I first heard this Quote from Martin Luther King !!!
The arc of the moral universe is long,
But it bends toward justice
--Abolitionist Theodore Parker, c. 1850s
As I search thru census records....... the 1830-1850 - Pre Civil War Thinkers
Who Was Theodore Parker?
Theodore Parker rejected all miracles, and saw the Bible as full of contradictions and
mistakes. He retained his faith in God but suggested that people experience God
intuitively and personally. He thought that individual experience was where people
should center their religious beliefs.[
In Boston, Parker led the movement to combat the stricter
Fugitive Slave Act enacted with the
Compromise of 1850. It required law enforcement and citizens of all states- free states as well as slave states- to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves. Parker called the law "a hateful statute of kidnappers", and helped organize open resistance to it in Boston. Parker and his followers formed the Committee of Vigilance, refusing to assist with the recovery of fugitive slaves, and helping to hide them.
[11] For example, they smuggled away
Ellen and William Craft when Georgian slave catchers came to Boston to arrest them. Due to Parker's effort, from 1850 to the onset of the
American Civil War in 1861, only twice were slaves captured in Boston and transported back to the South. On both occasions, Bostonians combatted the actions with mass protests
Parker's
abolitionism became his most controversial stance, at a time when the American union was beginning to split over
slavery.
[20] He wrote the scathing
To a Southern Slaveholder in 1848, as the abolition crisis was heating up. Parker defied slavery
[21] and advocated violating the
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, a controversial part of the
Compromise of 1850 which required the return of escaped slaves to their owners. Parker worked with many fugitive slaves, some of whom were among Parker's congregation. As in the case of William and Ellen Craft,
[22] he hid them in his home. Although he was indicted for his actions, he was never convicted.
[8]
During the undeclared war in
Kansas (see
Bleeding Kansas and
Origins of the American Civil War) prior to the outbreak of the
American Civil War, Parker supplied money for
weapons for free state
militias. As a member of the
Secret Six, he supported the abolitionist
John Brown, whom many considered a
terrorist. After Brown's arrest, Parker wrote a public letter, "John Brown's Expedition Reviewed, "defending his actions and the right of slaves to kill their masters.
