Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/309

Rh which laid the blame on the feebler nation. How few ministers dared speak against the evil deed! The Peace Society turned its secretary out of office because he spoke against that war. It struck its own flag as soon as Slavery gave command.

Alas! how sad a gift is memory! You cannot forget the year 1850, the Fugitive Slave Bill, the discussions on it at Boston and at Washington. It is dreadful to bring up the terrible speech in the Senate House on the 7th of March, when that mighty power of eloquence shook the land, so loud did it cry for the extension and perpetuation of slavery!

You remember the nine hundred and eighty-seven men of Boston, who thanked the recreant son of New England for his treason to humanity, told him he had pointed out "the path of duty, convinced the understanding, and touched the conscience, of a nation;" nay, expressed their "entire concurrence in the sentiments of that speech," and gave him " their heartfelt thanks for the inestimable aid it afforded to the preservation of the Union." You cannot forget the speech from the steps of the Revere House on the 29th of April,—the declaration from those senatorial lips that " discussion" on the subject of slavery, in Congress and out of it, must " in some way be suppressed." You remember that Massachusetts was to " conquer her prejudices" in favour of justice and the law of God, to "do a disagreeable duty," and kidnap her own citizens. How many controlling men of Boston said "Ay," we will conquer those " prejudices," do that "disagreeable duty!" Political and commercial journals, ministers in their pulpits,—they went for the Fugitive Slave Bill! I wish I could forget it all. May God forgive them for the atheism they preached, and the dreadful woe springing up in our future path from the seed they cast abroad! But there were honourable exceptions, commercial and ecclesiastical,—a few!

Mr. Eliot voted for the bill (I had hoped better things from a man with so much good in him, which no wickedness, past or future, shall blot from my book); and, when he returned, the prominent citizens of Boston called upon him, and one by one, in public places, they grasped his hand, and said, " We thank you for all this; it was just