tance is reduced to a computation of the
quantity of the danger and grievance on the one side, and of
the probability and expense of redressing it on the other."
Of this, he says, every man shall judge for himself.
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
anyone think that Massachusetts does exactly what is right
at the present crisis?

"A drab of stat,
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,
co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and
without whom the latter would be harmless. We are
accustomed to say, that the mass of men are unprepared; but
improvement is slow, because the few are not as materially
wiser or better than the many. It is not so important that
many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute
goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.
There are thousands who are _in opinion_ opposed to slavery
and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end
to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington
and Franklin, sit down with their hands in their pockets,
and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who
even postpone the question of freedom to the question of
free trade, and quietly read the prices-current along with
the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may
be, fall asleep over them both. What is the price-current
of an honest man and patriot today? They hesitate, and they
regret, and sometimes they petition; but they do nothing in
earnes