The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 05/Discourse 07
SPEECH
AT THE
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE IN BOSTON,
MAY 29, 1851.
OCCASION OF THE SPEECH.
The subject of debate was "The Duty of Ministers under the Fugitive Slave Law." This had been brought up, by Rev. Mr May of Syracuse, at a "Business Meeting" of the American Unitarian Association, and was refused a bearing. It was again brought forward at the meeting of the Ministerial Conference on Wednesday. The Conference adjourned to Thursday morning, at nine o’clock.
On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, a good deal was done to prevent the matter from being discussed at all; and done, as it seemed to me, in a disingenuous and unfair manner. And on Thursday morning much time was consumed in mere trifles, apparently with the intention of wearing away the few hours which would otherwise be occupied in discussing the matter at issue, before the Conference. At length the question was reached, and the debate began.
Several persons spoke. Mr Pierpont made a speech, able and characteristic, in which he declared that the Fugitive Slave Bill lacked all the essentials of a law; that it had no claim to obedience; and that it could not be administered with a pure heart or unsullied ermine.
Several others made addresses. Rev. Mr Osgood of New York defended his ministerial predecessor, Rev. Dr Dewey,—making two points. 1. Dr Dewey's conduct had been misrepresented ; lie had never said that he would send his own mother into slavery to preserve the Union; it was only his son, or brother. [Mr Parker remarked that the principle was the same in all three cases, there was only a diversity of measure.]
2. Dr Dewey's motives had been misrepresented. He had conversed with Dr Dewey; and Dr Dewey felt very bad; was much afflicted—even to weeping, at the misrepresentations made of him. He had not been understood. Dr Dewey met Dr Furness in the street, [Dr Furness had most manfully preached against the Fugitive Slave Act, and thereby drawn upon himself much odium in Philadelphia, and the indignation of some of his clerical brethren elsewhere,] and said, "Brother Furness—you have taken the easy road to duty. It is for me to take the hard and difficult way! I wish it could be otherwise. But I feared the dissolution of the Union!" &c., &c.
Mr Osgood then proceeded to censure "one of this Conference," [Mr Parker,] for the manner in which he had preached on this matter of the fugitive slave law. "It was very bad; it was unjust!" &c.
Rev. Dr Gannett spoke at some length.
1. He said the brethren had laughed, and shown an indecorum that was painful; it was unpardonable. [The chairman. Rev. Dr Farley of Brooklyn, N. Y., thought otherwise.]
2. He criticized severely the statement of Rev. Mr Pierpont that the fugitive slave law " could not be administered with a pure heart or unsullied ermine." [Mr Pierpont affirmed it anew, and briefly defended the statement. Mr Gannett still appeared dissatisfied.] His parishioner, Mr George T. Curtis, had the most honourable motives for attempting to execute the law.
3. He (Dr Gannett) was in a minority, and the majority had no right to think that he was not as honest in his opinion as the rest.
4. Here Dr Gannett made two points in defence of the fugitive slave bill, of making and obeying it.
(1.) If we did not obey it the disobedience would lead to the violation of all law. There were two things—law without liberty; and liberty without law. Law without liberty was only despotism; liberty without law only license. Law without liberty was the better of the two. If we began by disobeying any one law, we should come to violating all laws.
(2.) We must obey it to preserve the Union : without the fugitive slave law, the Union would have been dissolved; if it were not obeyed it would also be dissolved, and then he did not know what would become of the cause of human freedom and human rights.
Then Rev. George E. Ellis of Charlestown spoke. He would not have the Conference pass any resolutions; he stood on the first principles of Congregationalism,—that the minister was not responsible to his brothers, but to himself and his God. So the brethren have no right to come here and discuss and condemn the opinions or the conduct of a fellow-minister. We cannot bind one another; we have no right to criticize and condemn.
Next he declared his hatred of the fugitive slave bill. If we must either keep it or lose the Union, he said, "Perish the Union." He had always said so, and preached so.
After Mr Ellis, Mr Parker also spoke as follows:—
Mr Chairman and Gentlemen,—I am one of those that laughed with the rest, and incurred the displeasure of Dr Gannett. It was not from lightness however; I think no one will accuse me of that. I am earnest enough; so much so as to be grim. Still it is natural even for a grim man to laugh sometimes; and in times like these I am glad we can laugh.
I am glad my friend, Mr Ellis, said the brethren had no right here to criticize and condemn the opinions of one of their members; but I wish he and they had come to this opinion ten years ago. I should have been a gainer by it; for this is the first time for nine years that I have attended this Conference without hearing something which seemed said with the intention of insulting me. I will not say I should have been in general a happier man if Mr Ellis's advice had been followed; nay, if he had always followed it himself; but I should have sat with a little more comfort in this body if they had thought I was not responsible to them for my opinions.
