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On December 7, William Lloyd Garrison was seized by the Royal Marshal of Massachusetts, carried to the Suffolk County Court House and imprisoned under a strong guard. Garrison was to be transported to Virginia to face charges of sedition and lese majeste. A guilty finding would send him to the gallows.
Trouble began when three hundred young Boston street toughs and freed blacks started a peaceful protest demanding Garrison’s release. A few were immediately arrested. The next day, more were arrested, some were manhandled and several were beaten by the special constables hired by the Marshal. From then on, the situation spiraled out of control as upward to a thousand rioters stormed the courthouse armed with knives, stones, swords and an occasional gun. One of the Marshal’s special constables was killed, others were badly beaten. Garrison was freed and spirited away to Canada.
The Boston riots caused the fall of Buchanan’s government. The King called upon Jefferson Davis, a prominent member of parliament and a former minister of war, to form a new government. Davis vowed to restore law and order to unruly Boston and declared martial law in the province of Massachusetts.
Massachusetts responded to Davis’ declaration of martial law by seceding from the United Kingdom on December 20, 1859. This action made front-page news two days later when Harper’s Weekly featured portraits of the province’s members of parliament on its cover, titled The Seceding Massachusetts Delegation. Other New England provinces followed in short order: Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. In early February, representatives of those provinces gathered in Boston, to found a new republic, The United States of America (also known as the Union), and to name as its president, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts.
At first, a fragile peace prevailed. When Jefferson Davis attempted to re-supply the royal troops stationed at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor, the stalemate collapsed. Davis insisted that his government would not allow the rebel provinces to take control of royal military forts in the North, which had begun to happen in many places. Davis was determined not to allow Fort Warren to be taken, so he sent unarmed supply ships to the fort, giving the rebel President Charles Sumner advance notice of his actions. The Union attacked the fort before the ships could arrive, opening fire on April 12, 1860. The royal troops inside held out for thirty-four hours, but finally surrendered on April 14 in the face of constant shelling. The next day, Prime Minister Davis called for 75,000 volunteer militia men to put down the rebellion. War had begun. Prime Minister Davis’ call for troops prompted three more northern provinces—New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to join the Union in protest of what they viewed as Davis’ “coercion” of the North.