had covered the ground, but at nine o'clock at night it was clear and
cold, not a cloud to be seen in the sky, and the moon was shining
brightly. A British guard was patrolling the streets with clanking
swords and overbearing swagger. A sentry was stationed in Dock Square. A
party of young men, four in number, came out of a house in Cornhill. One
of the soldiers was whirling his sword about his head, striking fire
with it; the sentry challenged one of the four young men; there was no
good blood between them, and it took but little to start a disturbance.
An apprentice boy cried out to one of the guards, "You haven't paid my
master for dressing your hair!" A soldier said, "Where are the d---- d
Yankee boogers, I'll kill them!" A boy's head was split, there was more
quarrelling between the young men and the guard, great noise and
confusion; a vast concourse of excited people soon collected; cries of
"Kill them!" "Drive them out!" "They have no business here!" were
heard; some citizens were knocked down, as also were some soldiers.
Generally speaking, the soldiers got the worst of it; they were
reinforced, but steadily the infuriated citizens drove them back until
they were forced to take refuge in the Custom-House, upon the steps of
which they were pelted with snowballs and pieces of ice.
By this time the whole town was aroused; exaggerated accounts of the
event in Dock Square flew like wild-fire all over the settlement; the
people turned out _en masse_ in the streets and, to add to the general
din, the bells of the town were rung. The regiment which held the town
at that time was the 29th. Captain Preston seemed to have been in
command. He was sent for, went to the Custom-House, learned what had
occurred, and at once put troops in motion. On they came up King Street,
now State Street, with fixed bayonets, clearing everything before them
as they came. They had nearly reached the head of King Street, when they
met with opposition. A body of citizens had been formed nearby, and came
pushing violently through the street then called Cornhill, around into
King Street. They were armed only with clubs, sticks, and pieces of ice,
but on they came. Nothing daunted, they went up to the points of the
soldiers' bayonets. The long pent-up feeling of resentment against a
foreign soldiery was finding a vent. This was the time and the
opportunity to teach tyrants that freemen can at least strike back,
though for the time they strike in vain.
At the head of this body of citizens was a stalwart colored man, Crispus
Attucks. He was the leading spirit of their body, and their spokesman.
They pressed the British sorely on all sides, making the best use of
their rude arms, crying, "They dare not strike!" "Let us drive them
out!" The soldiers stood firm; the reach of their long bayonets
protected them from any serious injury for a while.
From time to time Attucks' voice could be heard urging his companions
on. Said he, "The way to get rid of these soldiers is to attack the main
guard; strike at the root! This is the nest!" At that time some one gave
the order to fire. Captain Preston said he did not; at any rate the
order was given. The soldiers fired. It was a death dealing volley. Of
the citizens three lay dead, two mortally wounded, and a number more or
less injured. Crispus Attucks, James Caldwell, and Samuel Gray were
killed outright. Attucks fell, his face to the foe, with two bullets in
his breast.
That night closed an eventful day. The first martyr-blood had reddened
the streets of Boston, and the commencement of the downfall of British
rule in America had set in. Said Daniel Webster, "From that moment we
may date the severance of the British Empire. The patriotic fires
kindled in the breasts of those earnest and true men, upon whose necks
the British yoke never sat easily, never were quenched after that
massacre, until the invader had been driven from the land and
independence had been achieved. The sight of the blood of their comrades
in King Street quickened their impulses, and hastened the day for a
more general outbreak, which we now call the Revolutionary War." This
was no mob, as some have been disposed to call it. They had not the low
and groveling spirit which usually incites mobs. This was resistance to
tyranny; this was striking for homes and firesides; this was the noblest
work which a patriot can ever perform. As well call Lexington a mob and
Bunker Hill a mob. I prefer to call this skirmish in King Street on the
5th of March, 1770, as Anson Burlingame called it, "The dawn of the
Revolution."
About that time the American people set out to found a government to be
dedicated to Freedom, which was to remain an asylum to the oppressed of
all lands forever. The central idea of this government was to be
Liberty, and a declaration was made by them to the world that all men
are created free and equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. This was the government to be established in the
land which had been fought for and won in the sacrifice of the blood of
both black and white men. Did they do it? Did they intend to do it? Did
they believe in and intend to carry out this magnificent declaration of
principles--a declaration which startled the crowned heads of Europe and
sent a thrill of delight to the hearts of the lovers of liberty through
Christendom? No, they did not do it, neither did they intend to do it!
