Anniversaries

I wasn't going to mention the Boston Massacre, but this morning a "history site" gave Elvis Presley milestones higher billing than the Boston Massacre, so I'm reminding all of you Americans, out of protest, that this was the day, 239 years ago, when the city fathers of Boston were proven sadly right in their objection to standing armies in a time of peace. It has become common place to misconstrue John Adam's defense of the British soldiers, in court, as a sign that this affair was not really an atrocity, but the patriots who gave the annual Boston Massacre oration, for years afterwards, didn't' take that view--and they were the ones who had to live under military occupation. Here is the way the event was reported in New Hampshire in the March 9th, 1770 edition of the Gazette.

P O R T S M O U T H. March 9, 1770. Bloody Work in Boston. By a Person from Boston since the Post, we hear, that about Eight O'Clock last Monday Evening there happened another Difference with the Inhabitants of that Town and some Soldiers of the 29th Regiment, in which both Sides received several Blows, and would have been very fatal, if Mr. Maul, an Officer, had not obliged the Soldiers to retire to their barracks, the Inhabitants gathering very thick in King-Street, the commanding officer of the main guard ordered a File of Men to draw up before the Custom-House, and whether any Words passed between him and the People is not certainly known, but he gave Orders to the Men to fire upon the People, which immediately killed three on the Spot, and wounded four others extremely bad, one of which was dying when our Informer left the Town....we impatiently wait to hear the Result relating to this horrid Affair, as from the Temper of the People something too serious would take Place.

The reality, as the founders knew, is that placing soldiers among a people who valued their charter rights, and their institutions of representative government, is a disservice to both the soldiers and the citizens. A professional army is a clumsy vehicle for enforcing the peace. There were routine fights between two different sets of authority in the town--the night watchmen and patrolling bands of sometimes drunken British soldiers. Soldiers and citizens fought for part time work. Church meetings were interrupted by the fifes and drums of British troops--who didn't like the politics of the pulpit. Finally, no deliberative body is free to engage in free expression with gun barrels pointing at the meeting hall.

The massacre was, indeed, a massacre, but not because every British soldier was a brute. The arrogant ministers of King George had sent them on a mission no fighting man could honorably fulfill--that of making tyranny "peaceful" and "orderly."