Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/205

Rh great national Slave-soil party. It was the desire of that party to extend slavery; making a national sin out of a sectional curse. They wished to "re-annex" Massachusetts to the department of the slave soil, and succeeded. We know the history of that party: who shall tell the future of its opponent? There will be a to-morrow after to-day.

The practical result was what the leading men of Boston desired: soon we had kidnappers in Boston. Some ruffians came here from Georgia, to kidnap William and Ellen Craft. Among them came a jailer from Macon, a man of infamous reputation, and character as bad as its repute; notoriously a cruel man, and hateful on that account even in Georgia. In the handbills, his face was described as "uncommon bad." It was worthy of the description. I saw the face; it looked like total depravity incarnate in a born kidnapper. He was not quite welcome in Boston; Massachusetts had not then learned to "conquer her prejudices," yet he found friends, got "a sort of a lawyer" to help him kidnap a man and his wife: a fee will hire such men any day. He was a welcome guest at the United States Hotel, which, however, got a little tired of his company, and warned him off. The commissioner first applied to for aid in this business seemed to exhibit some signs of a conscience, and appeared a little averse to stealing a man. The Vigilance Committee put their eye on the kidnapper: he was glad to escape out of Boston with a whole skin. He sneaked off in a private way; went back to Georgia; published his story, partly true, false in part; got into a quarrel in the street at Macon,—I traced out his wriggling trail for some distance back,—it was not the first brawl he had been in; was stabbed to what is commonly called "the heart," and fell unmistakably dead. Some worthy persons had told him, if he went to Boston, he would "rot in a Massachusetts jail;" others, that they "hoped it would turn out so, for such an errand deserved such an end." Poor men of Georgia! they knew the Boston of 1765, not of 1850;—the town of the Stamp Act, ruled by select men; not the city of the Slave Act, ruled by a "Mayor." Hughes came to save the "Union!"

That time the kidnappers went off without their prey. Somebody took care of Ellen Crafty and William took care