out of office, Nebraska would be 
 slave soil. You see what a majority there was in 
 the Senate ; you see what a majority there is in the 
 House. I know there is an opposition — and most 
 brilliantly conducted, too, by the few faithful men ; 
 but see this : The Administration has yet three years 
 to run. There is an annual income of sixty millions 
 of dollars. There are forty thousand offices to be 
 disposed of — four thousand very valuable. And do 
 you think that a Democratic Administration, with 
 that amount of offices, of money and time, cannot 
 buy up northern doughfaces enough to carry any 
 measure it pleases ? I know better. Once I thought 
 that Texas could not be annexed. It was done. I 
 learned wisdom from that. I have taken counsel 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 419 
 
 of my fears. I have not seen any barrier on which 
 the North would rally that we have come to yet. 
 There are some things behind us. John Randolph 
 said, years ago, " We will drive you from pillar to 
 post, back, back, back." He has been as good as his 
 word. We have been driven ~" back, back, back." 
 But we cannot be driven much further. There is a 
 spot where we shall stop. I am afraid w^e have not 
 come to it yet. I will say no more about it just now 
 
 — because not many weeks ago I stood here and 
 said a great deal.* You have listened to me when 
 I was feeble and hollow-voiced ; I will not tax your 
 patience now, for in this, as in a celebrated feast of 
 old, they have " kept the good wine until now ! " 
 (alluding to Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips who were 
 to follow). 
 
 If the Nebraska bill is defeated, I shall rejoice that 
 iniquity is foiled once more. But if it become a law 
 
 — there are some things which seem probable. 
 
 1. On the Fourth of March, 1857, the » Demo- 
 crats" will have "leave to withdraw" from oJfRce. 
 
 2. Every Northern man who has taken a promi- 
 nent stand in behalf of Slavery will be politically 
 ruined. You know what befell the Northern poli- 
 ticians who voted for the Missouri Compromise ; a 
 similar fate hangs over such as enslave Nebraska. 
 Already, Mr. Everett is, theologically speaking, 
 
 ' * See above p. 295, et seq. 
 
420 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 among the " lost ; " and of all the three thousand 
 New England ministers whose petition he dared not 
 present, not one will ever pray for his political sal- 
 vation. 
 
 Pause with me and drop a' tear over the ruin of 
 Edward Everett, a man of large talents and com- 
 mensurate industry, very learned, the most scholarly 
 man, perhaps, in the country, with a persuasive 
 beauty of speech only equalled by this American 
 [Mr. Phillips], who therein surpasses him ; he has 
 had a long career of public service, public honor — 
 Clergyman, Professor, Editor, Representative, Gov- 
 ernor, Ambassador, President of Harvard College, 
 Senator, alike the Ornament and the Auxiliary of 
 many a learned Society — he yet comes to such an 
 end. 
 
 " This is the state of man ; to-day, he puts forth 
 The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow, blossoms, 
 And bears his blushing honors thick upon him ; 
 The third day comes a frost, Nebraska's frost ; 
 And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely, 
 His greatness is a ripening, nips his root. 
 And then he falls . 
 
 " O how wretched 
 Is that poor man that hangs on public favors ! 
 There is betwixt that smile he would aspire to, 
 That sweet aspect of voters, and their ruin, 
 More pangs and fears than wars or women have ; 
 And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, 
 Never to hope again ! " 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 421 
 
 Mr. Douglas also is finished ; the success of his 
 measure is his own defeat. Mr. Pierce has three 
 short years to serve ; then there will be one more Ex- 
 President — ranking with Tyler and Fillmore. Mr.. 
 Seward need not agitate, 
 
 " Let it work 
 
 For 't is the sport to have the enginer 
 Hoise with his own petar." 
 
