If a large majority of this community choose to turn a deaf ear to the wrongs which are inflicted upon their countrymen in other portions of the land,--if they are content to turn away from the sight of oppression, and “pass by on the other side,” so it must be. But when they undertake in any way to impair or annul my right to speak, write, and publish upon any subject, and more especially upon enormities which are the common concern of every lover of his country and his kind,--so it must not be,--so it shall not be, if I for one can prevent it. Upon this great right let us hold on at all hazards. And should we, in its exercise, be driven from public halls to private dwellings, one house at least shall be consecrated to its preservation. And if, in defence of this sacred privilege, which man did not give me, and shall not (if I can help it) take from me, this roof and these walls shall be levelled to the earth,--let them fall, if they must. They cannot crumble in a better cause. They will appear of
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and a dozen or two of men, that free speech was saved, in 1835, in the city of Boston.
Indeed, we owe it mainly to one man. If there is one here who loves Boston, who loves her honor, who rejoices to know that, however fine the thread, there is a thread which bridges over that dark and troubled wave, and connects us by a living nerve with the freemen of the Revolution,--that Boston, though betrayed by her magistrates, her wealth, her press, and her pulpits, never utterly bowed her neck, let him remember that we owe it to you, Sir, [Mr. Francis Jackson,] who offered to the women not allowed to meet here, even though the Mayor was in this hall, the use of your house; and one sentence of your letter deserves to be read whenever Boston men are met together to celebrate the preservation of the right of free speech in the city of Adams and Otis.
History, which always loves courage, will write it on a page whiter than marble and more incorruptible than gold.
You said, Sir, in answer to a letter of thanks for the use of your house :--
Lee and Shepard, 1891.
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