Anthony Burns: The Defeat and Triumph of a Fugitive Slave by Virginia Hamilton

Author:Virginia Hamilton [Hamilton, Virginia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween
Published: 2011-02-14T23:00:00+00:00

13

May 28, 1854

SUNDAY CAME ALL TOO soon, with still more rumors. It was said that the Federal government had sent telegrams that did not favor Anthony Burns’ release. Reverend Grimes, hearing this, was fearful of what would happen next.

“THE MAN IS NOT BOUGHT!” a new handbill circulating on Sunday screamed at the public. “He Is Still In The Slave Pen In The Court House. Be on your guard against all lies. Watch The Slave Pen. Let every man attend the trial. Remember Monday morning at 11 o’clock.”

Sunday church services had commenced all over Boston. In the immense music hall, Tremont Temple, the Reverend Theodore Parker was about to begin his services. He had no pulpit and no altar, only a desk where he sat and watched as the people filed in.

Today there would be not only the Massachusetts congregation in Tremont Temple to hear him, but Southerners as well. Through a note they had informed him they were present. The Southerners, some friends of the Colonel’s, others from Harvard, had come to hear what he would say against slavery.

Parker grinned. Everyone would go away this day with something new to think about.

When the church was full, he stood and stepped forward to begin the morning service. As he looked around, he noticed that people were standing. Chairs had been placed in the aisles. Hundreds, it seemed, had not been able to get inside. But now there was silence. The great space of the hall with its double tier of galleries might have been empty as he spoke.

“Since last we came together,” Parker began, “there has been a man stolen in the city of our fathers. He is now in the great slave-pen in the city of Boston. He is there against the law of the Commonwealth, which, if I am rightly informed, prohibits the use of State buildings as United States jails.

“Why is this? Whose fault is this? The fugitive slave bill Commissioner has just now been sowing the wind, that we may reap the whirlwind.

“Edward Greeley Loring, I charge you with the death of that man who was killed on last Friday night. He dies at your hand. I charge you with filling the Court House with one hundred and eighty-four hired ruffians and alarming not only this city for her liberties that are in peril, but stirring up the whole Commonwealth of Massachusetts with indignation. You have done it all!”

Mouths dropped open and clamped shut again. Then noise rose and exploded.

Parker continued calmly. “I have something from Reverend Grimes and Deacon Pitts, at Anthony Burns’s special request. It was given to them by him soon after his arrest and confinement.”

The crowd hushed. Parker read the message, which, at about the same time, was being read by other ministers in other Boston churches:

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