This manifesto of July 4, 1776, was a fraud and a deception; it was the
boldest falsification known to history; it was a sham and a lie. Instead
of establishing freedom, they built, fostered and perpetuated slavery;
instead of equality, they gave us inequality; instead of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness, they gave us death, bondage, and misery;
instead of rearing on these shores a beautiful temple to Liberty, they
made a foul den for slavery; and this country, which should have been
the garden-spot of the world, covered with a prosperous and happy
population of freemen, was, under the guidance of traitors to Liberty,
made the prison-house of slaves, and betrayed in the house of her
friends. The Goddess of Liberty, for nearly one hundred years after the
establishment of our Government, sat in chains.
Attucks was in feelings, sympathies, and in all other respects,
essentially an American, and so were the other colored patriots of the
Revolution, and why shouldn't they be? They were born and bred here, and
knew no other country; as was true of their fathers. They had been here
as long as the Puritans. They came here the same year, 1620; in fact,
had been here a little longer, for while Plymouth Rock was only reached
in December of that year, the blacks were at Jamestown in the early
spring. In every difficulty with the mother country, the colored men
took sides with the colonists, and on every battle-field, when danger
was to be met, they were found shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the
Republicans, sharing the burden of war. At Lexington, where the farmers
hastily seized their muskets and gathered on the plain, and at the
bridge, to resist with the sacrifice of their lives the approach of the
British forces, Prince Estabrook, "Negro man" as the _Salem Gazette_ of
that day called him, rallied with his neighbors and comrades in arms,
and fell on the field, a wounded man, fighting the foe. He, like
Attucks, was both of and with the people. Their cause was his cause,
their home was his home, their fight was his fight. At Bunker Hill, a
few months later, we know there was a goodly number of colored men;
history has saved to us the names of some of them; how many there were
whose names were not recorded, of course, we cannot now tell. Andover
sent Tites Coburn, Alexander Ames, and Barzilai Low; Plymouth sent Cato
Howe, and Peter Salem immortalized his name by leveling the piece in
that battle which laid low Major Pitcairn. It is fair to presume that
other towns, like Andover, sent in the ranks of their volunteers colored
Americans. In the town of Raynham, within forty miles of Boston, there
is now a settlement of colored people who have been there for three or
four generations, the founder of which, Toby Gilmore, was an old
Revolutionary veteran who had served his country faithfully. Stoughton
Corner contributed Quack Matrick to the ranks of the Revolutionary
soldiers; Lancaster sent Job Lewis, East Bridgewater Prince Richards. So
did many other towns and States in this Commonwealth. Rhode Island
raised a regiment which did signal service at Red Bank in completely
routing the Hessian force under Colonel Donop, but it was not in
distinctively colored regiments or companies that colored men chiefly
fought in the Revolution; it was in the ranks of any and all regiments,
and by the side of their white companions in arms they were mainly to be
found.
Attucks was born not a great way from Boston, at Farmingham, where his
brothers and sisters lived for a long time. At some time during his life
he was a slave; whether he was a slave at the time of the occurrence of
the events I am now relating is not so clear. One of the witnesses at
the trial of the soldiers testified that Attucks "belonged to New
Providence, and was here on his way to North Carolina." I am inclined to
think that at this time, in 1770, he was in the possession of his
liberty, having got it in the same manner that very many slaves since
obtained their freedom, by giving "leg-bail." Nearly twenty years before
he had run away from his master, as appears from an advertisement in the
_Boston Gazette_ of November 20, 1750. From this advertisement it would
appear that at the time of the engagement in King Street, Attucks was
about 47 years of age, a powerful man, and an ugly foe to encounter.
Twenty years of freedom, and moving from one part of the country to the
other as far away as North Carolina, must have enlarged his views and
given him the spirit of a free man. That he partook of the spirit which
animated those of his countrymen who would throw off the British yoke is
shown by the language used by him on this memorable occasion. "Let us
drive out the rebels; they have no business here!" said he, and they
re-echoed them. These words are full of meaning; they tell the story of
the Revolution.
