And yet let it be recorded that the same session of the Legislature which had refused the Attucks monument, granted one to Isaac Davis, of Concord,—both were promoters of the American Revolution; but one was white, the other black—and this fact is the only solution to the problem why Justice is not meted out.[1]
[1] A monument to Crispus Attucks has been erected on Boston Commons since the above was written.—H. T. K.
Extract from the Speech of Hon. Anson Burlingame, in Faneuil Hall, October 13, 1852, when alluding to the volunteer participation of Boston officials in returning Thomas Sims to bondage, in April, 1851.
"The conquering of New England prejudices in favor of liberty, 'does not pay.' It 'does not pay,' I submit, to put our fellow citizens under practical martial law; to beat the drum in our streets; to clothe our temples of justice in chains, and to creep along by the light of the morning star, over the ground wet with the blood of Crispus Attucks, the noble Colored man, who fell in King Street, before the muskets of tyranny, away in the dawn of our Revolution; creep by Faneuil Hall, silent and dark; by the Green Dragon, where that noble mechanic, Paul Revere, once mustered the sons of liberty; within sight of Prospect Hill, where we first unfurled the glorious banner; creep along with funeral pace, bearing a brother, a man made in the image of his God, not to the grave—oh, that were merciful, for in the grave there is no work and no device, and the voice of a master never comes—but back to the degradation of a Slavery which kills out of a living body an immortal soul. (Great sensation.) Oh! where is the man now who took part in that mournful transaction, who would wish, looking back upon it, to avow it."
During the Revolutionary War, public opinion was so strongly in favor of the abolition of slavery, that, in some of the country towns, votes were passed in town meetings that they would have no slaves among them; and that they would not exact, of masters, any bonds for the maintenance of liberated blacks, should they become incapable of supporting themselves. A liberty-loving antiquarian copied the following from Suffolk Probate Record, and published it in the Liberator of February, 1847:
"Know all men by these presents, that I, Jonathan Jackson, of Newburyport, in the county of Essex, gentleman, in consideration of the impropriety I feel, and have felt in beholding any person in constant bondage—more especially at the time when my country is so warmly contending for the liberty every man ought to enjoy—and having sometime since promised my Negro man, Pomp, that I would give him his freedom—and in further consideration of five shillings, paid me by said Pomp, I do hereby liberate, manumit, and set him free; and I do hereby remise and release unto said Pomp, all demands of whatever nature I have against said Pomp.
"In witness whereof, I hereunto set my hand and seal, this nineteenth June, 1776.
"Jonathan Jackson. (Seal).
"Witness, Mary Coburn, Wm. Noyes."
It only remains to say a word respecting the two parties of the foregoing indenture.
Jonathan Jackson, of Newburyport, we well remember to have heard spoken of, in our boyish days, by honored lips, as a most upright and thorough gentleman of the old school, possessing talents and character of the first standing. He was the first Collector of the Port of Boston, under Washington's administration and was Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for many years, and died in 1810. A tribute to his memory and his worth, said to be from the pen of the late John Lowell, appeared in the Columbian Sentinel, March 10, 1810. His immediate descendants have long resided in this city, are extensively known, and as widely and justly honored.
Pomp took the name of his late master, upon his emancipation, and soon after enlisted in the army, as Pomp Jackson, served through the whole war of the revolution and obtained an honorable discharge at its termination. He afterwards settled in Andover, near a pond, still known as "Pomp's Pond," where some of his descendants yet live. In this case of emancipation, it appears, instead of "cutting his master's throat," he only slashed the throats of his country's enemies.
The late Governor Eustis, of Massachusetts, the pride and boast of the democracy of the East, himself an active participant in the War, and therefore a most competent witness, states that the Freed Colored Soldiers entered the ranks with the whites. The time of those who were Slaves was purchased of their masters, and they were induced to enter the service in consequence of a law of Congress, by which, on condition of their serving in the ranks during the War, they were made Freemen. The hope of Liberty inspired them with the courage to oppose their breasts to the Hessian bayonet at Red Bank, and enabled them to endure with fortitude the cold and famine of Valley Forge.