I am glad also to hear Dr Gannett say we have no right to attribute improper motives to any one who differs from US in opinion. It was ratlier gratuitous, however; no man has done it here to-day. But it is true, no man has a right thus to "judge another." But I will remind Dr Gannett that, a few years ago, he and I differed in opinion on a certain matter of considerable importance, and after clearly expressing our difference, I said, "Well, there is an honest difference of opinion between us," and he said, "Not an honest difference of opinion, brother Parker," for he called me "brother" then, and not "Mr" as since, and now, when he has publicly said he cannot take my hand fraternally. Still there was an honest difference of opinion on his part as well as mine.
Mr Osgood apologizes for Dr Dewey;—that is, he defends his motives. I am glad he does not undertake to defend his conduct, only to deny that he [Dr Dewey] uttered the words alleged. But I am sorry to say that I cannot agree with Mr Osgood in his defence. I do not believe a word of it to be true: I have evidence enough that he said so.
Mr Gannett in demanding obedience to the fugitive slave law made two points, namely; if it be not obeyed, first, we shall violate all human laws; and next, there will be a dissolution of the Union.
Let me say a word of each. But first let me say that I attribute no unmanly motive to Mr Gannett. I thought him honest when he denied that I was; I think him honest now. I know him to be conscientious, laborious, and self-denying. I think he would sacrifice himself for another's good. I wish he could now sink through the floor for two or three minutes, that I might say of him absent yet more of honourable praise, which I will not insult him with or address to him while before my face. Let me only say this, that if there be any men in this Conference who honour and esteem Dr Gannett, I trust I am second to none of them. But I do not share his opinions nor partake of his fears. His arguments for obeying the fugitive slave law (ab inconvenienti) I think are of no value.
If we do not obey this law, he says, we shall disobey all laws. It is not so. There is not a country in the world where there is more respect for human laws than in New England; nowhere more than in Massachusetts. Even if a law is unpopular, it is not popular to disobey it. Our courts of justice are popular bodies, nowhere are judges more respected than in New England. No officer, constable or sheriff, hangman or jail-keeper, is unpopular on account of his office. Nay, it is popular to inform against your neighbour when he violates the law of the land. This is not so in any other country of the Christian world; but the informer is infamous everywhere else.
Why are we thus loyal to law? First, because we make the laws ourselves, and for ourselves; and next, because the laws actually represent the conscience of the people, and help them keep the laws of God. The value of human laws is only this—to conserve the great eternal law of God; to enable us to keep that; to hinder us from disobeying that. So long as laws do this we should obey them: New England will be loyal to such laws.
But the fugitive slave law is one which contradicts the acknowledged precepts of the Christian religion, universally acknowledged. It violates the noblest instincts of humanity; it asks us to trample on the law of God. It commands what nature, religion, and God alike forbid; it forbids what nature, religion, and God alike command. It tends to defeat the object of all just human law; it tends to annihilate the observance of the law of God. So faithful to God, to religion, to human nature, and in the name of law itself, we protest against this particular statute, and trample it under our feet.
Who is it that oppose the fugitive slave law? Men that have always been on the side of "law and order," and do not violate the statutes of men for their own advantage. This disobedience to the fugitive slave law is one of the strongest guarantees for the observance of any just law. You cannot trust a people who will keep law, because it is law; nor need we distrust a people that will only keep a law when it is just. The fugitive slave law itself, if obeyed, will do more to overturn the power of human law, than all disobedience to it—the most complete.
Then as to dissolution of the Union. I [have] thought if any State wished to go, she had a natural right to do so. But what States wished to go? Certainly not New England: by no means. Massachusetts has always been attached to the Union,—has made sacrifices for it. In 1775, if she had said, "There shall be no Revolution," there would have been none. But she furnished nearly half the soldiers for the war, and more than half of the money. In ’87, if Massachusetts had said, "Let there be no Union" there would have been none. It was with difficulty that Massachusetts assented to the Constitution. But that once formed, she has adhered to it; faithfully adhered to the Union. When has Massachusetts failed in allegiance to it? No man can say. There is no danger of a dissolution of the Union; the men who make the cry know that it is vain and deceitful. You cannot drive us asunder;—just yet.
But suppose that was the alternative: that we must have the fugitive slave law, or dissolution. Which were the worst; which comes nearest to the law of God which we all are to keep. It is very plain. Now for the first time since ’87, many men of Massachusetts calculate the value of the Union. What is it worth? Is it worth so much to us as conscience; so much as freedom; so much as allegiance to the law of God? let any man lay his hand on his heart and say, "I will sacrifice all these for the union of the thirty States! For my own part, I would rather see my own house burnt to the ground, and my family thrown, one by one, amid the blazing rafters of my own roof, and I myself be thrown in last of all, rather than have a single fugitive slave sent back as Thomas Sims was sent back. Nay, I should rather see this Union "dissolved" till there was not a territory so large as the county of Suffolk! Let us lose everything but fidelity to God.
