Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/322

Rh men, they invited the Hon. Mr. Mason, of Virginia, the most insolent man in the American Senate, the most bitterly and vulgarly hostile to the Democratic institutions of the North, the man who had treated your own senator with such insolence and abuse; Mr, Keitt, of South Carolina, also should have been included! I shall not now speak of the men who outraged the decency of New England by asking such a man to such a spot on such a day,—they were types of a class of men whom they too faithfully serve. But on that occasion, "complimentary flunkeyism" swelled itself almost to bursting, that it might croak the praises of Mr. Mason and his coadjutors. When the coward blows of Mr. Brooks—one of that holy alliance of bullies who rule Congress—had brought Charles Sumner to the ground, and he lay helpless between life and death, you know the people of Boston proposed to have a meeting m Faneuil Hall to express their indignation, A Committee, appointed at a previous meeting, had the matter in charge. They invited Hon. Mr. Winthrop to attend. "No," he "could not come." They asked Mr. Everett. "No," he too was "unable." It was reported at the time, and I thought on good authority, that when the Committee asked Hon. Mr. Choate, he asked " if blows on the head with a gutta-percha stick would hurt a man much?" These three were ex-senators. They all refused to attend the meeting and join in any expression of feeling against the outrage upon Mr. Sumner. Gentlemen, I respect sincerity, and I was glad that they were not hypocrites on that occasion. Twice the Committee waited on the first two gentlemen, offering the invitation, which was twice refused. But Mr. Winthrop and Mr. Everett were both at Charleston to pay that feudal homage to Mr. Fugitive Slave Bill Mason, which Northern vassals owe the slave power. With their "flunkeyism," they tainted still worse the air of that town which has a proverbial repute and name.

Then was fulfilled that celebrated threat of Senator Toombs, of Georgia. On thife eighty-second anniversary of New England's first great battle, at the foot of Bunker Hill monument, the author of the Fugitive Slave Bill, the most offensive of all his tribe, called over the roll of his slaves; and men, their names unknown to fame, their