Boston Combusts: The Fugitive Slave Case of Anthony Burns

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The rioters were ultimately repulsed, but one of the deputies had been stabbed and killed during the melee. He was 24-year-old Irish immigrant James Batchelder, and his killer was never identified. The Reverend Parker would later blame Batchelder for his own murder: “He liked the business of enslaving a man,” Parker fulminated, “and has gone to render an account to God for his gratui­tous wickedness.”

Freeman was outraged after the courthouse riot and afraid of what might happen next. With the permission of President Franklin Pierce, a company of U.S. Marines was sent to defend the courthouse. Pierce and Secretary of War Jefferson Davis monitored the growing chaos in Boston. In a cable to Freeman, the president said: “Your conduct is approved. The law must be exe­cuted.” In a later cable, Pierce ordered his U.S. attorney in Boston, Benjamin Hallet, to “incur any expense deemed necessary…to insure the execution of the law.”

When Burns’ trial began on Monday morning, May 29, the courthouse looked like a military fortress under siege. Armed Marines were everywhere, and visitors had to pass through several security cordons before reaching Judge Loring’s courtroom. Legal proceedings under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law were, to put it mildly, much different from regular court proceedings. There was no trial by jury under the law. The commissioner, in this case Judge Loring, was simply to decide whether or not the prisoner had fled captivity and who his rightful owner was. As Richard Henry Dana knew, attacks on the constitutionality of the law were unlikely to meet with much success. Dana’s co-counsel, Charles Ellis, put the matter bluntly, saying, “This trial is political.”

Nevertheless, Dana’s argument before Judge Loring appealed to concepts of a “higher law.” Loring, Dana urged, should do the right thing and release Burns despite what the statute might require. As Emerson wrote in 1854: “Ask not, Is it constitutional. Ask, Is it right?” Dana appealed directly to Loring’s sense of equity and conscience: “If [you decide] against him, a free man is made a slave forever….The eyes of many millions are upon you, Sir. You are to do an act which will hold its place in the history of America….May your judgment be for liberty and not slavery.”

Meanwhile the Rev. Grimes, who called Burns a member of his flock, attempted to purchase Burns from Charles Suttle. Grimes and Suttle eventually agreed to a payment of $1,200, but then Suttle balked. Ironically enough, Suttle was likely anxious about running afoul of the Massachusetts law that made selling slaves illegal, a law advocated by the same abolitionists on the BVC who hoped to free Burns. “After Burns gets back to Virginia,” Suttle told Grimes, “you can have him” for the agreed-upon price.

On June 2, 1854, Judge Loring was prepared to hand down his decision. Mayor Smith, fearing additional mob violence, placed the city under martial law. Tight security around the courthouse was made even tighter. When the moment arrived, Loring decided to abide by the Fugitive Slave Law rather than the higher law suggested by Dana and his abolitionist brethren. At 2 p.m. Burns was escorted out of the courthouse, surrounded by a large contingent of Marines. Some 50,000 Bostonians lined streets draped in funereal black bunting, booing, hissing and screaming “kidnappers!” Burns was marched down to Long Wharf to begin his long voyage back to Virginia and slavery.

Abolitionist Samuel May, after watching in silent rage as the Burns procession passed by, said: “He has gone! And Boston and Massachusetts lie, bound hand and foot, willing slaves at the foot of the Slave Power.” Abolitionist lawyer and BVC member John Swift reacted in similar fashion: “It was too much for me — to my inmost soul I felt the deep degradation of that moment. Not only had Anthony Burns been deprived of his rights, I had lost something — had lost the proud privilege of saying that I had life and being in a free commonwealth.” Another Boston attorney watched the procession from his office window, admitting, “when it was all over, and I was left alone in my office, I put my face in my hands and wept.”

Tags: African American History, Civil War Times, Historical Conflicts

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