North conquered her prejudices. The South sees this, and makes another demand. Why not? I am glad of it. She serves us right." "In 1775, what if it had been told the men all red with battle at Lexington and Bunker Hill, 'your sons will gird the Court House with chains to kidnap a man; Boston will vote for a Bill which puts the liberty of any man in the hands of a Commissioner, to be paid twice as much for making a Slave as for declaring a freeman; and Boston will call out its soldiers to hunt a man through its streets!' What if on the 19th of April, 1775, when Samuel Adams said, 'Oh! what a glorious morning is this!' as he heard the tidings of war in the little village where he passed the night, — what if it had been told him, 'On the 19th of April, seventy-six years from this day, will your City of Boston land a poor youth at Savannah, having violated her own laws, and stained her Magistrates' hands, in order to put an innocent man in a Slave-master's jail?' What if it had been told him that Ellen Craft must fly out of Democratic Boston, to Monarchic, Theocratic, Aristocratic England, to find shelter for her limbs, her connubial innocence, and the virtue of her woman's heart? I think Samuel would have cursed the day in which it was said a man-child was born, and America was free! What if it had been told Mayhew and Belknap, that in the pulpits of Boston, to defend kidnapping should be counted to a man as righteousness? They could not have believed it. They did not know what baseness could suck the Northern breast, and still be base."1 You will think all this is good morality; but Mr. Curtis in 1836, maintained that kidnapping in Massachusetts, would "promote harmony and good-will where it is extremely desirable to promote it, encourage frequent intercourse, and soften prejudice by increasing acquaintance, and tend to peace and good-will." Nay, that it may be "perfectly consistent with our policy. . . to interfere actively to enable the citizens of those States [the slave States] to enjoy those institutions at home." "Slavery is not immoral;" "By the law of this Commonwealth slavery is not immoral." 2 After Commissioner Loring had kidnapped Anthony Burns, I attended the meeting at Faneuil Hall, and spoke. Gentlemen, I did not finish the speech I had begun, for news came that an attack was made on the Court House, and the meeting was thrown into confusion. I did not speak in a corner, but in the old Cradle of Liberty. Here is the report of the speech which was made by a phonographer, and published in the newspapers of the time I have no other notes of it. You shall see if there be a misdemeanor in it. Here is the speech: 6. "FELLOW-SUBJECTS OF VIRGINIA - [Loud cries of No,' no,' and 'you must take that back!'] FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BOSTON, then['Yes,' 'yes']—I come to condole with you at this second disgrace which is heaped on the city made illustrious by some of those faces that were once so familiar to our eyes. [Alluding to the portraits which once hung conspicuously in Faneuil Hall, but which had been 1 1 Parker's Additional Speeches, p. 351, 352, 357-359, 368, 369. - removed to obscure and out-of-the-way locations.] Fellow-citizens -A deed which Virginia commands has been done in the city of John Hancock and the 'brace of Adamses.' It was done by, a Boston hand. It was a Boston man who issued the warrant, it was a a Boston Marshal who put it in execution; they are Boston men who are seeking to kidnap a citizen of Massachusetts, and send him into slavery for ever and ever. It is our fault that it is so. Eight years ago, a merchant of Boston kidnapped a man on the high road between Faneuil Hall and Old Quincy,' at 12 o'clock, — at the noon of day, and the next day, mechanics of this city exhibited the halfeagles they had received for their share of the spoils in enslaving a brother man. You called a meeting in this hall. It was as crowded as it is now. I stood side by side with my friend and former neighbor, your honorable and noble Chairman to-night [George R. Russell, of West Roxbury], [Loud Cheers,] while this man who had fought for liberty in Greece, and been imprisoned for that sacred cause in the dungeons of Poland, [Dr. Samuel G. Howe,] stood here and introduced to the audience that old man eloquent,' John Quincy Adams. [Loud Cheers.] "It was the last time he ever stood in Faneuil Hall. He came to defend the unalienable rights of a friendless negro slave, kidnapped in Boston. There is even no picture of John Quincy Adams to night. [Shame,'' shame.'] If have been here to-night. When that bill passed, "A Suffolk Grand-Jury would find no indictment against the Boston merchant for