n called a meeting, on
December 8, to condemn the act of the mob. The Attorney-General of
Massachusetts opposed the resolutions of condemnation, defended the
mob, and declared that "Lovejoy died as the fool dieth." Wendell
Phillips said to a friend, "Such a speech made in Faneuil Hall must
be answered in Faneuil Hall." He made his way to the platform and
spoke in part as follows:

Mr. Chairman, We have met for the freest discussion of these
resolutions, and the events which gave rise to them. I hope I shall be
permitted to express my surprise at the sentiments of the last speaker,
surprise not only at such sentiments from such a man, but at the
applause they have received within these walls. A comparison has been
drawn between the events of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We
have heard it asserted here, in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a
right to tax the colonies, and we have heard the mob at Alton, the
drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those patriot fathers who
threw the tea overboard. Fellow-citizens, is this Fanueil Hall doctrine?
The mob at Alton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights, met
to resist the laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same, and
the glorious mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the
mobs of our day. To make out their title to such defense the gentleman
says that the British Parliament had a right to tax these colonies. It
is manifest that without this his parallel falls to the ground, for
Lovejoy had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not
only defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof
in arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed
him went against and over the laws. The mob as the gentleman terms
it,--mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea spillers are a
marvelously patient generation!--the "orderly mob" which assembled in
the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws,--but
illegal exactions. Shame on the American who calls the tea-tax and
stamp-act laws! Our fathers resisted, not the king's prerogative, but
the king's usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our
Revolutionary history upside down. Our State archives are loaded with
arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British
Parliament unconstitutional, beyond its power. It was not till this was
made out that the men of New Engl