breakfastautocrat:July 4, 1854 - Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison burns a copy of the United Stat
breakfastautocrat:July 4, 1854 - Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison burns a copy of the United States ConstitutionThe Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society held a rally in Framingham, MA on Independence Day, 1854. Notable speakers on that day included Sojourner Truth, Henry David Thoreau, and William Lloyd Garrison. This was no day for celebration. In May of that year, Congress had passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, potentially spreading slavery further into new territories in the west and laying the groundwork for the conflict known as Bleeding Kansas. Also in May but closer to home in Boston, federal authorities had thrown all of their money and muscle into the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The United States government had detained and forcibly transported a fugitive named Anthony Burns back to slavery. It seemed unlikely that things could get any worse. After torching copies of the Fugitive Slave Law and documents relating to the Anthony Burns case, Garrison picked up a copy of the Constitution next. Calling it “the source and parent of all the other atrocities–‘a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell,’” he set it alight as well.“So perish all compromises with tyranny!”Source: Massachusetts Historical SocietyClip: American Experience by PBS -- source link