On July 4, 1854, abolitionists — including William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, and Henry David Thoreau — addressed a rally sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.
Broadside advertising a Fourth of July rally sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1854. Source: Massachusetts Historical Society
At the rally, Garrison burned copies of the Fugitive Slave Act and the U.S. Constitution, crying out “So perish all compromises with tyranny!” This referred to two recent incidents: the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act into law on May 30, which expanded slavery into these territories; and the arrest and the re-enslavement of Anthony Burns who had been taken into custody on May 24 in Boston, in compliance with the Fugitive Slave Act, a component of the Compromise of 1850. Read a detailed description about the rally at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Use the teaching activity, ‘If There Is No Struggle. . .’: Teaching a People’s History of the Abolition Movement, where students become members of the American Anti-Slavery Society, facing many of the real challenges to ending slavery.
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