 III. The next thing is the enslavement of Cuba. 
 That is a very serious matter. It has been desired a 
 long time. Lopez, a Spanish fillibuster, undertook 
 it and was legally put to death. I am not an advo- 
 cate for the garrot^, but I think, all things taken into 
 consideration, that he did not meet with a very inad- 
 equate mode of death, and I believe such is the gen- 
 eral opinion, not only in Cuba, but in the United 
 States. But Young America is not content with, 
 that. Mr. Dean, a little while ago, in the House, 
 proposed to repeal the neutrality laws — to set filli- 
 busterism on its legs again. You remember the 
 President's message about the " Black Warrior " — 
 how black-warrior-like it was ; and then comes the 
 "unanimous resolution" of the Louisiana legisla- 
 ture asking the United States to interfere and declare 
 war, in case Cuba should undertake to emancipate 
 her slaves. Senator Slidell's speech is still tingling 
 in our ears, asking the government to repeal the neu- 
 
 VOL. I. 36 
 
422 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 trality laws and allow every pirate who pleases to 
 land in Cuba and burn and destroy. You know 
 Mr. Soul^'s conduct in Madrid. It is rumored that 
 he has been authorized to offer $250,000,000 for 
 Cuba. The sum is enormous ; but when you consider 
 the character of this administration and the Inau- 
 gural of President Pierce, the unscrupulous abuse 
 made of public money, I do not think it is a very 
 extraordinary supposition. 
 
 But this matter of getting possession of Cuba is 
 something dangerous as well as difficult. There are 
 three conceivable ways of acquiring it. 
 
 One is by buying, and that I take it is wholly out 
 of the question. K I am rightly informed, there is 
 a certain Spanish debt owing to Englishmen, and 
 that Cuba is somehow pledged as a sort of collateral 
 security for the Spanish Bonds. I take it for granted 
 that Cuba is not to be bought for many years with- 
 out the interference of England, and depend upon it 
 England will not allow it to be sold for the establish- 
 ment of Slavery ; for I think it is pretty well under- 
 stood by politicians that there is a regular agreement 
 entered into between Spain on the one side and Eng- 
 land on the other, that at a certain period within 
 twenty five years every slave in Cuba shall be set 
 free. I believe this is known to men somewhat 
 versed in the secret history of the two Cabinets of 
 England and of Spain. England has the same wish 
 for land which fires our Anglo-Saxon blood. She 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 423 
 
 has islands in the West Indies ; the Moro in Cuba 
 is only a hundred miles from Jamaica. If we get 
 Cuba for Slavery, we shall next want the British 
 West Indies for the same institution. Cuba filled 
 with fillibusters would be a dangerous neighbor to 
 Jamaica. 
 
 The second way is by fillibustering ; and that Mr. 
 Slidell and Mr. Dean want to try. The third is by 
 open war. Now, fillibusterism will lead to open 
 war, so I will consider only this issue. 
 
 I know that Americans will fight more desperately, 
 perhaps, on land or sea, than any other people. But 
 fighting is an ugly business, especially with such an- 
 tagonists as we shall have in this case. It is a mat- 
 ter well understood that the Captain- General of 
 Cuba has a paper in his possession authorizing him 
 discretionally to free the slaves and put arms in their 
 hands whenever it is thought necessary. It is rather 
 difficult to get at the exact statistics of Cuba. There 
 has been no census since 1842, when the population 
 was estimated at a million. I will reckon it now at 
 1,300,000 — 700,000 blacks, and 600,000 whites. Of 
 the 700,000 blacks, half a million are slaves and two 
 hundred thousand free men. Now, a black free man 
 in Cuba is a very different person from the black free 
 man in the United States. He has rights. He is 
 not turned out of the omnibus, nor the meeting- 
 house, nor the graveyard. He is respected by the 
 law ; he respects himself, and is a formidable person ; 
 
424 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 let the blacks be furnished with arms, they are dan- 
 gerous foes. And remember there are mountain fast- 
 nesses in the centre of the island ; that it is as de- 
 fensible as St. Domingo; and has a very unhealthy 
 climate for Northern men. The Spaniard would 
 have great allies : the vomito is there ; typhoid, dys- 
 entery, yellow fever, the worst of all, is there. A 
 Northern army even of fillibusters would fight 
 against the most dreadful odds. " The Lord from 
 on high," as the old Hebrews say, would fight 
 against the Northern men ; the pestilence that swept 
 off Sennacharib's host would not respect the filli- 
 buster. 
 
