CCD HISTORY 201 - History of United States 1
Dr. Joseph Warren's Boston Massacre Oration (1772)
Just 31 years old in 1772, Joseph Warren was a seasoned veteran of the political struggles in Massachusetts between the popular rights faction of Samuel Adams and the royalist clique of Thomas Hutchinson. Warren graduated from Harvard College in 1759. He then turned to the study of medicine while also nurturing his political skills as an advocate of American rights. He became a favorite of Samuel Adams, who saw in Warren a keenly intelligent person who also possessed extraordinary speaking talent. On the second anniversary of the massacre, March 5, 1772, Warren stood before a huge assemblage in Boston and presented an oration about that terrible confrontation—and its larger meaning. He appealed to history in warning his audience about the dangers of standing armies, and he passionately described how much destruction the king's troops were so capable of producing. His words had a certain prophetic quality, at least for Warren himself. Just a little over three years later he died at the hands of British regulars in the midst of combat during the Battle of Bunker Hill.The ruinous consequences of standing armies to free communities may be seen in the histories of Syracuse, Rome, and many other once flourishing states; some of which have now scarce a name! Their baneful influence is most suddenly felt when they are placed in populous cities; for, by a corruption of morals, the public happiness is immediately affected! . . . And this will be more especially the case when the troops are informed that the intention of their being stationed in any city is to overawe the inhabitants. That this was the avowed design of stationing an armed force in this town is sufficiently known; and we, my fellow citizens, have seen, we have felt the tragical effects! The fatal fifth of March, 1770, can never be forgotten. The horrors of that dreadful night are but too deeply impressed on our hearts. Language is too feeble to paint the emotion of our souls, when our streets were stained with the blood of our brethren—when our ears were wounded by the groans of the dying, and our eyes were tormented with the sight of the mangled bodies of the dead.
When our alarmed imagination presented to our view our houses wrapped in flames,
our children subjected to the barbarous caprice of the raging soldiery, our
beauteous virgins exposed to all the insolence of unbridled passion, our
virtuous wives, endeared to us by every tender tie, falling sacrifice to worse
than brutal violence, and perhaps like the famed Lucretia, distracted with
anguish and despair, ending their wretched lives by their own fair hands. When
we beheld the authors of our distress parading in our streets, or drawn up in a
regular battalia, as though in a hostile city, our hearts beat to arms;
we snatched our weapons, almost resolved by one decisive stroke to avenge the
death of our slaughtered brethren, and to secure from future danger all that we
held most dear: but propitious heaven forbade the bloody carnage and saved the
threatened victims of our too keen resentment, not by their discipline, not by
their regular array, no, it was royal George's livery that proved their
shield—it was that which turned the pointed engines of destruction from their
breasts. The thoughts of vengeance were soon buried in our inbred affection to
Great Britain, and calm reason dictated a method of removing the troops more
mild than an immediate resource to the sword. With united efforts you urged the
immediate departure of the troops from the town—you urged it, with a
resolution which ensured success—you obtained your wishes, and the removal of
the troops was effected without one drop of their blood being shed by the
inhabitants. . . .
Source: Merrill Jensen, ed., English Historical Documents, Vol. 9: American Colonial Documents to 1776 (New York, 1969), 756-757
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