Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/312

300 back two years, and find an illustration of it. The argument lie used in the kidnapper's court, in May, 1854, would be very convenient for him to introduce on the Fourth of July, 1856. The Declaration of Independence must be read. I suppose that will be done by George Ticknor Curtis, Benjamin Franklin Hallett, or some other of that excellent fraternity of kidnappers who are appointed to rule over us. The Legislature of last winter (1855) was the greenest Legislature we ever had: it had less legislative experience than any other. It was the poorest in point of property: none ever represented so small a ratio of the wealth of Massachusetts. It was the most uneducated : none ever had so little of the superior education which falls to the lot of lawyers, doctors, and ministers. But no Legislature, since I have known lawmakers, ever showed so much honesty, humanity, and justice. It cleared the Massachusetts statute-book of obnoxious laws, and passed an excellent law, making kidnapping impossible on the soil of Massachusetts. That was a Legislature which contained the better portion of what is called the "American party." The present Legislature contains a large portion of that other part of the American party, which is more properly called Know Nothing, which required no inauguration for membership; and you know what this Legislature proposes to do. It would repeal the Personal Liberty Law. Nothing but the assault on freedom in Washington will save it. It is laid over until next Tuesday, when it receives its final judgment. What that judgment shall be, I will not now say. Now, put all these six or seven things together, and see what they amount to. The slaveholders understand this perfectly well. They know, that, when they strike at the head of Charles Sumner in the Senate of the United States, they attack a man whom the respectability of Boston called one of a "brood of vipers," whom it seeks to put down.

Put all these things together, and you see the Secondary Cause of this wickedness,—the cause co-operative. Corrupt men at the North, in New England, in Boston, have betrayed the People. They struck at freedom before South Carolina dared lift an arm. The slaveholders know these