 That is not all. What sort of a navy has Spain ? 
 One hundred and seventy-nine ships of war ! They 
 are small mostly, but they carry over 1,400 cannon, 
 and 24,000 men — 15,000 marines and 9,000 sail- 
 ors. The United States has seventy -five ships of war ; 
 2,200 cannon, 14,000 men — large ships, heavy can- 
 non. That is not all. Spaniards fight desperately^ 
 A Spanish Armada I should not be very much afraid 
 of; but Spain will issue letters of marque, and a 
 Portuguese or Spanish pirate is rather an uncom- 
 fortable being to meet. Our commerce is spread over 
 all the seas ; there is no mercantile marine so unpro- 
 tected. Our ships do not carry muskets, still less 
 cannon, since pirates have been sw^ept off the sea. 
 Let Spain issue letters of marque, England winking 
 at it, and Algerine pirates from out the Barbary 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 425 
 
 States of Africa, and other pirates from the Brazilian, 
 Mexican, and the West Indian ports, would prowl 
 about the coast of the Mediterranean and over all 
 the bosom of the Atlantic ; and then where would be 
 our commerce ? The South has nothing to fear from 
 that. She has no shipping. Yes, Norfolk has 
 23,000 tons. The South is not afraid. The North 
 has four million tons of shipping. Touch the 
 commerce of a Northern man, and you touch his 
 heart. 
 
 England has conceded to us as a measure just 
 what we asked. We have always declared, " free 
 ships make free goods." England said " Enemies' 
 goods make enemies' ships." Now she has not af- 
 firmed our Principle ; she has assented to our Meas- 
 ure. That is all you can expect her to do. But if 
 we repeal our neutrality laws and seek to get Cuba 
 in order to establish Slavery there, endangering the 
 interests of England and the freedom of her colored 
 citizens, depend upon it, England will not suffer this 
 to be done without herself interfering. If she is so 
 deeply immersed in European wars that she cannot 
 interfere directly, she will indirectly. But I have 
 not thought that England and France are to be 
 much engaged in a European war. I suppose the 
 intention of the American Cabinet is to seize Cuba 
 as soon as the British and Russians are fairly fight- 
 ing, thinking that England will not interfere. But in 
 " this war of elder sons " which now goes on for the 
 36* 
 
426 CONDITION OF AMERICA. • 
 
 dismemberment of Turkey, it is not clear that Eng- 
 land will be so deeply engaged that she cannot at- 
 tend to her domestic affairs, or the interest of her 
 West Indies. I think these powers are going to 
 divide Turkey between them, but I do not believe 
 they are going to do much fighting there. If we are 
 bent on seizing Cuba, a long and ruinous fight is a 
 thing that ought to enter into men's calculations. 
 Now, let such a naval warfare take place, and how 
 will your insurance stock look in New York, Phila- 
 delphia, and Boston ? How will your merchants look 
 when reports come one after another that your ships 
 are carried in as prizes by Spain, or sunk on the 
 ocean after they have been plundered ? I speak in 
 the great commercial metropolis of America. I wish 
 these things to be seriously considered by mercantile 
 men. Let the Northern men look out for their own 
 ships. 
 
