SPEECHES, ADDRESSES,
AND
OCCASIONAL SERMONS,

BY

THEODORE PARKER,

MINISTER OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN BOSTON.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

BOSTON:
HORACE B. FULLER,

(Successor to Walker, Fuller, and Company,)

245, Washington Street.

1867.


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
THEODORE PARKER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the District of Massachusetts.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME III.

I.

A Speech at a Meeting of the Citizens of Boston
in Faneuil Hall, March 25, 1850, to Consider the
Speech of Mr. Webster PAGE 1

II.

A Speech at the New England Anti-Slavery Convention
in Boston, May 29, 1850 38

III.

A Discourse Occasioned by the Death of the late
President Taylor.—Preached at the Melodeon, on
Sunday, July 14, 1850 87

IV.

The Function and Place of Conscience, in Relation
to the Laws of Men; a Sermon for the
Times.—Preached at the Melodeon, on Sunday, September
22, 1850 131

V.

The State of the Nation, considered in a Sermon
for Thanksgiving Day.—Preached at the Melodeon,
November 28, 1850 180

VI.

The Chief Sins of the People.—A Sermon delivered
at the Melodeon, on Fast Day, April 10, 1851 230

VII.

The Three Chief Safeguards of Society, considered
in a Sermon at the Melodeon, on Sunday,
July 6, 1851 292

VIII.

The Position and Duties of the American Scholar.—An
Address delivered at Waterville, August 8, 1849 346

I.

SPEECH AT A MEETING OF THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON, IN FANEUIL HALL, MARCH 25, 1850, TO CONSIDER THE SPEECH OF MR. WEBSTER.

Mr. President and Fellow Citizens: It is an important occasion which has brought us together. A great crisis has occurred in the affairs of the United States. There is a great question now before the people. In any European country west of Russia and east of Spain, it would produce a revolution, and be settled with gunpowder. It narrowly concerns the material welfare of the nation. The decision that is made will help millions of human beings into life, or will hinder and prevent millions from being born. It will help or hinder the advance of the nation in wealth for a long time to come. It is a question which involves the honor of the people. Your honor and my honor are concerned in this matter, which is presently to be passed upon by the people of the United States. More than all this, it concerns the morality of the people. We are presently to do a right deed, or to inflict a great wrong on others and on ourselves, and thereby entail an evil upon this continent which will blight and curse it for many an age.

It is a great question, comprising many smaller ones:—Shall we extend and foster Slavery, or shall we extend and foster Freedom? Slavery, with its consequences, material, political, intellectual, moral; or Freedom, with the consequences thereof?

A question so important seldom comes to be decided before any generation of men. This age is full of great questions, but this of Freedom is the chief. It is the same question which in other forms comes up in Europe. This is presently to be decided here in the United States by the servants of the people, I mean, by the Congress of the nation; in the name of the people; for the people, if justly decided; against them, if unjustly. If it were to be left to-morrow to the naked votes of the majority, I should have no fear. But the public servants of the people may decide otherwise. The political parties, as such, are not to pass judgment. It is not a question between whigs and democrats; old party distinctions, once so sacred and rigidly observed, here vanish out of sight. The party of Slavery or the party of Freedom is to swallow up all the other parties. Questions about tariffs and banks can hardly get a hearing. On the approach of a battle, men do not talk of the weather.

Four great men in the Senate of the United States have given us their decision; the four most eminent in the party politics of the nation—two great whigs, two great democrats. The Shibboleth of their party is forgotten by each; there is a strange unanimity in their decision. The Herod of free trade and the Pilate of protection are "made friends," when freedom is to be crucified. All four decide adverse to freedom; in favor of slavery; against the people. Their decisions are such as you might look for in the politicians of Austria and Russia. Many smaller ones have spoken on this side or on that. Last of all, but greatest, the most illustrious of the four, so far as great gifts of the understanding are concerned, a son of New England, long known, and often and deservedly honored, has given his decision. We waited long for his words; we held our peace in his silence; we listened for his counsel. Here it is; adverse to freedom beyond the fears of his friends, and the hopes even of his foes. He has done wrong things before, cowardly things more than once; but this, the wrongest and most cowardly of them all: we did not look for it. No great man in America has had his faults or his failings so leniently dealt with; private scandal we will not credit, public shame we have tried to excuse, or, if inexcusable, to forget. We have all of us been proud to go forward and honor his noble deeds, his noble efforts, even his noble words. I wish we could take a mantle big and black enough, and go backward and cover up the shame of the great man who has fallen in the midst of us, and hide him till his honor and his conscience shall return. But no, it cannot be; his deed is