MASS meeting commemorates death of Lovejoy and comments on Faneuil Hall

The meeting was held on Dec 22, 1837, at Marlboro Chapel and is reported here at length.  Speeches  by A.A. Phelps, and Wendell Phillips, and Garrison are included.

Garrison, in his remarks comments on restrictions against speaking about slavery at Faneuil Hall.   He says, that while the occasion is one which should be a Faneuil Hall, as the Cradle of Liberty, and he regrets not meeting there, but still he rejoices that the meeting is not there:

” I rejoice at it, because I cannot, for one, consent to go into that Hall, with a padlock upon my lips.  Liberty of speech, on the subject of American slavery, may not be indulged in Faneuil Hall, or in any of the meeting houses of this city, with perhaps, one exception. Here, and here alone, in the Marlboro Chapel, it has been tonight, and I trust may ever, be freely indulged.”…  Then again, in reference to Faneuil Hall:
“Yet we did not go into that Hall as freemen, in the full exercise of the freedom of speech. No, sir!  On the one topic we were restricted to say nothing, even by a pledge; and that topic was slavery!……. And that, Sir, is the freedom we enjoy in Boston!  That is our liberty of speech in Faneuil Hall!….”

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