Attempt is made to free Anthony Burns.

Some 5,000 people attend a meeting at Faneuil Hall to protest the arrest of Burns. Speakers include Wendell Phillips and Rev. Theodore Parker, who declares, “There is no Boston to-day. There was a Boston once. Now, there is a north suburb to the city of Alexandria . . . And you and I, fellow-subjects of the State of Virginia.” Then a mob storms the Court House in an unsuccessful attempt to free Burns. During the riot, guard James Batchelder, is killed (Lewis Hayden thinks he may have fired the fatal shot). Twelve people, including Hayden and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, are arrested. Burns is tried on May 29, 1854, and ordered to be returned to his master in Virginia, a process that begins three days later.*