THOAL\S WENTWORTU HIGGINSON. S73 



who were willing to act personally in forcible resistance were, however, 

 left in charge of the situation, and of these Higgiuson was selected as 

 the leader. The fugitive was confined in the United States Court 

 room in the Sutfolk Court House, the jails of the state not being at 

 the behest of Federal officers for the confinement of persons who had not 

 violated any state law. A plan was devised to take advantage of the 

 Faneuil Hall meeting. An announcement was to be made, while the 

 meeting was in progress, that an attack on the Court House was being 

 made. This would break up the meeting and bring a mob up to Court 

 Square, under cover of which such an attack might be successful. 

 The various parts of this disjointed scheme did not fit very well to- 

 gether, and the attack resulted in a mere fiasco. The killing of one of 

 the deputies at an early stage of the affair seems to have paralyzed the 

 combatants, and out of it all the only visible result was that T. W. 

 Higginson, alone of all the clamorous abolitionists, had shown conspic- 

 uous courage, the only real contestant for supremacy in that timebeing an 

 unknown colored man. Then followed the consequences of the assault; 

 an inquest by the grand jury and the indictment of Theodore Parker, 

 Wendell Phillips, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and others. The fact 

 that a man had been killed at the Court House gave to the proceedijigs 

 a solemnity and an importance which they might otherwise have 

 lacked. The distinguished men thus brought to the bar made no 

 efi"ort to escape their trial, but the issue was never fairly met by the 

 submission of the case to the jury. The indictment was quashed on a 

 technicality. This episode cost Higginson the good will of many 

 persons whose approval he would have enjoyed, but this fact did not 

 cause him to swerve a jot from his position. Neither then nor there- 

 after did he offer excuse or apology for what he had done. He was 

 actuated by principle, firm, unyielding, and unchangeable. 



Serious as was the position of these men while under indictment, it 

 is evident that Higginson's family were not much disturbed by it, nor 

 had they much fear of the result. His mother, writing concerning it, 

 picked out a curious phrase in the indictment and referring to it face- 

 tiously informed her correspondent that she was not troubled at having 

 a son "riotously and riotously disposed," while on the occasion of a 

 suggestion made by his wife that her letters to him while he was in 

 prison might be read by the jailer, another member of the family re- 

 marked, "Not if he writes them in his usual handwriting." 



In October, 1854, a deputy supposed to have come to Worcester in 

 search of evidence against the participants in the Burns riot was 

 recognized and was attacked by a mob of negroes. A number of abo- 

 litionists, among whom was Higginson, interposed, protected the deputj", 



