But Paley appears never to have contemplated those
cases to which the rule of expediency does not apply, in which a
people, as well as an individual, must do justice, cost what it may.
If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore
it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be
inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall
lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on
Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.
In their practice, nations agree with Paley; but does any one
think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right at the present
crisis?
"A drab of state, a cloth-o'-silver slut,
To have her train borne up, and her soul trail in the dirt."
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. I
quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, near at home,
cooperate with, and do the bidding of those far away, and without whom
the latter would be harmless.
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