Ah! had not Garrison spoken much plain truth at the public hearing of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society before the insolent chairman and his committee when he said:  “The liberties of the people of the free States are identified with those of the slave population.  If it were not so, there would be no hope, in my breast, of peaceful deliverance of the latter class from their bondage.  Our liberties are bound together by a ligament as vital as that which unites the Siamese twins.  The blow which cuts them asunder, will inevitably destroy them both.  Let the freedom of speech and of the press be abridged or destroyed, and the nation itself will be in bondage; let it remain untrammeled, and Southern slavery must speedily come to an end.”  The tragedy at Alton afforded startling illustration of the soundness of this remark.  Classes like individuals gain wisdom only by experience; and the murder of Lovejoy was one of those terrific experiences which furrow themselves in the soul of a people in frightful memories and apprehensions which do not disappear but remain after long lapse of years.

Twelve days after the murder—­it was before the development of the telegraph and rapid postal facilities—­the news reached Boston.  It produced the most profound sensation.  Many of the leading citizens felt straightway that if the rights assailed in the person of Lovejoy were to be preserved to themselves and their section, immediate action was required.  A great meeting was proposed, and Faneuil Hall applied for.  The application was denied by the municipal authorities on the plea that its use for such a purpose might provoke a mob.  The city was, however, dealing now not with the despised Abolitionists, but with men of property and standing in the community and was soon brought to its senses by the indignant eloquence of Dr. Channing, appealing to the better self of Boston in this strain:  “Has it come to this?  Has Boston fallen so low?  May not its citizens be trusted to come together to express the great principles of liberty for which their forefathers died?  Are our fellow-citizens to be murdered in the act of defending their property and of assuming the right of free discussion?  And is it unsafe in this metropolis to express abhorrence of the deed?”

A second application for the hall was granted, and a meeting, which is an historical event in the annals of the old town, was held December 8, 1837—­a meeting memorable as an uprising, not of the Abolitionists, but of the conservatism and respectability of the city in behalf of the outraged liberties of white men.  Ever memorable, too, for that marvelous speech of Wendell Phillips, which placed him instantly in the front rank of minds with a genius for eloquence, lifted him at once as an anti-slavery instrument and leader close beside William Lloyd Garrison.  The wild-cat-like spirit which had hunted Thompson out of the country and Lovejoy to death, had more than made good the immense deficit of services thus created through the introduction upon the national stage of the reform of this consummate and incomparable orator.