A Plea for Freedom of Speech in Boston: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts on December 9, 1860
A PLEA FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN BOSTON: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS. ON 9 DECEMBER 1860
Liberator, 14 December 1860. Other texts in Boston Post, 10 December 1860; Douglass' Monthly, 3 : 395-96 (January 1861); Speech File, reel 13, frames 770, 768, 766, 764, 762,FD Papers, DLC; David J. Brewer, ed., The World's Best Orations: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, 10 vols. (St. Louis. 1899), 5: 1906-09; Foner, Life and Writings, 2:538-40.
On Sunday morning, 9 December 1860, Douglass appeared before a capacity audience at Boston’s Music Hall. The large attendance most likely resulted from the expectation that Douglass, who had been invited by the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society to deliver his lecture “Self-Made Men,” would use the occasion to comment on the recent events at Tremont Temple and Joy Street Baptist Church. Douglass did not disappoint his listeners. After reading his prepared lecture “in a clear and oratorical manner,” he requested permission “to be allowed to make some remarks.” Since Douglass had been present during the disturbances of 3 December, “there was an instantaneous cry of ‘go on;’ ‘yes, yes.’” The Boston Post, which also excerpted portions of the “Self-Made Men” speech, reported frequent interruptions and several disturbances while Douglass spoke. After Douglass concluded at 12:30 P.M., “a general outbreak commenced,” culminating in one man’s ejection from the hall. New York Daily Tribune, 10 December 1860.
Boston is a great city—and Music Hall1Legend claimed that Boston’s Music Hall, which opened in 1852, was built so that Jenny Lind's vocal talent could have a suitably magnificent showcase. Both the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston and the Harvard Musical Association sponsored frequent concerts there. Lectures were often given in the Music Hall, and Theodore Parker‘s congregation met there in the late 1850s. The luster of the Music Hall was enhanced when the city's “great organ” was relocated there in 1863. M. A. De Wolfe Howe, Boston: The Place and The People (New York, 1903), 343, 394; Albert P. Langtry, ed., Metropolitan Boston: A Modern History, 5 vols. (New York, 1929), 3 : 869; Lucius Beebe, Boston and the Boston Legend (New York, 1935), 236, 239. has a fame almost extensive as that of Boston. No where more than here have the principles of human freedom been expounded. But for the circumstances already mentioned, it would seem almost presumption for me to say anything here about those principles. And yet, even here, in Boston, the moral atmosphere is dark and heavy. The principles of human liberty, even if correctly apprehended, find but limited support in this hour of trial. The world moves slowly, and Boston is much like the world. We thought the principle of free speech was an accomplished fact. Here, if no where else, we thought the right of the people to assemble and to express their opinion was secure. Dr. Channing had defended the right;2William Ellery Channing‘s most famous defense of free speech occurred in December 1837 in the wake of the murder of Elijah Lovejoy. To protest Lovejoy’s death Channing organized a committee of one hundred prominent citizens to convene a meeting at Faneuil Hall that would affirm the rights of free speech and a free press. When the Boston city govemment declined to allow Faneuil Hall to be used for such a meeting. Charming engineered a successful campaign to secure the use of the facilities and then chaired the controversial meeting there on 8 December 1837. Lader, Bold Brahmins, 82-83. Mr. Garrison had practically asserted the right; and Theodore Parker had maintained it with steadiness and fidelity to the last.
But here we are to-day contending for what we thought was gained years ago. The mortifying and disgraceful fact stares us in the face, that though Faneuil Hall3Faneuil Hall, a public market and meeting hall erected in Boston in 1742, was a gift to the town from Peter Faneuil, a wealthy merchant, Nicknamed “the Cradle of Liberty,” it was the site of numerous meetings convened to protest British colonial policies in the years immediately preceding the Revolution. From 1743 to 1817 the hall was also Boston's only polling place. In the nineteenth century Faneuil Hall continued to host important public meetings, including many abolitionist conventions. Abram E. Brown, Faneuil Hall and Faneuil Hall Market (Boston, 1900), 84-86. 123-30, 157-59; Rudolph Ruzicka and Walter Muir Whitehill, Boston: Distinguished Buildings and Sites Within the City and Its Orbit (Boston, 1975), 6-9. and Bunker Hill Momument stand, freedom of speech is struck down. No lengthy detail of facts is needed. They are already notorious; far more so than will be wished, ten years hence.
