Pluck and Grit

Hurray for the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts for their efforts to harbor runaway slaves and for using force to make sure the runaways were not recaptured. I admire their pluck and grit. BCOF page 119 tells the story of Anthony Burns, a runaway. Some men were going to help him out of jail because deputies had come to claim him, "The vigilance committee went into action, sponsoring a Faneuil Hall meeting which resolved that 'resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.' Higginson went in to rescue Burns with axes, revolvers, and a battering ram." Unfortunately, the abolitionists did not release Burns and in the attempt a white deputy died. After the trial convicting Higginson, Parker, Phillips and four black men, of inciting a riot, William Lloyd Garrison publicly burned a copy of Constitution citing it as a covenant with death.