July 1850 - Death of Daniel P. King
[1]F.P.
Appleton, Two Discourses Occasioned by the Decease of the Hon. Daniel P.
King", Preached at Danvers, July 28, 1850. Peabody Historical Society
manuscript.
“In my
judgment, this question of the spread of Slavery is not a question of
expediency, but of right; not a matter of fancy, or of choice, but of stern
duty; not a shadowy abstraction, but a thing of body and soul and spirit.
In our deference to superior wisdom and respect for long experience, we must not
forget our own responsibility. Our own conscience, though it be but a
taper light, to us steady and constant, must be the lamp that guides our feet.
The distrust of our powers, will be no excuse for the neglect of our duties.
We cannot disobey the prompting of our own deliberate judgment, and the
convictions of our own understandings. In matters of principle and
conscience, as no one can share with me the responsibility and suffer for me the
penalties of a crime, I can and will permit no one to direct my course.
“Louisiana,
Florida and Texas, have been acquired, and are devoted to slavery.
California, New Mexico and Utah are yet unshackled; they must be sacred to
freedom. They stretch out their hands to us, and beg that we will not bind
the unwilling victims, nor drag them up to the altar of unholy sacrifice.
In the whole of that country, whether it be broken up into rugged and
inaccessible mountains, or spread in desert sands, or vital in green fields and
fertile valleys, as far as my influence and my vote can go, that soil shall be
free!; and the men and the women, whatever complexion as African or an Indian
sun may have burned upon them, shall tread that soil free, erect and unshackled.
“In my home,
we have been taught to feel and believe that slavery must not be extended; the
sentiment cannot be checked, hardly controlled; it rolls down our mountain
sides, it flows over our plains, it pervades our cities - but brings no madness
nor desolation in its path; our men are resolute men, they will maintain their
rights. They are honest men, they will yield to others their rights.”[1]
"The following impromptu lines were addressed to
Hon. Daniel P. King, a short time previous to his return from Washington, by the
gifted and pleasing 'Grace Greenwood' (the pen name of Sarah Jane Clarke,
1823-1904) . They contain a just and handsome
compliment expressed in a playful manner. The wish at the close, given at the
time, perhaps, had a significance and appropriateness, not imagined at the time
they were written.
TO MR.
KING
Child of
the Republic,
I have never bowed the knee
To coronets or sceptres,
To rank or Royalty.
But when a royal nature,
Crowned with a royal name,
Devotes to holy freedom,
His genius and his fame -
'Tis then my heart forgets its pride,
Then to the wind I fling
My democratic scruples,
And all that sort of thing,
My spirit owes allegiance
And prays, 'God, save thee, King.' "[1]
Scan in The Congressional Globe - Saturday, July 27, 1850-
