meeting to Boston! "Respectability" was determined to
kidnap.
At that meeting a Committee of Vigilance was appointed, and a very vigilant committee it has proved itself, having saved the liberty of three or four hundred citizens of Boston. Besides, it has done many -things not to be spoken of now. I know one of its members who has helped ninety-five fugitives out of the United States. It would not be well to mention his name,—he has "levied war" too often,—the good God knows it.[1]
Other towns in the State did the same thing. Vigilance Committees got on foot in most of the great towns, many of the small ones. In some places, all the people rose up against the Fugitive Slave Bill; the whole town a vigilance committee. The country was right; off the pavement, Liberty was the watchword; on the pavement, it was Money. But the government of Massachusetts did nothing. Could the eight thousand nine hundred and seventy-five coloured persons affect any election? Was their vote worth bidding for? The controlling men of the Whig party and of the Democratic party, they either did nothing at all, or else went over in favour of kidnapping; some of them had a natural proclivity that way, and went over "with alacrity."
The leading newspapers in the great towns,—they, of course, went on the side of inhumanity, with few honourable exceptions. The political papers thought kidnapping would "save the Union;" the commercial papers thought it would "save trade," the great object for which the Union was established.
How differently had Massachusetts met the Acts of Trade and the Stamp Act! How are the mighty fallen! Yet, if you could have got their sacred ballot, I think fifteen out of every twenty voters, even in Boston, would have opposed the law. But the leading politicians and the leading merchants were in favour of the bill, and the execution of it.
There are two political parties in America: one of them is very large and well organized; that is the Slave-soil party. It has two great subdivisions; one is called Whig, the other Democratic: together they make up the
- ↑ It is not yet safe to mention his name. Feb. 22, 1855!
