Virginia Hamilton (8 page)

The Judge can meet any argument we might raise on the constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act itself, Dana was thinking; the act has already been upheld in higher courts.

But the claimant, Suttle, is trying to prove too much. Not only the prisoner's identity, but that he escaped as well. And there is no clear evidence of that. If Burns fell asleep on the ship, then clearly he did not escape. And if he did not escape, then he cannot be the “escaped slave” of their record. The person described in the record would have to be someone other than Anthony Burns.

Dana stayed only briefly with the prisoner, to tell Anthony that he would represent him. He found Burns to be a man self-possessed now, not like the frightened creature in Thursday's courtroom. He took Anthony to one of the windows and quietly explained again who he was and that he would take care of the business in court for him. All the time he was thinking that Anthony seemed a pleasant fellow and quite intelligent.

Good! Dana thought. He can think for himself; he can read and write. And he therefore can help us defend him. Very good!

Reverend Grimes also had his mind on Anthony. How would he find Mr. Burns this day? he wondered. How was a man once free going to bear being confined again? Some men would become wild and raging.
Others would quickly die inside, forever broken in heart and mind. Would that be the state of Anthony Burns?

Mr. Grimes waited calmly outside for his turn to see Anthony. When he entered the jury room, he found that Anthony was dictating a letter to one of his jailers. Anthony had written some few words of it himself, proud to show he could write.

Reverend Grimes greeted Anthony warmly. “What have you been doing with yourself, Mr. Burns?” he asked.

Anthony told the reverend, “This fellow here says the Boston people think on how the Colonel has been awful hard with me. The Colonel, Mars Suttle, don't like that at all. Well, this man says if I straight it out, then the Colonel is not going to make it bad for me when I get back. So that be what I had writ down here for all to see.”

Reverend Grimes was shocked. Obviously the guard had been instructed to trick Anthony and to get him to make admissions to be used in court.

The poor soul's mind is weakened by this confinement, Mr. Grimes thought. “I will get Mr. Dana back here,” he told the guard. “Sir, I will get
all
of Mr. Burns's lawyers here. Sir, you will bring trouble unto yourself for this!”

This last was said with such force and in such a tone that the guard stepped back, stammering an apology. He took the letter, dictated and carefully signed by Anthony Burns, and quickly handed it to Asa Butman.

“Mr. Burns,” Reverend Grimes whispered urgently, “you must get that letter back. They mean to use it against you!”

Anthony was shaken. Suddenly he knew he had been a fool. “Don't know what has got inside
me,” he said. “Must be the Devil's own self. Don't know what I'm about. They always try to trick me. And I let them do it. All this—prison confuse me so. I do forget even what day—I'll get that letter back! I will!”

“I know you will do it,” Reverend Grimes said, “just as I am sure the lawyers will get you off. Mr. Ellis and Mr. Dana are both fine men. And all of our group here are going to see that no one harms you or takes you back.”

“Thank you all!” Anthony said, smiling. He did not show it, but he was not convinced he would go free. He was used to the power of the slave owners. Their strength had been tested and was a fact of life for him even now.

It always been so, he thought. Ain't the colonel found me clear to here? No changing what be the truth. Mars Charles will win me.

There was no way for the reverend to know how forlorn Anthony felt. He would not have guessed that when the guards left him to himself, Anthony would go far back in his mind to slavery times for comfort. And even if Mr. Grimes had known, he wouldn't have believed such solace could be found in dark bondage. But Anthony was no ordinary fugitive. And he took his comfort where he could.

Soon Reverend Grimes had to say good-bye to Anthony. “You will remember to get the letter, my son?” he said.

“Oh, surely, I will get it,” Anthony said. “I will.”

Anthony did get it back. Later that morning, after Reverend Grimes had gone, he got the letter back under the pretext of wanting to add something to it. Once he had the letter in his hands, Anthony
tore it to shreds instantly. Asa Butman looked like he could have shot Anthony on the spot. But he did nothing.