kidnapping that man. Boston had spoken then, we should not We should have had no fugitive slave bill. we fired a hundred guns. "Don't you remember the Union meeting held in this very hall? A man stood on this platform, he is a Judge of the Supreme Court now, and he said- When a certain Reverend gentleman' is indicted for perjury, I should like to ask him how he will answer the charge? And when that Reverend gentleman' rose, and asked, 'Do you want an answer to your question?' Faneuil Hall cried out, 'No,' 'no,'- 'Throw him over!' Had Faneuil Hall spoken then on the side of Truth and Freedom, we should not now be the subjects of Virginia. “Yes, we are the vassals of Virginia. She reaches her arm over the graves of our mothers, and kidnaps men in the city of the Puritans; over the graves of Samuel Adams aud John Hancock. [Cries of Shame!'] 'Shame!' so I say; but who is to blame? 'There is no north,' said Mr. Webster. There is none. The South goes clear up to the Canada line. No, gentlemen, there is no Boston to-day. There was a Boston once. Now, there is a North sub urb to the city of Alexandria, - that is what Boston is. [Laughter.] And you and I, fellow-subjects of the State of Virginia — [Cries of 'no,' 'no. Take that back again.'] - I will take it back when you show me the fact is not so. Men and brothers, (brothers, at any rate,) I am not a young man; I have heard hurrahs and cheers for liberty many times; I have not seen a great many deeds done for liberty. I ask you, are we to have deeds as well as words? ['Yes,' 'yes,' and loud cheers.] . "Now, brethren, you are brothers at any rate, whether citizens of Massachusetts or subjects of Virginia—I am a minister — and, fellow-citizens of Boston, there are two great laws in this country; one of them is the LAW OF SLAVERY; that law is declared to be a 'finality. Once the Constitution was formed to establish justice, promote tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Now, the Constitution is not to secure liberty; it is to extend slavery into Nebraska. And when slavery is established there, in order to show what it is, there comes a sheriff from Alexandria, to kidnap a man in the city of Boston, and he gets a Judge of Probate, in the county of Suffolk, to issue a writ, and another Boston man to execute that writ! [Cries of 'shame,' 'shame.'] "Slavery tramples on the Constitution; it treads down State Rights. Where are the Rights of Massachusetts? A fugitive slave bill Commissioner has got them all in his pocket. Where is the trial by jury? Watson Freeman has it under his Marshal's staff. Where is the great writ of personal replevin, which our fathers wrested, several hundred years ago, from the tyrants who once lorded it over Great Britain? Judge Sprague trod it under his feet! Where is the sacred right of habeas corpus? Deputy Marshal Riley can crush it in his hands, and Boston does not say any thing against it. Where are the laws of Massachusetts forbidding State edifices to be used as prisons for the incarceration of fugitives? They, too, are trampled underfoot. Slavery is a finality.' 6 เ "These men come from Virginia, to kidnap a man here. Once, this was Boston; now, it is a Northern suburb of Alexandria. At first, when they carried a fugitive slave from Boston, they thought it was a difficult thing to do it. They had to get a Mayor to help them; they had to put chains round the Court House; they had to call out the Sims Brigade'; it took nine days to do it. Now, they are so confident that we are subjects of Virginia, that they do not even put chains round the Court House; the police have nothing to do with it. I was told to-day that one of the officers of the city said to twenty-eight police-men, If any man in the employment of the city meddles in this business, he will be discharged from service, without a hearing.' [Great applause.] Well, gentlemen, how do 6 you think they received that declaration? They shouted, and hurrahed, and gave three cheers. [Renewed applause.] [Renewed applause.] My friend here would not have had the honor of presiding over you to-night, if application had been made a little sooner to the Mayor. Another gentleman told me that, when that man (the Mayor) was asked to preside at this meeting, he said that he regretted that all his time to-night was previously engaged. If he had known it earlier, he said, he might have been able to make arrangements to preside. When the man was arrested, he told the Marshal he regretted it, and that his sympathies were wholly with the slave. [Loud applause.] Fellowcitizens, remember that word. Hold your Mayor to it, and let it be seen that he has got a background and a foreground, which will authorize him to repeat that word in public, and act it out in Faneuil Hall. I say, so confident are the slave agents now, that they can carry off their slave in the daytime, that they do not put chains round the Court House; they have got no soldiers billeted in Faneuil Hall, as in 1851. They think they can carry this man off tomorrow morning in a cab. [Voices [Voices They can't do it.' 