“Another Dastardly Attempt to Suppress Freedom of Speech”

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This newspaper clipping introduces a meeting at Tremont Temple organized to commemorate the anniversary of the execution of John Brown. A year earlier, authorities hanged Brown for treason after he led the attack on the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia in an attempt to incite slave insurrection. The meeting sought to address the question: “How can American Slavery be Abolished?”

This clipping draws attention to The Liberator article’s title: “Another Dastardly Attempt to Suppress Freedom of Speech.”

Questions to Consider

1. Considering the title of this newspaper clipping, how do you see people’s freedom of speech suppressed today?
2. After reading about the meeting at Tremont Temple in The John Brown Anniversary Meeting article, who do you think the author of this The Liberator article supports? Why?

Transcription

In accordance with public notice, the Convention to consider the question, ‘How can American Slavery be Abolished?’—called by a ‘number of young men, unconnected, at this time, with any organization,’—was attempted to be held at the Tremont Temple, on Monday last. Provision was made for three sessions, the first commencing at 11 o’clock, A. M. As is usually the case when three meetings are to be held the same day, it was supposed by those friendly to the Convention that there would be a small attendance at the forenoon session, which would be somewhat increased in the afternoon, and largely augmented in the evening, when rest from the toils of the day gives necessary leisure for a general gathering. It was our impression that the Convention would prove comparatively a failure, as the Call did not emanate from a source calculated to carry any personal weight, and as no conference or consultation whatever was had with the long-tried advocates of the Anti-Slavery cause, who, if they had been consulted, would have suggested a very different mode of procedure, and who had nothing to do with it directly. Still, it was the unquestionable right of the ‘young men’ alluded to, to invite to a conference all who desire the overthrow of slavery; and in extending their invitation ‘to the leaders and representatives of all the different Anti-Slavery bodies, and to various men of eminence who have done honor to their own souls by advocating the cause of impartial freedom,’ they evinced the broadest catholicity of spirit.