Volume Iii Part 1 (1/2)

Speeches, Addresses, and Occasional Sermons.

Volume 3.

by Theodore Parker.

I.

SPEECH AT A MEETING OF THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON, IN FANEUIL HALL, MARCH 25, 1850, TO CONSIDER THE SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER.

Mr. President and Fellow Citizens: It is an important occasion which has brought us together. A great crisis has occurred in the affairs of the United States. There is a great question now before the people. In any European country west of Russia and east of Spain, it would produce a revolution, and be settled with gunpowder. It narrowly concerns the material welfare of the nation. The decision that is made will help millions of human beings into life, or will hinder and prevent millions from being born. It will help or hinder the advance of the nation in wealth for a long time to come. It is a question which involves the honor of the people. Your honor and my honor are concerned in this matter, which is presently to be pa.s.sed upon by the people of the United States. More than all this, it concerns the morality of the people. We are presently to do a right deed, or to inflict a great wrong on others and on ourselves, and thereby entail an evil upon this continent which will blight and curse it for many an age.

It is a great question, comprising many smaller ones:--Shall we extend and foster Slavery, or shall we extend and foster Freedom? Slavery, with its consequences, material, political, intellectual, moral; or Freedom, with the consequences thereof?

A question so important seldom comes to be decided before any generation of men. This age is full of great questions, but this of Freedom is the chief. It is the same question which in other forms comes up in Europe.

This is presently to be decided here in the United States by the servants of the people, I mean, by the Congress of the nation; in the name of the people; for the people, if justly decided; against them, if unjustly. If it were to be left to-morrow to the naked votes of the majority, I should have no fear. But the public servants of the people may decide otherwise. The political parties, as such, are not to pa.s.s judgment. It is not a question between whigs and democrats; old party distinctions, once so sacred and rigidly observed, here vanish out of sight. The party of Slavery or the party of Freedom is to swallow up all the other parties. Questions about tariffs and banks can hardly get a hearing. On the approach of a battle, men do not talk of the weather.

Four great men in the Senate of the United States have given us their decision; the four most eminent in the party politics of the nation--two great whigs, two great democrats. The s.h.i.+bboleth of their party is forgotten by each; there is a strange unanimity in their decision. The Herod of free trade and the Pilate of protection are ”made friends,”

when freedom is to be crucified. All four decide adverse to freedom; in favor of slavery; against the people. Their decisions are such as you might look for in the politicians of Austria and Russia. Many smaller ones have spoken on this side or on that. Last of all, but greatest, the most ill.u.s.trious of the four, so far as great gifts of the understanding are concerned, a son of New England, long known, and often and deservedly honored, has given his decision. We waited long for his words; we held our peace in his silence; we listened for his counsel.

Here it is; adverse to freedom beyond the fears of his friends, and the hopes even of his foes. He has done wrong things before, cowardly things more than once; but this, the wrongest and most cowardly of them all: we did not look for it. No great man in America has had his faults or his failings so leniently dealt with; private scandal we will not credit, public shame we have tried to excuse, or, if inexcusable, to forget. We have all of us been proud to go forward and honor his n.o.ble deeds, his n.o.ble efforts, even his n.o.ble words. I wish we could take a mantle big and black enough, and go backward and cover up the shame of the great man who has fallen in the midst of us, and hide him till his honor and his conscience shall return. But no, it cannot be; his deed is done in the face of the world, and nothing can hide it.

We have come together to-night in Faneuil Hall, to talk the matter over, in our New England way; to look each other in the face; to say a few words of warning, a few of counsel, perhaps something which may serve for guidance. We are not met here to-night to ”calculate the value of the Union,” but to calculate the worth of freedom and the rights of man; to calculate the value of the Wilmot Proviso. Let us be cool and careful, not violent, not rash; true and firm, not hasty or timid.

Important matters have brought our fathers here many times before now.

Before the Revolution, they came here to talk about the Mola.s.ses Act, or the Sugar Act, or the Stamp Act, the Boston Port Bill, and the long list of grievances which stirred up their manly stomachs to the Revolution; afterwards, they met to consult about the Embargo, and the seizure of the Chesapeake, and many other matters. Not long ago, only five years since, we came here to protest against the annexation of Texas. But before the Revolution or after it, meetings have seldom been called in Faneuil Hall on such solemn occasions as this. Not only is there a great public wrong contemplated, as in the annexation of Texas, but the character and conduct of a great public servant of the people come up to be looked after. This present conduct of Mr. Webster is a thing to be solemnly considered. A similar thing once happened before. In 1807, a senator from Ma.s.sachusetts was disposed to accept a measure the President had advised, because he had ”recommended” it ”on his high responsibility.” ”I would _not consider_,” said the senator, ”I would _not deliberate_, I would _act_.”[1] He did so; and with little deliberation, with small counsel, as men thought at the time, he voted for the Embargo, and the Embargo came. This was a measure which doomed eight hundred thousand tons of s.h.i.+pping to rot at the wharf. It touched the pockets of New England and all the North. It affected the daily meals of millions of men. There was indignation, deep and loud indignation; but it was political in its nature and personal in its form; the obnoxious measure was purely political, not obviously immoral and unjust. But, long as John Quincy Adams lived, much as he did in his latter years for mankind, he never wholly wiped off the stain which his conduct then brought upon him. Yet it may be that he was honest in his vote; it may have been an error of judgment, and nothing more; nay, there are men who think it was no error at all, but a piece of political wisdom.

A senator of Ma.s.sachusetts has now committed a fault far greater than was ever charged upon Mr. Adams by his most inveterate political foes.

It does not directly affect the s.h.i.+pping of New England and the North: I wish it did. It does not immediately concern our daily bread; if it were so, the contemplated wrong would receive a speedy adjustment. But it concerns the liberty of millions of men yet unborn.

Let us look at the matter carefully.

Here is a profile of our national action on the subject now before the people.

In 1774, we agreed to import no more slaves after that year, and never finally repealed this act of agreement.

In 1776, we declared that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In 1778, we formed the Confederacy, with no provision for the surrender of fugitive slaves.

In 1787, we shut out slavery from the Northwest Territory for ever, by the celebrated proviso of Mr. Jefferson.

In 1788, the Const.i.tution was formed, with its compromises and guarantees.

In 1808, the importation of slaves was forbidden. But,

In 1803, we annexed Louisiana, and slavery along with it.

In 1819, we annexed Florida, with more slavery.

In 1820, we legally established slavery in the territory west of the Mississippi, south of 36 deg. 30 min.

In 1845, we annexed Texas, with three hundred and twenty-five thousand five hundred and twenty square miles, as a slave State.