Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/219

Rh legislature of the land, by its literature and by its churches. I know men in Boston who would have no more scruple in buying and selling a black man as a slave, or a white man if they could catch and keep him, than they would have of bupng a cow at Brighton. There are men in Massachusetts that have grown rich by the slave-trade. It does not hurt their reputation; it is no impeachment of their religious character. Now I do not expect a frontier colonel, busy in fighting Indians half his life, dogging them with Cuban bloodhounds, to be more enlightened on such a matter than merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, ministers and professors of theology in New England. It may be that he had the same opinion as Professor Stuart, that slavery was allowed in the New Testament and sanctioned in the Old Testament ; such a good thing that Paul and James said never a word against it. We should not judge such a man as you would judge a Unitarian Minister in Boston or Doctors of Divinity at Andover. Born as he was, bred as he had been, living in a camp, sustained by the public opinion of the Press, the State and the Church, it would not be surprising if it had never occurred to him that it was wrong to steal men. But the fact is to be taken into the account in determining the elevation of his character.

It is now plain that he found the office of President a heavy burden; that it cost him his life. It seems to me the conduct of some of our public men towards him was ungenerous, not to say unjust and shameful. An honest man, he looked for honest foes and honest friends ; but his hardest battles were fought after he had ceased to be a soldier.

Well, he has gone to his rest and his recompense. To his family the affliction is sudden, painful and terrible. What vicissitudes in their life — from the obscurity of their former home to the glaring publicity of that high station; then, in so brief a time, the honoured and well-beloved head is silent and cold for ever! The nation may well drop its tears of sympathy for those whom its election has robbed of a father and a husband; the ghastly honours of the office are poor recompense for the desolation it has brought into a quiet and once happy home.

He has gone to his reward. He leaves the government