"Thoreau, Henry David - Slavery in Massachusetts [PG]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thoreau Henry David)

1854

SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS

by Henry David Thoreau

I LATELY ATTENDED a meeting of the citizens of Concord, expecting,
as one among many, to speak on the subject of slavery in
Massachusetts; but I was surprised and disappointed to find that
what had called my townsmen together was the destiny of Nebraska,
and not of Massachusetts, and that what I had to say would be entirely
out of order. I had thought that the house was on fire, and not the
prairie; but though several of the citizens of Massachusetts are now
in prison for attempting to rescue a slave from her own clutches,
not one of the speakers at that meeting expressed regret for it, not
one even referred to it. It was only the disposition of some wild
lands a thousand miles off which appeared to concern them. The
inhabitants of Concord are not prepared to stand by one of their own
bridges, but talk only of taking up a position on the highlands beyond
the Yellowstone River. Our Buttricks and Davises and Hosmers are
retreating thither, and I fear that they will leave no Lexington
Common between them and the enemy. There is not one slave in Nebraska;
there are perhaps a million slaves in Massachusetts.

They who have been bred in the school of politics fail now and
always to face the facts. Their measures are half measures and
makeshifts merely. They put off the day of settlement indefinitely,
and meanwhile the debt accumulates. Though the Fugitive Slave Law
had not been the subject of discussion on that occasion, it was at
length faintly resolved by my townsmen, at an adjourned meeting, as
I learn, that the compromise compact of 1820 having been repudiated by
one of the parties, "Therefore,... the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 must
be repealed." But this is not the reason why an iniquitous law
should be repealed. The fact which the politician faces is merely that
there is less honor among thieves than was supposed, and not the
fact that they are thieves.

As I had no opportunity to express my thoughts at that meeting, will
you allow me to do so here?

Again it happens that the Boston Court-House is full of armed men,
holding prisoner and trying a MAN, to find out if he is not really a
SLAVE. Does any one think that justice or God awaits Mr. Loring's
decision? For him to sit there deciding still, when this question is
already decided from eternity to eternity, and the unlettered slave
himself and the multitude around have long since heard and assented to
the decision, is simply to make himself ridiculous. We may be
tempted to ask from whom he received his commission, and who he is
that received it; what novel statutes he obeys, and what precedents
are to him of authority. Such an arbiter's very existence is an