University of Virginia Library

HONEST TRUTH ABOUT YE “FLAUNTING
LIE.”

THE TOCSIN-PEALS OF TEN YEARS AGO.

As certain Democratic journals and orators
throughout the country have seen fit to attach
undue importance and a totally garbled construction
to an extract from a certain song which appeared
many years ago in the N. Y. Tribune, it may
be as well at this point to place on record a true
copy of that song, and a history of the events out of
which it grew, together with copies of certain other
songs on the same subject, forming a series of
which the much-quoted lyric was but a part.

The first song of the series appeared in the
Consulate of Franklin Pierce, and was called out
by the circumstances attending the capture and
imprisonment of one Anthony Burns, an alleged
fugitive slave from Virginia. This arrest created
intense excitement in Boston, insomuch that nearly
all business was suspended during its pendency.
The people and State authorities of the great Old
Commonwealth were perfectly willing to obey the
Fugitive Slave Law, provided its provisions were
properly complied with, and the accused given

some chance of proving, if he could, that he was
not the character he had been taken for. This,
however, was not the policy of the then Federal
officials, who conducted the whole case with an
overbearing insolence and disregard of the popular
feelings which seemed to court an armed collision.

While the excitement was at its highest, a Boston
paper announced, with high commendation, that
“two companies of foreign-born soldiers had been
stationed in and around the Court-House to keep
back the rabble”—this “rabble,” we may remark,
embracing seven-eighths of all that was most eminent
in the learning, piety, public confidence, and
respectability of the Trimontane City. Taking
these words of the paper for his text, the author
of this series wrote and sent to The Independent
the following verses, which he called:

This song, immediately republished in the Tribune,
achieved a sudden and immense popularity,
being widely copied in the journals of the day,
and largely quoted from in the adverse speeches
of party orators. It was a veritable “tocsin peal,”
and was answered by an uprising of popular opinion
such as is rarely witnessed.

While these matters were going on in Boston,
a wretch to whose name we afford the charity of
oblivion, committed in one night a succession of
crimes at the bare recital of which the imagination
shudders. The scene of the occurrence was
in the vicinity of Flatbush, Long Island. The
monster entered a house in which he had formerly
been employed as a servant, for the double purpose
of robbing his master and outraging a young
girl who had been his fellow-servant and had
rejected his addresses. During the perpetration
of these crimes, his former master and mistress
were aroused, whereupon he split their heads open

with a meat-axe, otherwise mangling them frightfully,
and then attempted to kill the girl he had
tried to ravish; after which he set fire to the house
in order to destroy the lifeless proofs of his guilt.

A horror so aggravated aroused all the neighboring
citizens to fury. Hundreds organized themselves
into a searching party, and hunted for the
villain through the swamp in which he had taken
refuge. He was at last found, after two or three
days' search, hidden up to his neck in mud; and
bleeding profusely from some wounds self-inflicted,
by which he hoped to cheat the gallows. On being
caught he at once confessed his crimes, and it was
for a moment debated as to whether he should not
be lynched upon the spot. The spirit of law and
justice prevailed, however, and it was decided to
give him a fair trial and an opportunity for counsel
to defend him.

The very same paper that gave particulars of
this tragedy, described, also, how Anthony Burns,
without any fair trial, had been ordered back to
slavery on the mere affidavit of a citizen of Virginia,
claiming to be his owner, and the arbitrary
decision of a Commissioner, who was paid an extra
five dollars by law for deciding against the black
man. All Boston closed its places of business on
the day that the military procession appeared as
an escort for Anthony Burns from the Court-House
to the wharf. The black man was in the centre

of a square of infantry. Two sections of artillery,
loaded with grape, were paraded to repress any
popular outburst. Meanwhile appeared on nearly
every house-top the United States flag at half-mast,
while over Faneuil Hall, the old “Cradle of
Liberty,” the same flag was displayed at half-mast
and completely enshrouded in crape.

On these simultaneous events were written the
verses (originally published in the Tribune)
which we now subjoin:

The troubles of Franklin Pierce and Company
were not yet half over, in reference to this poor
“colored American of African descent.” On the
trial being made, it was found that no ship or
steamer in Boston could be hired for the purpose
of carrying this alleged fugitive back to slavery.
The universal cry was: “Give him a trial. Demand
from the Virginian that he shall give as
much proof of ownership as would be required
to recover a stray dog! Comply only with these

requisitions, and we bow as in duty bound to the
supremacy of the laws of the Union.”

