Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/306

stable and two of the chief inhabitants where no magistrate is, to press men and boats or pinnaces at the public charge, to pursue such persons by sea or land, and bring them back by force of arms." In 1703, a law forbade negro, mulatto, or Indian servants or slaves " to be found abroad in the night time after nine o'clock." They were "to be openly whipped by the constable." If a negro or mulatto should strike any person of the English,—he was to be "severely whipped at the discretion of the justices." In 1705, a duty of four pounds was levied on each slave imported, and a drawback allowed in case he was "exported within the space of twelve months." Marriage between white and black was illegal; a fine of fifty pounds punished the officer who joined the parties. It is not a hundred years since slaves were sold in Massachusetts; children were torn from their parents; the charms of young women were advertised in the public print. In less than a hundred years, two slaves were burned alive on Boston Neck for poisoning their master. Now Massachusetts has torn these wicked laws from her Statute-book. It is only Boston which turns a black boy out of her public school. Do you think the Northern men love slavery, the people love it? In all the parties there are noble men who hate American slavery. They know it is a wicked thing; they despise their politicians who seek to perpetuate it, and loathe the purchased priests who justify the iniquity in the name of God! Each of the nine sacrifices to slavery has been unpopular at the North. Only the politicians approved them. The Constitution was adopted with difficulty. New England hated its inauguration of slavery as a power in the Republic. The Fugitive Slave Bill of 1793—why, even Washington did not venture to pursue his slave by its authority and seize her. She was safe even in the native State of "Webster and of Pierce! The Mexican war was unpopular. It was not "with alacrity" that the North obeyed the wicked act of 1850. Boston saw her saddest day when she kidnapped Thomas Sims. It could not be done but with chains round the Court House, judges crawling under, and a regiment of flunkeys billeted in Faneuil Hall. If the question of the enslavement of Nebraska were this day put to the vote of the people, in nineteen twentieths of all the towns of the North, nineteen twentieths