MR. CHAIRMAN: — We have met for the freest discussion of
these resolutions, and the events which gave rise to them. [Cries of “Question,”
“Hear him,” “Go on,” “No gagging,” etc.] I hope I shall be permitted to express
my surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker, — surprise not only at such
sentiments from such a man, but at the applause they have received within these
walls. A comparison has been drawn between the events of the Revolution and the
tragedy at Alton. We have heard it asserted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Great
Britain had a right to tax the Colonies, and we have heard the mob at Alton,
the drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those patriot fathers who threw
the tea overboard! [Great applause.] Fellow-citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine?
[“No, no.”] The mob at Alton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights,
— met to resist the laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same; and
the glorious mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the mobs of
our day. To make out their title to such defence, the gentleman says that the
British Parliament had a right to tax these Colonies. It is manifest
that, without this, his parallel falls to the ground; for Lovejoy had stationed
himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only defending the freedom
of the press, but he was under his own roof, in arms with the sanction of the
civil authority. The men who assailed him went against and over the laws. The mob,
as the gentleman
terms it, — mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvellously
patient generation! — the “orderly mob” which assembled in the Old South to
destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal exactions. Shame
on the American who calls the tea-tax and stamp-act laws! Our fathers
resisted, not the King's prerogative, but the King's usurpation. To find any
other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our State
archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the
British Parliament unconstitutional,—beyond its power. It was not till this was
made out that the men of New England rushed to arms. The arguments of the
Council Chamber and the House of Representatives preceded and sanctioned the
contest. To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a precedent for mobs, for a
right to resist laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult to their memory.
The difference between the excitements of those days and our own, which the
gentleman in kindness to the latter has overlooked, is simply this: the men of
that day went for the right, as secured by the laws. They were the people
rising to sustain the laws and constitution of the Province. The rioters of our
day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay
down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and
Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the
portraits in the Hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant
American, — the slanderer of the dead. [Great applause and counter applause.]
The gentleman said that he should sink into insignificance if he dared to
gainsay the principles of these resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has
uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of
patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up.
[Applause and hisses, with cries of “Take that back.” The
uproar became so great that for a long time no one could be heard. At length G.
Bond, Esq., and Hon. W. Sturgis came to Mr. Phillips's side at the front of the
platform. They were met with cries of “Phillips or nobody,” “Make him take back
‘recreant,’” “He sha'n't go on till he takes it back.” When it was understood
they meant to sustain, not to interrupt, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Sturgis was listened
to, and said: “I did not come here to take any part in this discussion, nor do
I intend to; but I do entreat you, fellow-citizens, by everything you hold
sacred, — I conjure you by every association connected with this Hall,
consecrated by our fathers to freedom of discussion, — that you listen to every
man who addresses you in a decorous manner.” Mr. Phillips resumed.]
Fellow-citizens, I cannot take back my words. Surely the
Attorney-General, so long and well known here, needs not the aid of your hisses
against one so young as I am, — my voice never before heard within these walls!
Another ground has been taken to excuse the mob, and throw
doubt and discredit on the conduct of Lovejoy and his associates. Allusion has
been made to what lawyers understand very well, — the “conflict of laws.” We
are told that nothing but the Mississippi River rolls between St. Louis and
Alton; and the conflict of laws somehow or other gives the citizens of the former
a right to find fault with the defender of the press for publishing his
opinions so near their limits. Will the gentleman venture that argument before
lawyers? How the laws of the two States could be said to come into conflict in
such circumstances I question whether any lawyer in this audience can explain
or understand. No matter whether the line that divides one sovereign State from
another be an imaginary one or ocean-wide, the moment you cross it the State
you leave is blotted out of existence, so far as you are concerned. The Czar
might as well claim to control the deliberations of Faneuil Hall, as the laws
of Missouri demand reverence, or the shadow of obedience, from an inhabitant of
Illinois.
I must find some fault with the statement which has been
made of the events at Alton. It has been asked why Lovejoy and his friends did
not appeal to the executive, — trust their defence to the police of the city.
It has been hinted that, from hasty and ill-judged excitement, the men within
the building provoked a quarrel, and that he fell in the course of it, one mob
resisting another. Recollect, Sir, that they did act with the approbation and
sanction of the Mayor. In strict truth, there was no executive to appeal to for
protection. The Mayor acknowledged that he could not protect them. They asked
him if it was lawful for them to defend themselves. He told them it was, and
sanctioned their assembling in arms to do so. They were not, then, a mob; they
were not merely citizens defending their own property; they were in some sense
the posse comitatus, adopted for the occasion into the police of the
city, acting under the order of a magistrate. It was civil authority resisting
lawless violence. Where, then, was the imprudence? Is the doctrine to be
sustained here, that it is imprudent for men to aid magistrates in
executing the laws?
