Contemporaneously with the final triumph of this outrage at Washington, another dismal tragedy was enacted at Boston. In those streets where he had walked as freeman Anthony Burns was seized as slave, under the base pretext that he was a criminal,--imprisoned in the Court-House, which was turned for the time into fortress and barracoon,--guarded by heartless hirelings, whose chief idea of Liberty was license to wrong [_loud applause, and cries of "That's it! that's it!"_],--escorted by intrusive soldiers of the United States,--watched by a prostituted militia,--and finally given up to a Slave-Hunter by the decree of a petty magistrate, who did not hesitate to take upon his soul the awful responsibility of dooming a fellow-man, in whom he could find no fault, to a fate worse than death. How all this was accomplished I need not relate. Suffice it to say, that, in doing this deed of woe and shame, the liberties of all our citizens, white as well as black, were put in jeopardy, the Mayor of Boston was converted to a tool [_applause_], the Governor of the Commonwealth to a cipher [_long continued applause_], the laws, the precious sentiments, the religion, the pride and glory of Massachusetts were trampled in the dust, and you and I and all of us fell down while the Slave Power flourished over us. [_"Shame! shame!" and applause._] These things in themselves are bad, very bad; but they are worse, when regarded as natural offspring of the Oligarchy now swaying the country. And it is this Oligarchy which, at every political hazard, we must oppose, until it is overthrown. Lord Chatham once exclaimed, that the time had been, when he was content to bring France to her knees; now he would not stop till he had laid her on her back. Nor can we be content with less in our warfare. We must not stop till we have laid the Slave Power on its back. [_Prolonged cheers._] And, fellow-citizens, permit me to say, not till then will the Free States be absolved from all political responsibility for Slavery, and relieved from that corrupt spirit of compromise which now debases at once their politics and their religion; nor till then will there be repose for the country. [_Immense cheering._] Indemnity for the past and security for the future must be our watchwords. [_Applause._] But these can be obtained only when Slavery is dispossessed of present vantage-ground, by driving it back exclusively within the limits of the States, and putting the National Government, everywhere within its constitutional sphere, openly, actively, and perpetually on the side of Freedom. The consequences of this change of policy would be of far-reaching and incalculable beneficence. Not only would Freedom become national and Slavery sectional, as was intended by our fathers, but the National Government would become the mighty instrument and herald of Freedom, as it is now the mighty instrument and herald of Slavery. Its powers,