Tell us whether, after all, the half- free colored man of Massachusetts is worse off than the pampered slave of the rice swamps!
I hardly knew, at the time, whether to thank you or not for the sight of them, when I reflected that it was still dangerous, in Massachusetts, for honest men to tell their names!
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does any one think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?
Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may.
Those of Massachusetts are larger than will be necessary for that purpose; and those of New York still more so.
Has it appeared on trial that the senators of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York, or the executive council of Pennsylvania, or the members of the Assembly in the two last States, have betrayed any peculiar disposition to sacrifice the many to the few, or are in any respect less worthy of their places than the representatives and magistrates appointed in other States by very small divisions of the people?
There they made a settlement, and called it Plymouth, which, though now a part of Massachusetts, was for a long time a colony by itself.
Several gentlemen among them purchased a tract of country on the coast of Massachusetts Bay, and obtained a charter from King Charles, which authorized them to make laws for the settlers.
The sign represented the front of a stately edifice, which was designated as the "OLD PROVINCE HOUSE, kept by Thomas Waite." I was glad to be thus reminded of a purpose, long entertained, of visiting and rambling over the mansion of the old royal governors of
Massachusetts; and entering the arched passage, which penetrated through the middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps transported me from the busy heart of modern Boston into a small and secluded courtyard.
The tempestuous situation from which
Massachusetts has scarcely emerged, evinces that dangers of this kind are not merely speculative.
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does anyone think that
Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present crisis?
That was Amos Struver; and then there was Harry Adams, the assistant clerk, a pale, scholarly-looking man, who came from
Massachusetts, of Pilgrim stock.