June 2, 1854
Arrested at the corner of Brattle and Court Street, Burns was taken to the Court House, where he was kept for the night by the Marshall. “During the day on Friday, Court Square was filled with a deeply excited and most anxious multitude, but no attempts were made to disturb the peace. On Friday evening, at only a few hours’ notice, an immense meeting of the citizens of Boston and vicinity was held at Faneuil Hal (far beyond the capacity of the building)..”
Most of the remainder of this issue tells the story of Burns, which has been told in other places, more fully several times, and cannot be quickly recorded here.
June 9, 1854
With its source not clear, under the title Triumph of Law, this notice says: “It is with great satisfaction we announce to our readers the complete triumph of law in Boston over one of the most ferocious gangs of Abolitionists, black and white, clerical and laical, that ever disgraced the country…..” Burns has been returned to his owner, Colonel Suttle. “Burns is represented to be rather stupid, and will probably be better off with his master than anywhere else. Certainly, he would not fare so well in the hands of the Abolitionists, by a long way. Col. Suttle is every where spoken of as a worthy and estimable man. Had he been deprived of his property by an Abolition mob, the excitement among his neighbors and friends would have been intense. As it is, the affair has created no small stir in that quarter.”
June 9, 1854
“A man has been successfully kidnapped in Boston, and carried off to Virginia as the rightful property of another!…..One fact, at least, is settled : — No man can be carried from Boston as a slave, except by the military power of the United States, and at the point of a bayonet. Let another victim be seized, and the late excitement shall be as tranquility itself, in comparison with what will follow.”
Large portions of this edition of the paper are given to stories about Burns, and descriptions of his removal, as observed both in Boston, and other surrounding towns.
June 9, 1854
The paper proudly prints a resignation of Joseph K. Hayes, because he has received an order which, “if performed, would implicate me in the execution of that infamous ‘Fugitive Slave Bill’”
June 16, 1854
Under the Refuge of Oppression column, from the N. Y. Journal of Commerce, there is a concern that there will be an attempt in Congress to amend the Nebraska bill to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law. “…we venture to predict that the motion will be voted down by an overwhelming majority. The obligation to surrender fugitive slaves does not rest upon the Compromise of 1850 or that of 1821, (the latter of which expressly provides for the surrender of fugitive slaves escaping into the territory now covered by the Nebraska-Kansas bill,) but upon the Constitution.
Under the Refuge of Oppression, from the Boston Daily Mail, with a title The Purchase of Burns: “We confess, we could prefer no opinion, should our abolition neighbors resolve to purchase every slave south of the Mason and Dixon line. But they would find it too expensive. They have not the capital at their command. These wild, enthusiastic philanthropists have very little bottom. They are notoriously lazy. They seldom produce anything themselves, except windy speeches and crazy haranques….”
June 16, 1854
Here the paper publishes “extracts from a brave and eloquent ‘Discourse on Christian Politics, delivered in Williams Hall, Boston, on Whitsunday, June 4, 1854, by James Freeman Clarke, Minister of the Church of the Disciples’.
October 27, 1854
Notice of a Petition to the Mass. House and Senate, asking for the removal of Judge Edward Greeley Loring, from the office of a Judge of Suffolk County., because of his “infamous act in sending Anthony Burns into slavery.”
November 17, 1854
From the Richmond Enquirer, comes notice that Anthony Burns has left Richmond, in possession of David McDaniel, Esq., of Nash County, N.C., who purchased him for the purpose of putting him to work in a cotton field, or where duty calls.”
December 29, 1854
The Evening Telegraph says that Burns has been sold to “a North Carolina negro trader, (after $1400 had been tendered both here and in Virginia, and after he had promised to let Rev. Mr. Grimes have him), for the sum of $700, with a condition in the bond that he should never be sold to go North. And this is the fate of this poor victim.”
January 5, 1855
A Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune, tells of the purchase of Burns by McDaniels, of North Carolina, and then appeals, “Anthony having many friends in Boston, cannot they raise a few hundred dollars for his restoration to his family and friends?….. Who will move in the matter?” Then the Transcript comments, “His Boston friends offered twelve hundred dollars for him, of which sum a United States Officer subscribed one hundred. Their letters are unanswered, their appeals unavailing….”
