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41 Areview of events in Boston in late May and early June 1854 shows that divisions within the abolitionist movement, differing commitments to law and order, and diverse ideologies of race produced varied reactions among Bostonians to the Anthony Burns drama. As many scholars have ably demonstrated, there was significant antislavery sentiment, but such feelings had to compete with other concerns. It is also far from clear that antislavery sentiments were on the rise in Boston as the drama unfolded or even after Burns had been returned to Virginia. Uncertainty bordering on chaos reigned throughout the affair, accentuating the confusion, hesitation, and anxiety of many white and black Bostonians. Whites usually portrayed as kindly neighbors to Boston’s blacks, friends of the antislavery movement, and sympathizers with fugitives from bondage felt these crosscurrents. Many who listened to the likes of Samuel Gridley Howe, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker at Faneuil Hall shared in the confusion. Parker knew this. A close reading of his words on the night of the courthouse riot suggests that he was especially concerned about divisions in the abolitionist movement, and particularly about the strong commitments of some of his listeners to law and order, which he saw as a major obstacle to saving Burns from being returned to slavery. “Men and brothers, I am not a young man,” Parker shouted. “I have heard hurrahs and cheers for liberty C h A P T e R 4 The Meaning of the Spectacle “No More Tumults” and the Black Bostonian Response If Boston were unanimous on the side of Freedom and Justice . . . the Commissioners would easily discover the legality of setting free the slave; the Marshals and their followers would soon be of the same mind, and no more slaves could be carried from Boston. —Rev. James Freeman Clarke We have, as a people, depended upon the abolitionists to do that for us, which we must do for ourselves. . . . We must disapprove the allegation of our innate inferiority. This cannot be done by proxy. —James Watkins 42 the imperfect revolution 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?” Parker spoke not only to the crowd but also to several of his colleagues on the platform who had participated in the deadlocked meeting of the Boston Vigilance Committee the day before. Parker knew that although they cherished the heritage of their forefathers’ resistance to tyranny and acknowledged contradictions between America’s founding principles or higher law and Burns’s imprisonment, they had difficulty straying from the law-abiding ways expected of upstanding citizens in Boston.1 Parker was not alone in recognizing the deep-rooted dilemma of many Bostonians. The Boston press dealt with it head-on, often recommending actions consistent with the maintenance of law and order. The day after the courthouse riot, the editor of the Boston Morning Journal, a newspaper that appealed to the sentiments of many Cotton Whigs, surmised that while Bostonians might “smart under the blow inflicted by the Nebraska bill” and have “no especial love for the fugitive slave law,” they would sanction “only lawful means” to resist Burns’s return to slavery. He concluded that there was “nothing in the antecedents of the metropolis of Massachusetts” to suggest that “citizens will now deliberately trample upon any law, however obnoxious it may be.” Referring to the rhetoric of Parker, Phillips, and others at Faneuil Hallthepreviousevening,theeditorguessedthateffortsof“fanaticalagitators to get up an excitement and a riot in our city will signally fail.” His comments about abolitionists echoed those of law-abiding citizens during other fugitive slavecrisesandareremarkablysimilartothesentimentsexpressedbythelikes of businessman John T. Brady and justices Robert Grier and John McLean. The editor of the Morning Journal also refused requests to print abolitionists’ denunciations of the Fugitive Slave Law as well as their demands for the state legislature to ban federal officials and slave catchers from using the Boston courthouse. The editor said that he did not want to “publish anything which would tend to produce excitement.”2 TheDemocraticBostonPost,notsurprisingly,alsoadoptedanunequivocal law-and-order stance. Reacting to the courthouse riot, the Post’s editor reprinted a letter from the deceased champion of the Fugitive Slave Law, Daniel Webster, and called for the good citizens of Boston to faithfully observe “law and order in opposition to the riot and treason which reckless and desperate men who denunciate the Union of the States and the Constitution which binds them together as a...

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