Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/239

227 beforehand; laid his case before the official he has brought with him, or purchased here, and claims his slave. She runs for her life, fear adding wings. Imagine the scene—the flight, the hot pursuit through State Street, Merchants' Row—your magistrates in hot pursuit. To make the irony of nature still more complete, let us suppose this shall take place on some of the memorable days in the history of America—on the 19th of April, when our fathers first laid down their lives "in the sacred cause of God and their country;" on the 17th of June, the 22nd of December, or on any of the sacramental days in the long sad history of our struggle for our own freedom! Suppose the weary fugitive takes refuge in Faneuil Hall, and here, in the old Cradle of Liberty, in the midst of its associations, under that eye of Samuel Adams, the blood-hounds seize their prey! Imagine Mr. Webster and Mr. Winthrop looking on, cheering the slave-hunter, intercepting the fugitive fleeing for her life. Would not that be a pretty spectacle?

Propose to support that bill to the fullest extent, with all its provisions! Ridiculous talk! Does Mr. Webster suppose that such a law could be executed in Boston? that the people of Massachusetts will ever return a single fugitive slave, under such an act as that? Then he knows his constituents very little, and proves that he needs "Instruction."

"Slavery is a moral and religious blessing," says somebody in the present Congress. But it seems some thirty thousand slaves have been blind to the benefits—moral and religious benefits—which it confers, and have fled to the free States. Mr. Clingman estimates the value of all the fugitive slaves in the North at $15,000,000. Delaware loses $100,000 in a year in this way; her riches taking to themselves not wings, but legs. Maryland lost $100,000 in six months. I fear Mr. Mason's bill and Mr. Webster's speech will not do much to protect that sort of "property" from this kind of loss. Such action is prevented "by a law even superior to that which admits and sanctions it in Texas."

Such are Mr. Webster's opinions on these four great questions. Now, there are two ways of accounting for