Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/311

Rh Boston bore the first-fruits of the Fugitive Slave Bill ! How blessed was the brig "Acorn," which cradled Thomas Sims in its shell!

Men of shortest memory can reach back to Anniversary Week, 1854, and recollect Anthony Burns, a Baptist minister, "ordained" a slave by Commissioner Loring,—fore-ordained, as the sentence was given without waiting for the "trial." I hope you remember the kidnapper's counsel on that occasion. I know you will recall the soldiers in Court Square, who loaded their muskets with powder and ball. I think you have not forgotten the cannon, filled with canister-shot at that time, in Court Square. I am sure some of you remember the charge of the United States Judge on the 7th of June, 1854 ; the indictment, in October, 1854, against Wendell Phillips. He had made a fatal mistake; he did not know that freedom of speech was "to be crushed out" of Massachusetts. So, in the Cradle of Liberty, he had spoken such words as he always speaks, straight out from the heart of Humanity, and with a tongue of such persuasion as never before his time has rung through New England; and, depend upon it, when that ceases to be mortal, God will not create such eloquent lips again in any haste. He had spoken, at Faneuil Hall, against kidnapping. Messrs. Hallett and Curtis had him indicted for a misdemeanor; and he was held to bail in fifteen hundred dollars. The punishment was to be a fine of three hundred dollars, and imprisonment in gaol for twelve months. That was the state of things at that time. Look at Boston now. The Judge of Probate, who sent Anthony Burns into bondage, is still the guardian of orphans. He holds the same office he held before, though a law of Massachusetts has been made expressly forbidding it. That law of Massachusetts is trodden under foot; the Governor treads it under his feet; the Judge of Probate, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the press of Boston, tread it under their feet. The City Authorities of Boston must have some one to deliver an oration on the birthday of American independence. Do they invite Mr. Sumner? Not at all. Mr. Phillips? They would sink the State rather than have him No: it must be one of the kidnapper's counsel in 1854. A very proper man to preach a sermon to the people on the Fourth of July, with the Declaration of Independence for a text! He can go