Men are continually asking each other, Had Lovejoy a right
to resist? Sir, I protest against the question, instead of answering it.
Lovejoy did not resist, in the sense they mean. He did not throw himself back
on the natural right of self-defence. He did not cry anarchy, and let slip the
dogs of civil war, careless of the horrors which would follow.
Sir, as I understand this affair, it was not an individual
protecting his property; it was not one body of armed men resisting another,
and making the streets of a peaceful city run blood with their contentions. It
did not bring back the scenes in some old Italian cities, where family met
family, and faction met faction, and mutually trampled the laws under foot. No;
the men in that house were regularly enrolled, under the sanction of the
Mayor. There being no militia in Alton, about seventy men were enrolled with
the approbation of the Mayor. These relieved each other every other night. About
thirty men were in arms on the night of the sixth, when the press was landed.
The next evening, it was not thought necessary to summon more than half that
number; among these was Lovejoy. It was, therefore, you perceive, Sir, the
police of the city resisting rioters, — civil government breasting itself to
the shock of lawless men.
Here is no question about the right of self-defence. It is
in fact simply this: Has the civil magistrate a right to put down a riot?
Some persons seem to imagine that anarchy existed at Alton
from the commencement of these disputes. Not at all. “No one of us,” says an
eyewitness and a comrade of Lovejoy, “has taken up arms during these
disturbances but at the command of the Mayor.” Anarchy did not settle down on
that devoted city till Lovejoy breathed his last. Till then the law,
represented in his person, sustained itself against its foes. When he fell,
civil authority was trampled under foot. He had “planted himself on his
constitutional rights,” — appealed to the laws, — claimed the protection of the
civil authority, — taken refuge under “the broad shield of the Constitution.
When through that he was pierced and fell, he fell but one sufferer in a common
catastrophe.” He took refuge under the banner of liberty, — amid its folds; and
when he fell, its glorious stars and stripes, the emblem of free institutions,
around which cluster so many heart-stirring memories, were blotted out in the
martyr's blood.
It has been stated, perhaps inadvertently, that Lovejoy or
his comrades fired first. This is denied by those who have the best means of
knowing. Guns were first fired by the mob. After being twice fired on, those
within the building consulted together and deliberately returned the fire. But
suppose they did fire first. They had a right so to do; not only the right
which every citizen has to defend himself, but the further right which every
civil officer has to resist violence. Even if Lovejoy fired the first gun, it
would not lessen his claim to our sympathy, or destroy his title to be
considered a martyr in defence of a free press. The question now is, Did he act
within the Constitution and the laws? The men who fell in State Street on the
5th of March, 1770, did more than Lovejoy is charged with. They were the first
assailants. Upon some slight quarrel they pelted the troops with every
missile within reach. Did this bate one jot of the eulogy with which Hancock
and Warren hallowed their memory, hailing them as the first martyrs in the
cause of American liberty?
If, Sir, I had adopted what are called Peace principles, I
might lament the circumstances of this case. But all you who believe, as I do,
in the right and duty of magistrates to execute the laws, join with me and
brand as base hypocrisy the conduct of those who assemble year after year on
the 4th of July, to fight over the battles of the Revolution, and yet “damn
with faint praise,” or load with obloquy, the memory of this man, who shed his
blood in defence of life, liberty, property, and the freedom of the press!
Throughout that terrible night I find nothing to regret but
this, that within the limits of our country, civil authority should have been
so prostrated as to oblige a citizen to arm in his own defence, and to arm in
vain. The gentleman says Lovejoy was presumptuous and imprudent, — he “died as
the fool dieth.” And a reverend clergyman of the city* tells us that no citizen
has a right to publish opinions disagreeable to the community! If any mob
follows such publication, on him rests its guilt! He must wait,
forsooth, till the people come up to it and agree with him! This libel on
liberty goes on to say that the want of right to speak as we think is an evil
inseparable from republican institutions! If this be so, what are they worth?
Welcome the despotism of the Sultan, where one knows what he may publish and
what he may not, rather than the tyranny of this many-headed monster, the mob,
where we know not what we may do or say, till some fellow-citizen has tried it,
and paid for the lesson with his life. This clerical absurdity chooses as a
check for the abuses of the press, not the law, but the dread of a mob.
