Sunday the "leading ministers" of this city—I call them leading, though they lead nobody—gave God thanks. They forgot Jesus. They took Iscariot for their exemplar. "The Fugitive Slave Bill must be kept," they said, "come what will come to justice, liberty, and love; come what may come of God."
I know there were noble ministers, noble men in pulpits, whose hearts bled in them, and who spoke brave warning words of liberty; some were in the country, some in town. I know one minister, an "orthodox man," who in five months helped ninety-and-five fugitives flee from American stripes to the freedom of Canada! I dare not yet tell his name! Humble churches in the country towns—Methodist, Baptist, Unitarian—of all denominations save that of commerce—dropped their two mites of money into the alms-box for the slave, and gave him their prayers and their preaching too. But the "famous churches" went for "law" and stealing men.
Slavery had long been master at "Washington: the "Union meeting "proved that it was master at Boston; proved it by words. The capture and sending back of Thomas Sims proved it by deeds. No prominent Whig openly opposed the Fugitive Slave Bill or its execution. No prominent democrat opposed it. Not a prominent clergyman in Boston spoke against it. I mean a clergyman of a "rich and fashionable church"—for in these days the wealth and social standing of the church make the minister "prominent." Intellectual power, eloquence, piety,—they do not make a "prominent minister" in these days.[1] Not ten of the rich men of Massachusetts gave the weight of their influence against it. Slavery is master; Massachusetts is one of the inferior counties of Virginia; Boston is only a suburb of Alexandria. Many of our lawyers, ministers, merchants, politicians, were negro-drivers for the South. They proved it by idea before; then by deed. Yet there were men in Boston who hated slavery—alas! they had little influence.
Let me not pass by the Baltimore conventions, and the two platforms. The Fugitive Slave Bill was the central
- ↑ Dr. Charles Lowell, with the humane piety which has beautified his long and faithful ministry, at that time opposed the Fugitive Slave Bill with manly earnestness.
