Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/119

106 Consider the demoralization of the people produced by such a deed. Mr. Dana was knocked down in the street by one of the Marshal's posse—as it is abundantly proved. The blow might easily have been fatal. It is long since a bully has attacked a respectable citizen in Boston before. Hereafter I fear it will be more common. You cannot employ such a body-guard as the Marshal had about him in such business without greatly endangering the safety of the persons and the property of the town. "We shall hear from them again. What a spectacle it was; the army of the United States, the soldiers of Boston, sending an innocent man into Slavery! What a lesson to the children in the Sunday Schools—to the vagrant children in the streets, who have no school but the Sights of the City! What a lesson of civilization to the Irish population of Boston! Men begin to understand this. There never was so much Anti-Slavery feeling in Boston before—never so much indignation in my day. If a law aims at justice, though it fail of the mark we will respect the law-not openly resist it or with violence: was a little, and amend it or repeal it. But when the law aims at injustice, open, manifest, palpable wickedness, why, we must be cowards and fools too, if we submit.

Massachusetts has never felt so humiliated before. Soldiers of the Government enforcing a law in peaceful Boston, the most orderly of Christian cities! We have had no such thing since the Declaration of Independence! The rendition of Mr. Burns fills New England with sorrow and bitter indignation. The people tolled the bells at Plymouth. The bones of the forefathers gave that response to the kidnappers in Boston. At Manchester and several other towns they did the same. To-day, ministers are preaching as never before. What will it all come to? Men came to Boston peacefully last week. Will they always come "with only the arms God gave?" One day in the seventeenth century five thousand country gentlemen rode into London with a "petition to the King"—with only the arms God gave them. Not long after they went