HENRY THOREAU
came home too late to hear of it, but in the morning gladly sent Thoreau away.1
To the criticism, Why did he allow his tax to be paid? the simple answer is, He could n't help it, and did not know who did it. Why, then, did he go out of jail? Because they would not keep him there.2
But in a few more years the Slavery question began to darken the day. Many good men woke in the morning to find themselves sick at heart because we were becoming a slave country. The aggressive tone of the South increased, and with it the subserviency of a large class of Northern business men and manufacturers of cotton cloth, who feared to offend the planters. John Randolph's hot words in the debate over the Missouri Compromise were recalled as too nearly true: “We do not govern the people of the North by our black slaves, but by their own white slaves. We know what we
66
