Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/192

180 over the Neck,—and there was not a "Red-coat" south of the North End. The March of ’76 was not far from the July of ’76, when yet another discourse got spoken.

For twelve years did our fathers commemorate the first blood shed here by soldiers "quartered among us without our consent;" yes, until there was not a "Red-coat" left in the land; and the gloom of the Boston Massacre was forgot in the blaze of American independence; the murder of five men, in the freedom of two millions. The first slave Boston has officially sent back since 1770 was returned a year ago. Let us commemorate the act, till there is not a kidnapper left in all the North; not a kidnapper lurking in a lawyer's office in all Boston, or in a merchant's counting-room; not a priest who profanes his function by flouting at the higher law of God; till there is not a slave in America; and sorrow at the rendition of Thomas Sims shall be forgotten in the freedom of three million men. Let us remember the Boston Kidnapping, as our fathers kept the memory of the Boston Massacre.

It is a fitting time to come together. There was once a "dark day" in New England, when the visible heavens were hung with night, and men's faces gathered blackness, less from the sky above than from the fears within. But New England never saw a day so black as the twelfth of April, 1851; a day whose Egyptian darkness will be felt for many a year to come. New England has had days of misfortune before this, and of mourning at the sin of her magistrates. In 1761, a mean man in a high place in the British Island, thinking that "discussion must be suppressed," declared that citizens "are not to demand the reasons of measures; they must, and they easily may, be taught better manners." The British Ministry decided to tax the colonies without their consent. Massachusetts decided to be taxed only with her own consent. The Board of Trade determined to collect duties against the will of the people. The Government insisted; the mercenaries of the custom-house in Boston applied for "Writs of Assistance," authorizing them to search for smuggled goods where and when they pleased, and to call on the people to help in the matter. The mercenary who filled the governor's chair favoured the outrage. The court, obedient to power, and usually on the