Theodore Parker loved parish ministry, but he was a dedicated scholar, both of American history and of antiquity: on July 30, 1845, Parker took the time to interview the last surviving veteran of the battle of Lexington. Parker also served as a grader of Harvard’s Greek exams in addition to his ministry work for a number of years.
Parker’s interest in the past greatly influenced how he talked about slavery and abolition. In his biography of Parker, Paul Teed notes that Parker frequently evokes the Revolutionary War in his speeches to justify militant, even armed, struggles for freedom. Teed also notes that Parker combines history with geography to frame particular locations, most especially Boston, but also Lexington and Concord, as spaces with close connections of freedom. This geographical aspect of Parker’s rhetoric takes on a whole different dimension when he begins his opposition to the fugitive slave law of 1850. For example, when Thomas Sims, a runaway slave, was ultimately captured and returned to the south, Parker exclaimed that Sims left by being carried “over the spot where, eighty-one years before, the ground had drunk the blood of Crispus Attucks.” (Teed 2012: 144).
Similar to American history and geography, Greek and Roman antiquity were also sources of authority for Parker’s abolitionist arguments. The challenge was for Parker, as for all abolitionists who turned to antiquity, to figure out how to use the literature, philosophy and history of two societies in which slave-ownership was accepted. One solution was to focus on ancient slave revolts. Unsurprisingly, Parker, like other abolitionists, turned to Spartacus.
However, in an 1843 work, Parker offered up a very unusual answer to how slave-holding antiquity could be useful in creating an abolitionist future: Parker summoned Socrates to Boston.
In this piece, “Socrates in Boston”, Parker imagines Socrates interrogating a certain Jonathan of Boston. Jonathan is both an ardent Christian and a defender of slavery, even though he does not own any slaves himself. However, Jonathan does know enough about slavery to speak about it with confidence, similar to Socrates himself. For Parker brings to the forefront how Socrates’ Athens also had slaves:
“So I suppose slavery does not encourage indolence, wastefulness, deception and fraud, in the slaves, any more than it did at Athens.”
This quote comes from a passage in which Socrates is asking Jonathan about the effect of slavery on slaves, since Jonathan had claimed that slavery was beneficial to slaves, a claim that Parker’s Socrates investigates with typical Platonic fervor.
And Plato was important to Parker, as evidenced by the lectures that Parker gave on Plato. Parker’s interest was guided by two lines: first, Plato offered a vision of God that suited Parker’s Unitarian needs. Plato was also simply in the air of Massachusetts: Emerson was attracted to Plato’s thought, as were other transcendentalists such as Margaret Fuller.
However, Parker was not content with the Socrates that he found in Plato’s dialogues. Parker instead transforms Socrates into a Christian. Parker ends the dialogue with Socrates speaking, as Parker writes it, solus:
“Have two thousand years and more gone by, since my time? I heard of Christianity when Paul came to Mars Hill, and blessed his manly heart – as I lay in my grave. This cannot be real. Slavery in a free land; defended in a Christian land; by men what do not own slaves! This must be all a dream!”
Parker turns to antiquity for authority for his abolitionist arguments. He takes from antiquity his character, Socrates, genre, the dialogue, as well as a number of rhetorical flourishes; Socrates also mentions the Cynic philosopher Menippus and the tyrranicides Harmodius and Aristogiton. However, by the end of his dialogue, Parker discards authority of antiquity for the authority of Christianity: Parker bends history to transform Socrates into a Christian so that Socrates will be a more influential abolitionist.
Parker’s interest in the past greatly influenced how he talked about slavery and abolition. In his biography of Parker, Paul Teed notes that Parker frequently evokes the Revolutionary War in his speeches to justify militant, even armed, struggles for freedom. Teed also notes that Parker combines history with geography to frame particular locations, most especially Boston, but also Lexington and Concord, as spaces with close connections of freedom. This geographical aspect of Parker’s rhetoric takes on a whole different dimension when he begins his opposition to the fugitive slave law of 1850. For example, when Thomas Sims, a runaway slave, was ultimately captured and returned to the south, Parker exclaimed that Sims left by being carried “over the spot where, eighty-one years before, the ground had drunk the blood of Crispus Attucks.” (Teed 2012: 144).
Similar to American history and geography, Greek and Roman antiquity were also sources of authority for Parker’s abolitionist arguments. The challenge was for Parker, as for all abolitionists who turned to antiquity, to figure out how to use the literature, philosophy and history of two societies in which slave-ownership was accepted. One solution was to focus on ancient slave revolts. Unsurprisingly, Parker, like other abolitionists, turned to Spartacus.
However, in an 1843 work, Parker offered up a very unusual answer to how slave-holding antiquity could be useful in creating an abolitionist future: Parker summoned Socrates to Boston.
In this piece, “Socrates in Boston”, Parker imagines Socrates interrogating a certain Jonathan of Boston. Jonathan is both an ardent Christian and a defender of slavery, even though he does not own any slaves himself. However, Jonathan does know enough about slavery to speak about it with confidence, similar to Socrates himself. For Parker brings to the forefront how Socrates’ Athens also had slaves:
“So I suppose slavery does not encourage indolence, wastefulness, deception and fraud, in the slaves, any more than it did at Athens.”
This quote comes from a passage in which Socrates is asking Jonathan about the effect of slavery on slaves, since Jonathan had claimed that slavery was beneficial to slaves, a claim that Parker’s Socrates investigates with typical Platonic fervor.
And Plato was important to Parker, as evidenced by the lectures that Parker gave on Plato. Parker’s interest was guided by two lines: first, Plato offered a vision of God that suited Parker’s Unitarian needs. Plato was also simply in the air of Massachusetts: Emerson was attracted to Plato’s thought, as were other transcendentalists such as Margaret Fuller.
However, Parker was not content with the Socrates that he found in Plato’s dialogues. Parker instead transforms Socrates into a Christian. Parker ends the dialogue with Socrates speaking, as Parker writes it, solus:
“Have two thousand years and more gone by, since my time? I heard of Christianity when Paul came to Mars Hill, and blessed his manly heart – as I lay in my grave. This cannot be real. Slavery in a free land; defended in a Christian land; by men what do not own slaves! This must be all a dream!”
Parker turns to antiquity for authority for his abolitionist arguments. He takes from antiquity his character, Socrates, genre, the dialogue, as well as a number of rhetorical flourishes; Socrates also mentions the Cynic philosopher Menippus and the tyrranicides Harmodius and Aristogiton. However, by the end of his dialogue, Parker discards authority of antiquity for the authority of Christianity: Parker bends history to transform Socrates into a Christian so that Socrates will be a more influential abolitionist.