it
had been told him,--'On the 19th of April, seventy-six years
from this day, will your City of Boston land a poor youth at
Savannah, having violated her own laws, and stained her
Magistrates' hands, in order to put an innocent man in a
Slave-master's jail?' What if it had been told him that
Ellen Craft must fly out of Democratic Boston, to Monarchic,
Theocratic, Aristocratic England, to find shelter for her
limbs, her connubial innocence, and the virtue of her
woman's heart? I think Samuel would have cursed the day in
which it was said a man-child was born, and America was
free! What if it had been told Mayhew and Belknap, that in
the pulpits of Boston, to defend kidnapping should be
counted to a man as righteousness? They could not have
believed it. They did not know what baseness could suck the
Northern breast, and still be base."[219]

[Footnote 219: 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 351, 352, 357-359,
368, 369.]

You will think all this is good morality; but Mr. Curtis in 1836,
maintained that kidnapping in Massachusetts, would "promote harmony
and good-will where it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage
frequent intercourse, and soften prejudice by increasing acquaintance,
and tend to peace and good-will." Nay, that it may be "perfectly
consistent with our policy ... _to interfere actively to enable the
citizens of those States_ [the slave States] _to enjoy those
institutions at home_." "Slavery is not immoral;" "By the law of this
Commonwealth slavery is not immoral."[220]

[Footnote 220: Med Case, p. 9, 11.]

After Commissioner Loring had kidnapped Anthony Burns, I attended the
meeting at Faneuil Hall, and spoke. Gentlemen, I did not finish the
speech I had begun, for news came that an attack was made on the Court
House, and the meeting was thrown into confusion. I did not speak in a
corner, but in the old Cradle of Liberty. Here is the report of the
speech which was made by a phonographer, and published in the
newspapers of the time--I have no other notes of it. You shall see if
there be a misdemeanor in it. Here is the speech:--

"FELLOW-SUBJECTS OF VIRGINIA--[Loud cries of 'No,' 'no,' and 'you must
take that back!'] FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BOSTON, then--['Yes,' 'yes,']--I
come to condole with you at this second disgrace which is heaped on
the city made illustrious by _some_ of those faces that were once so
familiar to o