After the guards left him to himself, Anthony stood a long time at one of the windows. He gripped the bars, pressing his head up against the iron stripes. Get it over, he thought. Lord? Good Lord. I can't take much more.

Few men ever had felt so alone as Anthony did at that moment. But he was not alone. Some members of the secret Vigilance Committee stayed with him, watching over the Court House exits as long as he was there. Others kept a sharp eye on the slave owners at the Revere House. Night and day Colonel Suttle and William Brent's steps were dogged by black men who moved like shadows. When the slaveholders had been followed by one dark, silent figure for a certain length of time, they were passed along to another and still another. At no time were the two Virginians ever left alone in public. It was no wonder then that Colonel Suttle and William Brent kept to their attic rooms as much as possible.

The Vigilance Committee had at its command lawyers, scholars, doctors, suffragettes, and ship captains as well as working men and women both black and white. All were dedicated to the cause of freedom for slaves.

The leaders of the Committee met secretly late Friday afternoon, May 26, in Theodore Parker's church, Tremont Temple. They had already obtained permission to hold a protest meeting at Faneuil Hall that evening. Posters announcing the evening meeting were up all over Boston. A notice appeared in all the papers Friday morning:

A MAN KIDNAPPED
—
A Public Meeting will be held at Faneuil Hall this evening, May 26, at 7 o'clock, to secure justice for a man claimed as a slave by a Virginia kidnapper, and imprisoned in Boston Court House, in defiance of the laws of Massachusetts. Shall he be plunged into the hell of a Virginia slavery by a Massachusetts Judge of Probate?

Letters to important abolitionists and
Vigilance Committee members in western and southern Massachusetts were carried out of the city by teamsters, men who drove their wagons of vegetables and fish to market Thursday night.

That Friday afternoon at Parker's church, the Committee decided that Anthony Burns would never be taken back to Virginia, no matter what Judge Loring's decision might be. It decided that if any attempt was made to remove the prisoner back to the South, a wall of men would bar the way. In the confusion that would then result, the Committee men would hustle Anthony into a waiting carriage and on to safety.

There were other ideas about how to proceed. Some members wanted to attack the Court House and rescue Anthony by the use of force, just as the slave Shadrach had been liberated in 1851. Others felt that they should wait for Loring's decision. If the decision went against Anthony, then they proposed to take to the streets. If Burns was escorted out of the Court House to be taken to Virginia, they would start a riot. And as with the first plan, in the confusion, they would grab Anthony Burns and escape. But after long hours of discussion, no definite course of action was decided at the meeting,
and it adjourned with only vague notions of resistance.

Reverend Thomas W. Higginson of Worcester, Massachusetts, had attended the Parker church meeting after receiving a call-to-meeting letter from a Boston teamster the day before. Higginson's own church was a strong force in Worcester; he had also been involved in the Sims case of 1851. Eager to help, he took a train to Boston on Friday with more than two hundred Worcester citizens. Displeased with the outcome of the meeting at Parker's church, Higginson met with another Worcester man, Martin Stowell, afterward. They formed their own secret plan.

The two of them believed that Anthony Burns
must
be taken from the Court House by sympathizers, who could carry him off during the excitement of a public meeting like the one that was to take place at Faneuil Hall that very night. Reverend Higginson was certain that Marshal Freeman would be expecting such an attack at the end of the Faneuil Hall meeting.

“Could there not be an attack at the very
height
of the meeting?” he asked. “Let all be in readiness; let a picked body be distributed near the Court House and Square; then send some loud-voiced speaker, who should appear in the gallery of Faneuil Hall and announce that there was a mob of Negroes already attacking. Let a speaker, previously warned, accept the opportunity promptly and send the whole meeting to Court Square, ready to fall behind the leaders and bring out the slave.”

That, then, was their plan—the rescue of Anthony Burns from the Court House. Higginson and Stowell separated to inform the men they would need to carry it out.

9
May 26, 1854

A FEW HOURS LATER,
at seven that evening, Faneuil
Hall was filled to overflowing. The call to duty and honor had gone out, and freedom lovers from all over New England had responded. The audience, more than 2,000 strong, was demanding and confident, ready for action if not outright riot. Newspapers that day stated that the interest in the fugitive slave was “only general.” But the huge size of the crowd proved otherwise.