Matters having arrived at this pass, Caleb
Cushing and Company had nothing for it but the
conversion of a national armed vessel into a slave
ship. The Morris was ordered to Boston for the
sole purpose of carrying back to Virginia this one
miserable wretch—alleged to be a fugitive from
slavery. Picture—those who know anything of
the Old Bay State—the horror created by this
ignominious desecration of a national ship! The
flag that had waved over slippery and smoking
decks in our early conflicts with Great Britain—
the flag to which our earliest and noblest captains
had lifted their eyes for inspiration through the
hot hours of many a bloody sea-fight—for that flag
Caleb Cushing and Company could find no better
business ten years ago than to cover, at the masthead
of the Morris, this isolated instance of the
slave-trade carried on in an armed vessel of the
Nation.

Just think of it! Bear in mind all the surroundings
of the case; and then read the following
lines, first published in the Tribune, June 13,
1854, with such comment and such appetites as
your natures may suggest. Taken as a whole,
and not merely looking at the three garbled
stanzas which a portion of the press saw fit to
give as the entire poem, it will be seen that the

lines are really a glowing tribute to the glory and
greatness of our national banner; a glowing protest
against its desecration in one particular instance.

HAIL TO THE STARS AND STRIPES.[1]

[The U. S. cutter Morris has been ordered by President
Franklin Pierce to carry Anthony Burns from Boston to
Virginia, to be there enslaved for ever.—Boston Commonwealth.]

To all of treason, disloyalty, or contempt for
the national flag that the enemies of human freedom
can find in the foregoing verses, we bid them
heartily welcome. They have never heretofore
published more than a few stanzas, and even
those few were garbled and twisted out of their
proper sense and connection. The copy now submitted
is from a revise by the author; and as—
for good or evil—this song has passed into the

history of our country and age, we think those
who have misquoted extracts from it should let
the whole of it be seen in its rightful shape.

And now for the last of the “tocsin-peals”
rung out in the columns of the Tribune.

On the arrival of the Morris in the South, with
her black prisoner duly fettered on board, there
was tremendous rejoicing through all slavedom—
late Jeffdom. All the orators and bards of the
“Chivalry” made speeches and wrote songs in
honor of their victory over the law-abiding citizens
of the old Bay State. Joy-bells were rung,
bonfires kindled, windows were illuminated, much
whiskey consumed—and the friends of Franklin
Pierce thought his renomination certain. There
was joy in the White House, but mourning in
the best hearts of New England. That a fugitive
slave, duly proved to be such, should be returned,
was a necessity in which very nearly all New
England acquiesced. But that a Southern master
should be sustained by the Federal Executive in
seizing a man in the streets of Boston, and hurrying
him away without any substantial proofs of
his identity or former servitude—this cup was a
bitter one, but President Pierce and Caleb Cushing
made Massachusetts drink of it to the very
dregs.

On the receipt of Anthony Burns in the Old
Dominion, he was solemnly turned over from the

custody of National bayonets to that of the local
militia, an organization with which the North has
since become pretty thoroughly acquainted at
Manassas, Antietam, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg,
the Wilderness, and elsewhere. By these
military scions of First Families of Virginia he
was ostentatiously escorted to the plantation of his
alleged owner; and it was on the report of the
joyous and triumphal ceremonies then and there
enacted that the following verses were struck off
and given to the public in the Tribune.

From the foregoing history, it will be seen that
the “Flaunting-Lie” story of the Copperhead journals
and orators was a “flaunting lie” indeed. It
will also be seen that, far from being an utterance
in contempt of the flag, it was a cry of sorrowful
indignation at beholding the desecration of that
sacred emblem. This statement we have felt due
to the truth of history, as also to relieve Mr. Greeley

from much undeserved obloquy; and now the
subject stands dismissed, with only this concluding
remark: All four songs were tossed out, we
believe, in the heat and hurry of daily journalism,
and have this eminent value: that, however
deficient they may be in literary merit or polish,
they give a true, permanent, and intensified
expression to what were the convictions of the
popular mind on a subject which must for ever
remain of the highest interest.