'Let's see them try?'] 6 "I say, there are two great laws in this country. One is the slave law. That is the law of the President of the United States; it is the law of the Commissioner; it is the law of every Marshal, and of every meanest ruffian whom the Marshal hires to execute his behests. "There is another law, which my friend, Mr. Phillips, has described in language such as I cannot equal, and therefore shall not try; I only state it in its plainest terms. It is the Law of the People when they are sure they are right and determined to go ahead. [Cheers and much confusion] "Now, gentlemen, there was a Boston once, and you and I had fathers brave fathers; and mothers who stirred up those fathers to manly deeds. Well, gentlemen, once it came to pass that the British Parliament enacted a law-they called it law-issuing stamps here. What did your fathers do on that occasion? They said, in the language of Algernon Sydney, quoted in your resolutions, 'that which is not just is not law, and that which is not law ought not to be obeyed.' [Cheers.] They did not obey the stamp act. They did not call it law, and the man that did call it a law, here, eighty years ago, would have had a very warm coat of tar and feathers on him. They called it an act,' and they took the Commissioner who was here to execute it, took him solemnly, manfully, — they did n't hurt a hair of his head; they were non-resistants, of a very potent sort, [Cheers,] and made him take a solemn oath that he would not issue a single stamp. He was brother-in-law of the Governor of the State, the servant of a royal master, 'exceedingly respectable,' of great 6 wealth, and once very popular; but they took him, and made him swear not to execute his commission; and he kept his oath, and the stamp act went to its own place, and you know what that was. [Cheers.] That was an instance of the people going behind a wicked law to enact Absolute Justice into their statute, and making it Common Law. You know what they did with the tea. "Well, gentlemen, in the South there is a public opinion,(it is a very wicked public opinion, which is stronger than law. When a colored seaman goes to Charleston from Boston, he is clapped instantly into jail, and kept there until the vessel is ready to sail, and the Boston merchant or master must pay the bill, and the Boston black man must feel the smart. That is a wicked example, set by the State of South Carolina. When Mr. Hoar, one of our most honored and respected fellow-citizens, was sent to Charleston to test the legality of this iniquitous law, the citizens of Charleston ordered him off the premises, and he was glad to escape to save himself from further outrage. There was no violence, no guns fired. That was an instance of the strength of public opinion of a most unjust and iniquitous public opinion. "Well, gentlemen, I say there is one law-slave law; it is everywhere. There is another law, which also is a finality; and that law, it is in your hands and your arms, and you can put it in execution, just when you see fit. “Gentlemen, I am a clergyman and a man of peace; I love peace. But there is a means, and there is an end; Liberty is the end, and sometimes peace is not the means towards it. [Applause.] Now, I want to ask you what you are going to do. [A voice. ·'shoot, shoot.'] There are ways of managing this matter without shooting anybody. Be sure that these men who have kidnapped a man in Boston, are cowards, every mother's son of them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare that this man shall not go out of the city of Boston, without shooting a gun- [cries of 'that's it,' and great applause,] - then he won't go back. Now, I am going to propose that when you adjourn, it be to meet at Court Square, to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. As many as are in favor of that motion will raise their hands. [A large number of hands were raised, but many voices cried out, 'Let's go to-night,' 'let's pay a visit to the slave-catchers at the Revere House,' etc. 'Put that question.'] Do you propose to go to the Revere House to-night, then show your hands. (Some hands were held up.) It is not a vote. We shall meet at Court Square, at nine o'clock to-morrow morning." On the following Sunday, May 28, in place of the usual Scripture |