By so doing, it deprives not only the individual and the minority of their
rights, but the majority also, since the expression of their opinion may
sometimes provoke disturbance from the minority. A few men may make a mob as
well as many. The majority, then, have no right, as Christian men, to utter
their sentiments, if by any possibility it may lead to a mob! Shades of Hugh
Peters and John Cotton, save us from such pulpits!
Imprudent to defend the liberty of the press! Why?
Because the defence was unsuccessful? Does success gild crime into patriotism,
and the want of it change heroic self-devotion to imprudence? Was Hampden
imprudent when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard? Yet he, judged by
that single hour, was unsuccessful. After a short exile, the race he hated sat
again upon the throne.
Imagine yourself present when the first news of Bunker Hill
battle reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus: “The patriots
are routed, — the redcoats victorious, — Warren lies dead upon the field.” With
what scorn would that Tory have been received, who should have charged
Warren with imprudence! who should have said that, bred a physician, he
was “out of place” in that battle, and “died as the fool dieth”! [Great
applause.] How would the intimation have been received, that Warren and his
associates should have waited a better time? But if success be indeed the only
criterion of prudence, Respice finem, — wait till the end.
Presumptuous to assert the freedom of the press on
American ground! Is the assertion of such freedom before the age? So much
before the age as to leave one no right to make it because it displeases the
community? Who invents this libel on his country? It is this very thing which
entitles Lovejoy to greater praise. The disputed right which provoked the
Revolution — taxation without representation — is far beneath that for which he
died. [Here there was a strong and general expression of disapprobation.] One word,
gentlemen. As much as thought is better than money, so much is the cause
in which Lovejoy died nobler than a mere question of taxes. James Otis
thundered in this Hall when the King did but touch his pocket. Imagine,
if you can, his indignant eloquence, had England offered to put a gag upon his
lips. [Great applause.]
The question that stirred the Revolution touched our civil
interests. This concerns us not only as citizens, but as immortal
beings. Wrapped up in its fate, saved or lost with it, are not only the voice
of the statesman, but the instructions of the pulpit, and the progress of our
faith.
The clergy “marvellously out of place” where free speech is
battled for, — liberty of speech on national sins? Does the gentleman remember
that freedom to preach was first gained, dragging in its train freedom to
print? I thank the clergy here present, as I reverence their predecessors, who
did not so far forget their country in their immediate profession as to deem it
duty to separate themselves from the struggle of '76, — the Mayhews and
Coopers, who remembered they were citizens before they were clergymen.
Mr. Chairman, from the bottom of my heart I thank that brave
little band at Alton for resisting. We must remember that Lovejoy had fled from
city to city, — suffered the destruction of three presses patiently. At length
he took counsel with friends, men of character, of tried integrity, of wide
views, of Christian principle. They thought the crisis had come: it was full
time to assert the laws. They saw around them, not a community like our own, of
fixed habits, of character moulded and settled, but one “in the gristle, not
yet hardened into the bone of manhood.” The people there, children of our older
States, seem to have forgotten the blood-tried principles of their fathers the
moment they lost sight of our New England hills. Something was to be done to
show them the priceless value of the freedom of the press, to bring back and
set right their wandering and confused ideas. He and his advisers looked out on
a community, staggering like a drunken man, indifferent to their rights and
confused in their feelings. Deaf to argument, haply they might be stunned into
sobriety. They saw that of which we cannot judge, the necessity of
resistance. Insulted law called for it. Public opinion, fast hastening on the
downward course, must be arrested.
Does not the event show they judged rightly? Absorbed in a
thousand trifles, how has the nation all at once come to a stand? Men begin, as
in 1776 and 1640, to discuss principles, to weigh characters, to find out where
they are. Haply we may awake before we are borne over the precipice.
I am glad, Sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us
to be here. When Liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her
duty, to strike the key-note for these United States. I am glad, for one
reason, that remarks such as those to which I have alluded have been uttered
here. The passage of these resolutions, in spite of this opposition, led by the
Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, will show more clearly, more decisively,
the deep indignation with which Boston regards this outrage.
_______________
* See Rev. Hubbard Winslow's discourse on Liberty! in
which he defines “republican liberty” to be “liberty to say and do what the prevailing
voice and will of the brotherhood will allow and protect.”
SOURCE: Wendell Phillips, Speeches, Lectures, and Letters,
Volume 1, p. 2-10