 But here is a matter which the South may think 
 of. In case of foreign war, the North will not be 
 the battle field. An invading army would attack the 
 South. Who would defend it — the local militia, 
 the " Chivalry " of South Carolina, the " gentlemen " 
 of Virginia, who are to slaughter a hundred thou- 
 sand Abolitionists in a day ? Let an army set foot 
 on Southern soil, with a few black regiments ; let 
 the commander offer freedom to all the Slaves, and 
 put arms in their hands ; let him ask them to burn 
 houses and butcher men ; and there would be a state 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 427 
 
 of things not quite so pleasant for " gentlemen " of 
 the South to look at. " They that laughed at the 
 grovelling worm and trod on him, may cry and howl 
 when they see the stoop of the flying and fiery- 
 mouthed dragon ! " Now, there is only one opinion 
 about the valor of President Pierce. Like the sword 
 of Hudibras, it cut into itself, 
 
 " for lack 
 
 Of other stuff to hew and hack." 
 
 But would he like to stand with such a fire in his 
 rear ? Set a house on fire by hot shot, and you do 
 not know how much of it will burn down. 
 
 IV. Well, if Nebraska is made a slave territory, 
 as I suppose it will be, the next thing is the posses- 
 sion of Cuba. Then the war against Spain will 
 come, as I think, inevitably. But even if we do not 
 get Cuba, Slavery must be extended to other parts of 
 the Union. This may be done judicially, by the 
 Supreme Court — one of the most powerful agents to 
 destroy local self-government and legalize centraliza- 
 tion ; or legislatively by Congress. Already Slavery 
 is established in California. An attempt, you know, 
 was made to establish it in Illinois. Senator 
 Toombs, the other day, boasted to Mr. John P. Hale, 
 that it would " not be long before the slaveholder 
 would sit down at the foot of Bunker Hill monument 
 with his slaves." You and I may live to see it — at 
 
428 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 least to see the attempt made. A writer in a promi- 
 nent Southern journal, the Charleston Courier (of 
 March 16, 1854), declares "that domestic Slavery is 
 a constitutional institution and cannot be prohibited 
 in a territory by either territorial or congressional 
 legislation. It is recognized by the Constitution as 
 an existing and lawful institution . . . and by 
 the recognition and establishment of Slavery eo 
 nomine in the District of Columbia, under the consti- 
 tutional provision for the acquisition of and exclusive 
 legislation over such a capitoline district ; and by 
 that clause also which declares that the citizens of 
 each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and 
 immunities of citizens in the several States." " The 
 citizens of any State . . . cannot be constitution- 
 ally denied the equal right ... of sojourning or 
 settling . . . with their man-servants and maid- 
 servants ... in any portion of the wide spread 
 Canaan which the Lord their God hath given them, 
 there to dwell unmolested in person or property." 
 Admirable exposition of the Constitution ! The 
 free black man must be shut up in jail if he goes 
 from Boston in a ship to Charleston, but the slave- 
 holder may bring his slaves to Massachusetts and 
 dwell there, unmolested with his property in men. 
 South Carolina has a white population of 274,567 
 persons, considerably less than half the population of 
 this city. But if South Carolina says to the State of 
 New York, with three million men in it. Let us bring 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 429 
 
 our slaves to New York, what will the " Hards " and 
 the " Softs " and the " Silver Greys " answer ? Gen- 
 tlemen, we shall hear what we shall hear. I fear that 
 not an office-holder of any note would oppose the 
 measure. It might be carried with the present Su- 
 preme Court, or Congress, I make no doubt. 
 
 But this is not the end. After the Gadsden 
 Treaty, the enslavement of Nebraska, the extension 
 of Slavery to the free States, the seizure of Cuba, 
 with other Islands — San Domingo, etc., — there is 
 one step more — the Re-establishment of the 
 African Slave-Trade. 
 