Mr Osgood reflects on me for my sermons; they are poor enough. You know it if you try to read such as are in print. I know it better than you. But I am not going to speak honeyed words and prophesy smooth things in times like these, and say, "Peace! Peace! when there is no peace!"
A little while ago we were told we must not preach on this matter of slavery, because it was "an abstraction," then because the "North was all right on that subject;" and then because "we had nothing to do with it," "we must go to Charleston or New Orleans to see it." But now it is a most concrete thing. We see what public opinion is on the matter of slavery; what it is in Boston; nay, what it is with members of this Conference. It favours slavery and this wicked law! We need not go to Charleston and New Orleans to see slavery; our own Court House was a barracoon; our officers of this city were slave-hunters, and members of Unitarian churches in Boston are kidnappers.
I have in my church black men, fugitive slaves. They are the crown of my apostleship, the seal of my ministry. It becomes me to look after their bodies in order to "save their souls." This law has brought us into the most intimate connection with the sin of slavery. I have been obliged to take my own parishioners into my house to keep them out of the clutches of the kidnapper. Yes, gentlemen, I have been obliged to do that; and then to keep my doors guarded by day as well as by night. Yes, I have had to arm myself. I have written my sermons with a pistol in my desk,—loaded, a cap on the nipple, and ready for action. Yea, with a drawn sword within reach of my right hand. This I have done in Boston; in the middle of the nineteenth century; been obliged to do it to defend the [innocent] members of my own church, women as well as men!
You know that I do not like fighting. I am no non-resistant, "that nonsense[1] never went down with me." But it is no small matter which will compel me to shed human blood. But what could I do? I was born in the little town where the fight and bloodshed of the Revolution began. The bones of the men who first fell in that war are covered by the monument at Lexington, it is "sacred to liberty and the rights of mankind:" those men fell "in the sacred cause of God and their country." This is the first inscription that I ever read. These men were my kindred. My grandfather drew the first sword in the Revolution; my fathers fired the first shot; the blood which flowed there was kindred to this which courses in my veins to-day. Besides that, when I write in my library at home, on the one side of me is the Bible which my fathers prayed over, their morning and evening prayer, for nearly a hundred years. On the other side there hangs the firelock my grandfather fought with in the old French war, which he carried at the taking of Quebec, which he zealously used at the battle of Lexington, and beside it is another, a trophy of that war, the first gun taken in the Revolution, taken also by my grandfather. With these things before me, these symbols; with these memories in me, when a parishioner, a fugitive from slavery, a woman, pursued by the kidnappers, came to my house, what could I do less than take her in and defend her to the last? But who sought her life—or liberty? A parishioner of my brother Gannett came to kidnap a member of my church; Mr Gannett preaches a sermon to justify the fugitive slave law, demanding that it should be obeyed; yes, calling on his church members to kidnap mine, and sell them into bondage for ever. Yet all this while Mr Gannett calls himself "a Christian," and me an "Infidelity," his doctrine is "Christianity," mine only "Infidelity," "Deism, at the best!"
O my brothers, I am not afraid of men, I can offend them. I care nothing for their hate, or their esteem. I am not very careful of my reputation. But I should not dare to violate the eternal law of God. You have called me "Infidel." Surely I differ widely enough from you in my theology. But there is one thing I cannot fail to trust; that is the infinite God, Father of the white man. Father also of the white man's slave. I should not dare violate His laws come what may come;—should you? Nay, I can love nothing so well as I love my God. THE BOSTON KIDNAPPING.
A DISCOURSE
TO COMMEMORATE
THE RENDITION OF THOMAS SIMS,
DELIVERED
ON THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY THEREOF, APRIL 12, 1852, BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OP VIGILANCE, AT THE MELODEON, IN BOSTON.[2]
There are times of private, personal joy and delight, when some good deed has been done, or some extraordinary blessing welcomed to the arms. Then a man stops, and pours out the expression of his heightened consciousness; gives gladness words; or else, in manly quietness, exhales to heaven his joy, too deep for speech. Thus the lover rejoices in his young heart of hearts, when another breast beats in conscious unison with his own, and two souls are first made one; so a father rejoices, so a mother is filled with delight, her hour of anguish over, when their gladdened eyes behold the new-born daughter
- ↑ Mr May of Syracuse afterwards objected to the word nonsense as applied to non-resistance. The phrase was quoted from another member of the Conference, whose eye caught mine while speaking, and suggested his own language.
- ↑ Rev. Theodore Parker:—
Dear Sir,—We know that we express the earnest and unanimous wish of all who listened to your appropriate and eloquent address last Monday, in asking a copy of it for the press.Yours respectfully,
Wendell Phillips, 
Henry I. Bowditch, 
Committee Timothy Gilbert, 
of John P. Jewett, 
Arrangements. M. P. Hanson,
John M. Spear, 
Boston, April 15, 1852.
