The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-03-08
BEGINNING OF THE WAR.
Story of the First Act of Violence as
Told by Thomas w. Higginson.
Writer in Pittsburg Dispatch.

Magma parS full was there myself and
saw it." That insures attention. When the
speaker begins after that fashion we all
listen.
What L have in mind is an account that
1 heard Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson
give the other day of the beginning of the
war. He was there himself and saw it,
and was indeed, an actor in it, and great
part-'magna pars''-thereof. The first act
of open violence, long before Sumter was
shot at, before John Brown made his ia
nous raid, before the Kansas skirmish.
was the effort ON the part of certain Aboli-
tionists of whom Colonel Higginson was
one, TO free fugitive slave in Boston. At
the battered door of the Statehouse, in an
assault upon that venerable building led
by Colonel Higginson, in the endeavor to
rescue the black man, Anthony Burns, out
of the hands of the magistrates, an obscure
individual, a constable hurriedly enlisted by
the sheriff. was killed. His was the first
blood shed in the civil war, in the year 1851.
This was the incident which 1 had the
privilege of hearing Colonel Higginson, in
his charming way, describe.
1t seems that the fugitive slave law of
1850 found thousands of negroes in Boston
who had escaped from their masters and
put them In peril Of their liberty. The first
to be arrested, indeed, man named Shad-
rack, was taken out of the hands Of the
court by company of twenty black men,
who surprised the magistrates and effected
their purpose without difficulty: But that
could not be done again When John
Simms was tried the next year the doors
of the courthouse were guarded with heavy
chains, beneath which the judges bent their
venerable heads TO enter. And the slave,
escorted to the wharf by a regiment OF
militia, was sent back into bondage. The
| next TO be seized was Anthony Burns.
a
mind of the community at that time Most
good people were against slavery. There
spirit But there were two elements in the
situation which made the Abolition people
powerless. One was the teaching that was
given them by their most eminent men.
Garrison believed in nonresstance, and he
had many followers. They would die at the
stake If it were necessary, but not finger
Horace Mann and Charles Francis Adams
hoped for great results from legislation,
ters. And great many agreed with them:
To these people any act of violence would
be suicidal would defeat all their purposes.
Only few prayed for a riot. A few there
were who would have resisted even
blood the seizure of a slave on the soil of
Massachusetts and his return into the
something ought to be done, and yet held
back from violence, proposed to follow the
extradtors about. the streets, and to look
at them with such stern, disappearing and
troubled eyes that they would be glad to
get out of the town. All manner of absurd
plans considered.
The other hindrance was lack of leader
ship The AbolitionstS were a regiment of
captains. Every man was his own leader.
Not an individual agreed in anything with
his neighbor. The moment it was proposed
to do any particular thing there were in
slant voices TO oppose it, Conservatism,
Colonel Higginson remarked, has always
the advantage of organization; reform, es
pecially at the start. has only personal en-
N "a
must be attached to the sled each by his
own separate and individual thong; ii two
are harneSsed together they proceed to eat
each other up.
Thus there were no leaders. There was no
one man into whose hands the others would
give the reins and let him drive. They must
all drive. Once they did go so far as to as
sent to the formation of a committee of
seven, but the committee could not agree
upon chairman And, In any case,
Mr.. Higginson wisely remarked, Nothing
can be worse than a bad general, except
two good generals"
Thus stood men and affairs In Boston
when Anthony Burns was brought to court
as fugitive from slavery What could be
done? To the minds of most, the natural
thing was a public meeting; for the Adolf
tionists, even If they would not act, would
talk. They had no hesitation in the use of
two edged swords-of verbal sort. And,
accordingly, a mass meeting was called in
Faneuil Hall. with an array of brilliant
the night appointed the hall was crowded,
crowded out into the middle Of the street
with excited people What was needed was
and TO rescue Burns by violence. But
plainly this would not be done In the middle
q, fne AT .ne eng the
tected
This was Colonel Higginson's plan: That
in the midst Of a speech a man should start
up In the gallery and shout, "a mob Of
negroes is assaulting the courthouse" that
the meeting should forthwith adjourn; that
upon the arrival of these enthusiastic re-
Inducements n StalWartS should "a
the lead and batter in the courthouse door,
and that in should pour the great crowd,
and out again with Anthony Burns upon
The shout was made, the meeting rushed
out to the courthouse square, but alas! the
crowd came. as the narrator put it, wrong
end 1rst-first the boys and the hoodlums,
and long after, toiling through the crowd,
door was battered in and Colonel Higginson
and black man entered, but they entered
alone. Alone they met the energetic bllies
of the constabuary within. And out they
came, defeated. One man fired a pistol and
killed one Of the defenders. But that was
organized crowd, without discipline, with
out the sense of what to do. But their
huge strength was of no avail.
In the midst Of the confusion and uproar
occurred q. characteristic and picturesque
incident. Out Of the crowd beside the stone
StgS Form 10 Of Bro9son n00 Acot the
transcendentalist. who approached Higgin-
son, serenely, as if he were opening con-
why are We not Within And turning
he assembled the vacant steps, approaching
the broken door; pistol shot was heard
from inside; he hesitated moment, and
then, fronting about, cane in hand, his gray
hair shining in the lampight, down he
came again, placidly as ever the angels as
cended and descended, in Jacobs vision,
the rounds of the celestial ladder.
But the attempt failed. Anthony Burns
was sent back into slavery. The instigators
of the invasion were arrested, tried and
acquitted. Only the inspiration of the ex,
ample remained. By and by 1T was found
that the defeat was like the repulse at
Bunker HILL better than victory. AT that
broken courthouse door, in that rash as
ofxyi1