 A recent number of the Southern Standard thus 
 develops the thought : " With firmness and judg- 
 ment we can open up the African slave emigration 
 again to people the whole region of the tropics. 
 We can boldly defend this upon the most enlarged 
 system of philanthropy. It is far better for the wild 
 races of Africa themselves." " The good old Las 
 Casas, in 1519, was the first to advise Spain to 
 import Africans to her colonies. . . . Experience 
 has shown his scheme was founded in wise and 
 Christian philanthropy. . . . The time is coming 
 when we will boldly defend this emigration [kidnap- 
 ping men in Africa and selling them in the ' Chris- 
 tian Republic '] before the world. The hypocritical 
 cant and whining morality of the latter-day saints 
 will die away before the majesty of commerce. . . . 
 
430 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 We have too long been governed by psalm-sing- 
 ing schoolmasters from the North. . . . The folly 
 commenced in our own government uniting with 
 Great Britain to declare slave-importing piracy." 
 ..." A general rupture in Europe would force 
 upon us the undisputed sway of the Gulf of 
 Mexico and the West Indies. . . . With Cuba and 
 St. Domingo, we could control the . . . power of 
 the world. Our true policy is to look to Brazil as 
 the next great slave power. ... A treaty of com- 
 merce and alliance with Brazil will give us the con- 
 trol over the Gulf of Mexico and its border coun- 
 tries, together with the islands ; and the consequence 
 of this will place African Slavery beyond the reach 
 of fanaticism at home or abroad. These two great 
 slave powers . . . ought to guard and strengthen 
 their mutual interests. . . . We can not only preserve 
 domestic servitude, but we can defy the power 
 of the world." ..." The time will come that all 
 the islands and regions suited to African Slavery, 
 between us and Brazil, will fall under the control of 
 these two powers. ... In a few years there will 
 be no investment for the $200,000,000 ... so 
 profitable ... as the development ... of the tropi- 
 cal regions " [that is as the African slave-trade.] 
 ..." If the slave-holding race in these States are 
 but true to themselves, they have a great destiny be- 
 fore them." 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 431 
 
 Now, gentlemen and ladies, who is to blame that 
 things have come to such a pass as this ? The 
 South and the North ; but the North much more 
 than the South, very much more. Gentlemen, we 
 let Gog get upon the Ark; we took pay for his 
 passage. Our most prominent men in Church and 
 State have sworn allegiance to Gog. But this is 
 not always to last ; there is a day after to-day — a 
 Forever behind each to-day. 
 
 The North should to have fought Slavery at the 
 adoption of the Constitution, and at every step 
 since ; after the battle was lost then, we should 
 have resisted each successive step of the Slave 
 Power. But we have yielded — yielded continually. 
 We made no fight over the annexation of slave 
 territory, the admission of slave States. We ought 
 to have rent the Union into the primitive townships 
 sooner than consent to the Fugitive Slave Bill. 
 But as we failed to fight manfully then, I never 
 thought the North would rally on the Missouri 
 Compromise line. I rejoice at the display of indig- 
 nation I witness here and elsewhere. For once New 
 York appears more moral than Boston. I thank 
 you for it. A meeting is called in the Park to- 
 morrow. It is high time ; though I doubt that the 
 North will yet rally and defend even the line drawn 
 in 1820. But there are two lines of defence where 
 the Nation will pause, I think — the seizure and 
 occupation of Cuba, with its war so destructive to 
 
432 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 Northern ships ; and the restoration of the African 
 slave-trade. The slave-breeding States, Maryland, 
 Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, will op- 
 pose the last ; for if the Gulf States and the future 
 tropical territories can import Africans at one hun- 
 dred dollars a head, depend upon it, that will spoil 
 the market for the slave-breeders of America. And, 
 gentlemen, if Virginia cannot sell her own children, 
 how will this "well-born, well-educated, well-bred 
 aristocrat" look down on the poor and ignorant 
 Yankee, when the " gentlemen " of the Old Domin- 
 ion do not bring a high price in the flesh-market. 
 No, this iniquity is not to last forever! A certain 
 amount of force will compress a cubic foot of water 
 into nine tenths of its natural size ; but beyond that, 
 the weight of the whole earth cannot make it any 
 smaller. Even the North is not infinitely compressi- 
 ble. When atom touches atom, you may take off" 
 the screws. 
 