The world knows that, last Monday, a meeting assembled to discuss the question: “How shall Slavery be Abolished?” The world also knows
that that meeting was invaded, insulted, captured, by a mob of gentlemen, and thereafter broken up and dispersed by order of the Mayor,4Frederick Walker Lincoln, Jr. (1817-98), served as mayor of Boston during 1858-60 and 1863-66. Lincoln had been apprenticed at age thirteen to a maker of mathematical instruments and later became successful in a number of business fields. He was a member of the state legislature in 1847 and 1848 and a delegate to the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1853. Lincoln was elected mayor by nonpartisan conservative coalitions and gained a reputation for efficient administration of the city's finances. Justin Winsor. ed., The Memorial History of Boston . . . .4 vols. (Boston, 1881). 3:262-73; Langtry, Metropolitan Boston, 1:31-32. who refused to protect it, though called upon so to do. If this had been a mere outbreak of passion and prejudice among the baser sort, maddened by rum and hounded on by some wily politician to serve some immediate purpose—a mere exceptional affair—it might be allowed to rest with what has already been said. But the leaders of the mob were gentlemen. They were men who pride themselves upon their respect for law and order.
These gentlemen brought their respect for the law with them, and proclaimed it loudly while in the very act of breaking the law. Theirs was the law of slavery. The law of free speech and the law for the protection of public meetings they trampled under foot, while they greatly magnified the law of slavery.
The scene was an instructive one. Men seldom see such a blending of the gentleman with the rowdy, as was shown on that occasion. It proved that human nature is very much the same, whether in tarpaulin or broad- cloth. Nevertheless, when gentlemen approach us in the character of lawless and abandoned loafers—assuming for the moment their manners and tempers—they have themselves to blame if they are estimated below their quality.
No right was deemed by the fathers of the Government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes ofall thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government. Daniel Webster called it a home-bred right, a fireside privilege.5Daniel Webster employed this phrase in his speech of 14 January 1814, Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, 14 : 25. Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities and powers, founded in injustice and wrong are sure to tremble if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance and of a judgment to come in their presence. Slavery cannot tolerate free speech. Five years of its exercise would banish the auction-block and break every chain in the
South. They will have none of it there, for they have the power. But shall it be so here?
‘Shall tongues be mute,’ &c.6Douglass quotes from the opening line of the fifth stanza of John Greenleaf Whittier's “Voice of New England.” Maria W. Chapman. ed., Songs of the Free, and Hymns of Christian Freedom (Boston, 1836), 148.
Even here in Boston, and among the friends of freedom, we hear two voices—one denouncing the mob that broke up our meeting on Monday as a base and cowardly outrage,—and another, deprecating and regretting the holding ofsuch a meeting, by such men, at such a time! We are told that the meeting was ill-timed, and the parties to it unwise.
Why, what is the matter with us? Are we going to palliate and excuse a palpable and flagrant outrage on the right of speech—by implying that only a particular description of persons should exercise that right? Are we, at such a time, when a great principle has been struck down, to quench the moral indignation which the deed excites, by casting reflections upon those in whose persons the outrage has been committed? After all the arguments for liberty to which Boston has listened for more than a quarter of a century, has she yet to learn, that the time to assert a right is the time when the right itself is called in question—and that the men of all others to assert it, are the men to whom the right has been denied?
It would be no vindication of the right of speech to prove that certain gentlemen of great distinction, eminent for their learning and ability, are allowed to freely express their opinions on all subjects—including the subject of slavery. Such a vindication would need itself to be vindicated. It would add insult to injury. Not even an old-fashion abolition meeting could vindicate that right in Boston just now. There can be no right of speech where any man, however lifted up or however humble, however young or however old, is overawed by force, and compelled to suppress his honest sentiments.
Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear, as it would be to rob him of his money. I have no doubt that Boston will vindicate this right. But in order to do so, there must be no concessions to the enemy. When a man is allowed to speak because he is rich and powerful it aggravates the crime of denying the right to the poor and humble.
The principle must rest upon its own proper basis. And until the right is accorded to the humblest as freely as to the most exalted citizen, the Government of Boston is but an empty name, and its freedom a mockery. A man’s right to speak does not depend upon where he was born or upon his color. The simple quality of manhood is the solid basis of the right—and there let it rest forever.