One hundred and six years have passed away. King Street and Royal
Exchange Lane have lost their names. Cornhill has lost its identity. The
King's collectors no longer gather at the Custom-House, and epauletted
British officers no longer lounge away winter evenings in the
reading-room of Concert Hall; that once stately pile is no more. One
hundred and six years ago, George the Third was king, and these colonies
were British dependencies. Since that time marvelous changes have been
made in the world's history. Probably never before have so many and so
great changes taken place in the same space of time. Slavery then
existed in Massachusetts, as it did in the other colonies. It grew to
huge proportions, and dominated all other interests in the land, and for
years brought shame and disgrace upon us.
But our country now stands redeemed, disenthralled. The promises of 1776
are now realized. The immortal heroes of that age did not die in vain.
We have now, thanks to the Author of All Good, a free country, a
Republic of imperial proportions, a domain as extensive and a government
as powerful as that of the nations of antiquity, or of the present time,
and better than all over all this broad land there does not walk a
slave. In this centennial anniversary of the nation's existence it is
quite in order to suggest, and I do suggest that a monument be erected
to the memory of the first martyr of the Revolution--Crispus Attucks.
ORATION ON THE OCCASION OF THE UNVEILING OF FREEDMEN'S MONUMENT[15]
BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS
[Note 15: Oration delivered by Frederick Douglass on the occasion of
the unveiling of the Freedmen's Monument, in memory of Abraham Lincoln,
in Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C., April 14, 1876.]
_Friends and Fellow Citizens:_
I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has
caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have to-day.
This occasion is, in some respects, remarkable. Wise and thoughtful men
of our race, who shall come after us and study the lesson of our history
in the United States; who shall survey the long and dreary spaces over
which we have traveled; who shall count the links in the great chain of
events by which we have reached our present position, will make a note
of this occasion; they will think of it and speak of it with a sense of
manly pride and complacency.
I congratulate you, also, upon the very favorable circumstances in which
we meet to-day. They are high, inspiring, and uncommon. They lend grace,
glory, and significance to the object for which we have met. Nowhere
else in this great country, with its uncounted towns and cities,
unlimited wealth, and immeasurable territory extending from sea to sea,
could conditions be found more favorable to the success of this occasion
than at this place.
We stand to-day at the national center to perform something like a
national act--an act which is to go into history; and we are here where
every pulsation of the national heart can be heard, felt, and
reciprocated. A thousand wires, fed with thought and winged with
lightning, put us in instantaneous communication with the loyal and true
men over this country.
Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which
has taken place in our condition as a people than the fact of our
assembling here for the purpose we have to-day. Harmless, beautiful,
proper, and praiseworthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that
no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago.
The spirit of slavery and barbarism, which still lingers to blight and
destroy in some dark and distant parts of our country, would have made
our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us the
flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace to-day is a
compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of
still greater enlightenment and progress in the future. I refer to the
past, not in malice, but simply to place more distinctly in front the
gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow
citizens and ourselves, and to congratulate all upon the contrast
between now and then; the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand
blessings to both races, and the old dispensation of slavery with its
ten thousand evils to both races--white and black. In view, then, of the
past, the present, and the future, with the long and dark history of our
bondage behind us, and with liberty, progress, and enlightenment before
us, I again congratulate you upon this auspicious day and hour.
Friends and fellow citizens, the story of our presence here is soon and
easily told. We are here in the District of Columbia, here in the City
of Washington, the most luminous point of American territory, a city
recently transformed and made beautiful in its body and in its spirit;
we are here, in the place where the ablest and best men of the country
are sent to devise the policy, enact the laws, and shape the destiny of
the Republic; we are here, with the stately pillars and majestic dome of
the Capitol of the nation looking down upon us; we are here, with the
broad earth freshly adorned with the foliage and flowers of spring for
our church, and all races, colors, and conditions of men for our
congregation--in a word, we are here to express, as best we may, by
appropriate forms and ceremonies, our grateful sense of the vast, high,
and pre-eminent services rendered to ourselves, to our race, to our
country, and to the whole world by Abraham Lincoln.
The sentiment that brings us here to-day is one of the noblest that can
stir and thrill the human heart. It has crowned and made glorious the
high places of all civilized nations with the grandest and most enduring
works of art, designed to illustrate the characters and perpetuate the
memories of great public men. It is the sentiment, which from year to
year adorns with fragrant and beautiful flowers the graves of our loyal,
brave, and patriotic soldiers who fell in defense of the Union and
Liberty. It is the sentiment of gratitude and appreciation, which often,
in the presence of many who hear me, has filled yonder heights of
Arlington with the eloquence of eulogy and the sublime enthusiasm of
poetry and song; a sentiment which can never die while the Republic
lives.