 Things cannot continue long in this condition. 
 Every triumph of Slavery is a day's march towards 
 its ruin. There is no Higher Law, is there ? " He 
 taketh the wise in their own craftiness." " The 
 council of the wicked is carried," — aye, but it is 
 carried headlong. 
 
 Only see what a change has come over our spirit 
 just now. Three years ago, Isaiah Eynders and 
 Hiram Ketchum domineered over New York. Those 
 gentlemen who are to follow me, and whom you are 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 433 
 
 impatient to hear, were mobbed down in this city, 
 two years ago ; they could not find a hall which 
 would be leased to them for money or love, and had 
 to adjourn to Syracuse to hold their convention. 
 Look at this assembly now. 
 
 A little while ago all the leading clergymen were 
 in favor of the Fugitive Slave Bill ; now three 
 thousand of New England's ministers remonstrate 
 against Nebraska. They know there is a fire in 
 their rear, and, in theological language, it is a fire 
 that " is not quenched ; " it goeth not out by day ; 
 and there is no night there. The clergymen stand 
 between eternal torment on one side, and the " little 
 giant of Slavery " on the other. They do not turn 
 back! Two thousand English clergymen once be- 
 came non-conformists in a single day. Three thou- 
 sand New England ministers remonstrated against 
 the enslavement of Nebraska. When the " gentle- 
 men of the Old Dominion " find their sons and 
 daughters do not bring a high price in the flesh- 
 markets of the South, they will doubt the " divinity 
 of Slavery." 
 
 Now is the time to push and be active, call meet- 
 ings, bring out men of all parties, all forms of re- 
 ligion ; agitate, agitate, agitate. Make a fire in the 
 rear of the Government and the representatives. 
 The South is weak — only united. The North is 
 strong in money, in men, in education, in the justice 
 of our great cause — only not united for freedom. 
 
 VOL. I. 37 
 
434 CONDITION OF AMERICA. 
 
 Be faithful to ourselves and Slavery will come down, 
 not slowly, as I thought once, but when the people 
 of the North say so, it shall come down with a 
 great crash ! 
 
 Then when we are free from this plague-spot of 
 Slavery — the curse to our industry, our education, 
 our politics, and our religion — we shall increase 
 more rapidly in numbers and still more abundantly 
 be rich. The South will be as the North — active, 
 intelligent — Virginia rich as New York, the Caro- 
 linas as active as Massachusetts. Then, by peace- 
 ful purchase, the Anglo-Saxon may acquire the rest 
 of this North American Continent, — for the Span- 
 iards will make nothing of it. Nay, we may honor- 
 ably go further South, and possess the Atlantic and 
 Pacific slopes of the Southern continent, extending 
 the area of Freedom at every step. We may carry 
 thither the Anglo-Saxon vigor and enterprise, the 
 old love of liberty, the love also of law; the best 
 institutions of the present age — ecclesiastical, politi- 
 cal, social, domestic. 
 
 Then what a nation we shall one day become^ 
 America, the mother of a thousand Anglo-Saxon 
 States, tropic and temperate, on both sides the 
 Equator, may behold the Mississippi and the Ama- 
 zon uniting their waters, the drainage of two vast 
 continents in the Mediterranean of the Western 
 World ; may count her children at last by hundreds 
 of millions — and among them all behold no tyrant 
 
CONDITION OF AMERICA. 435 
 
 and no slave ! What a spectacle — the Anglo- 
 Saxon Family occupying a whole hemisphere, with 
 industry, freedom, religion I It is our function to 
 fulfil this vision ; we are the voluntary instruments 
 of God. Shall America scorn the mission He 
 sends her on ? Then let us all perish, and may 
 Russia teach justice to mankind ! 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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