The evening had been organized as a public meeting. Presiding was George R. Russell, from the neighboring city of Roxbury and formerly that city's mayor. He delivered his opening remarks in a voice dripping with sarcasm: “I once thought that a fugitive could never be taken from Boston. I was mistaken! The time will come when slavery will pass away, and our children shall have only its hideous memory to make them wonder at the deeds of their fathers. For one I hope to die in a land of liberty—in a land which no slave hunter shall dare pollute with his presence.”

Wild applause splintered the air.
It died only when the next speaker took center stage.

Dr. Samuel C. Howe was a philanthropist and historian whose abolitionist/suffragette wife, Julia Ward Howe, was to write “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” He next presented a series of resolutions that expressed the opinions of nearly all who were present:

“The time has come to declare and demonstrate that no slave hunter can carry his prey from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That which is not just is not law, and that which is not law ought not to be obeyed. Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. No man's freedom is safe unless all men are free.”

Then John Swift, a young lawyer, addressed the applauding assembly. “Burns is in the Court House,” he said. “Is there any law to keep him there? It has been said that Americans and sons of Americans are cowards. If we allow Marshal Freeman to carry away that man, then the word cowards should be stamped on our foreheads.” The crowd roared. “Tomorrow Burns will have remained [in jail] three days, and I hope tomorrow to witness in his release the resurrection of liberty. This is a contest between slavery and liberty, and for one I am now and forever on the side of liberty!”

The audience shouted, “Yes! Yes! Liberty! We, too!”

Wendell Phillips, lawyer, abolitionist crusader, and orator, rose to speak next. Many said he had the most sparkling blue eyes they'd ever seen. They gleamed brightly at the audience now. Phillips began quietly: “I have been talking seventeen years about slavery …”

“Hear! Hear!” hollered someone in the crowd
. There were cries of “Shhh! Quiet, there—Wendell Phillips has much to say.”

“… and it seems to me,” Phillips continued, “I have talked to little purpose, for within three years two slaves can be carried away from Boston. Nebraska [the Kansas-Nebraska Bill] I call knocking a man down, and this spitting in his face after he is down.”

A hush settled over the great hall.

“When I heard of this case and that Burns was locked up in that Court House, my heart sunk within me.” Wendell Phillips bowed his head. He next raised it and let his gaze travel around him, fixing on an intense face here and another there.

“See to it, every one of you, as you love the honor of Boston, that you watch this case so closely that you can look into that man's eyes.” His deep voice rang out through the hall. “When he [Burns] comes up for trial get a sight at him—and don't lose sight of him.”

The audience broke in, “We won't! We won't lose him! Never!”

“If Boston streets are to be so often desecrated by the sight of returning fugitives,” Phillips continued, “let us be there, that we may tell our children that we saw it done. Fellow citizens, I will not detain you here any longer.”

There were cries of “Go on! Go on!”

“Faneuil Hall is but our way to the Court House where, tomorrow …”

Cheers rose and swelled, rolling in waves from
the back of the hall forward.

“… where the children of Adams and [John] Hancock are to prove that they are not bastards. Let us prove that we are worthy of liberty,” Wendell Phillips finished.

Feverish shouts of praise rang out, and long applause followed.

Reverend Theodore Parker next stood to speak. Parker was as ungraceful as Phillips was elegant. Often, his admirers watched affectionately as he walked and stumbled, preoccupied, along the city streets. Short of stature, with a massive head of dark hair, he had a dark complexion, and his large, dark eyes stared out with deadly calm behind his spectacles. Occasionally he coughed hard, as though ill with a serious congestion. But now he pursed his lips, then smiled sardonically at the assembly. “Fellow-subjects of Virginia!” he said.

Instantly, there were loud cries of “No! No! You must take that back!”

“Fellow-citizens of Boston, then—”

“Yes! Yes!” the crowd answered.