For the first time in the history of our people, and in the history of
the whole American people, we join in this high worship, and march
conspicuously in the line of this time-honored custom. First things are
always interesting, and this is one of our first things. It is the first
time that, in this form and manner, we have sought to do honor to an
American great man, however deserving and illustrious. I commend the
fact to notice; let it be told in every part of the Republic; let men of
all parties and opinions hear it; let those who despise us, not less
than those who respect us, know that now and here, in the spirit of
liberty, loyalty, and gratitude, let it be known everywhere, and by
everybody who takes an interest in human progress and in the
amelioration of the condition of mankind, that, in the presence and with
the approval of the members of the American House of Representatives,
reflecting the general sentiment of the country; that in the presence of
that august body, the American Senate, representing the highest
intelligence and the calmest judgment in the country; in the presence of
the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of the United States, to whose
decisions we all patriotically bow; in the presence and under the
steady eye of the honored and trusted President of the United States,
with the members of his wise and patriotic Cabinet, we, the colored
people, newly emancipated and rejoicing in our blood-bought freedom,
near the close of the first century in the life of this Republic, have
now and here unveiled, set apart, and dedicated a monument of enduring
granite and bronze, in every line, feature, and figure of which the men
of this generation may read, and those of after-coming generations may
read, something of the exalted character and great works of Abraham
Lincoln, the first martyr President of the United States.
Fellow citizens, in what we have said and done today, and in what we may
say and do hereafter, we disclaim everything like arrogance and
assumption. We claim for ourselves no superior devotion to the
character, history, and memory of the illustrious name whose monument we
have here dedicated to-day. We fully comprehend the relations of Abraham
Lincoln, both to ourselves and to the white people of the United States.
Truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places, and it is
never more proper and beautiful in any case than when speaking of a
great public man whose example is likely to be commended for honor and
imitation long after his departure to the solemn shades--the silent
continents of eternity. It must be admitted, truth compels me to admit,
even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory,
Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our
man or our model. In his interests, in his associations, in his habits
of thought, and in his prejudices, he was a white man.
He was pre-eminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the
welfare of the white man. He was ready and willing at any time during
the first years of his administration to deny, postpone, and sacrifice
the rights of humanity in the colored people to promote the welfare of
the white people of this country. In all his education and feeling he
was an American of the Americans. He came into the Presidential chair
upon one principle alone, namely, opposition to the extension of
slavery. His arguments in furtherance of this policy had their motive
and mainspring in his patriotic devotion to the interests of his own
race. To protect, defend, and perpetuate slavery in the States where it
existed Abraham Lincoln was not less ready than any other President to
draw the sword of the nation. He was ready to execute all the supposed
constitutional guarantees of the United States Constitution in favor of
the slave system anywhere inside of the slave States. He was willing to
pursue, re-capture, and send back the fugitive slave to his master, and
to suppress a slave rising for liberty, though his guilty master were
already in arms against the Government. The race to which we belong was
not the special object of his consideration. Knowing this, I concede to
you, my white fellow citizens, a pre-eminence in this worship at once
full and supreme. First, midst, and last, you and yours were the objects
of his deepest affection and his most earnest solicitude. You are the
children of Abraham Lincoln. We are at best, only his step-children;
children by adoption, children by force of circumstances and necessity.
To you it especially belongs to sound his praises, to preserve and
perpetuate his memory, to multiply his statues, to hang his pictures
high upon your walls, and commend his example, for to you he was a great
and glorious friend and benefactor. Instead of supplanting you at this
altar, we would exhort you to build high his monuments; let them be of
the most costly material, of the most cunning workmanship; let their
forms be symmetrical, beautiful, and perfect; let their bases be upon
solid rocks, and their summits lean against the unchanging blue,
overhanging sky, and let them endure forever! But while, in the
abundance of your wealth, and in the fullness of your just and patriotic
devotion, you do all this, we entreat you to despise not the humble
offering we this day unveil to view; for while Abraham Lincoln saved for
you a country, he delivered us from a bondage, according to Jefferson,
one hour of which was worse than ages of the oppression your fathers
rose in rebellion to oppose.