Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/294

290 the neck of the commonwealth, visible on the nooks of the judges as they entered tho Bastile of Boston,—the Barracoon of Boston! A few years ago, they used to tell us, "Slavery is an abstraction;" "we at the North have nothing to do with it." Now liberty is only an abstraction! Here is a note just handed mo in the pulpit:—

"Marshal Tukey told me this morning that his orders were not merely to keep the peace, but to assist the United States’ marshal in detaining and transporting the slave; that he knew he was violating the State law, as well as I did; but it was not his responsibility, but that of the mayor and alderman. I thought yon might like to know this." Well, my brethren, I know Boston has seen sad days before now. When the Stamp Act came here in our fathers' time, it was a sad day; they tolled the bells all over town, and Mayhew wished "they were cut off that trouble you." It was a sad day when the tea came here, although, when it went down the stream, all the hills of New England laughed. And it was ft sadder day still, the 17th of June, 1775, when our fathers fought and bled on yonder hill, all red from battle at Concord and Lexington, and poured sheeted death into the ranks of their enemies, while the inhabitants of this town lifted up their hands, but could not go to assist their brethren in the field : and when, to crown all their sadness, they saw four hundred of the houses of their sister town go up in flames to heaven, and could not lend a helping hand! A sadder day when they fired one hundred guns in Boston for the pass? ge of the Fugitive (Slave Law. It was the saddest day of all, when a man wan kidnapped in Boston by tho men of Boston, and your court-house hung with chains.

It was not from the tyrants of the other side of the world that this trouble came!

If you could have seen what I have this morning, at sunrise, one hundred of the police of this city, contrary to the laws of the State, drilling with drawn swords, to learn to guard a man whilst he should be carried into bondage! And who do you suppose was at their head? A man bearing an honourable name—Samuel Adams! Tell it not in Massachusetts ; let not your children hear of this, lest they curse the mothers that bore them. It is well that we should have a day of fasting and humiliation and prayer, when such things are done here.