When a synod had spent all its spare time in discussing whether slavery ought to be described in a resolution as an evil or as a moral evil, they thought they had about done their share of duty on the subject; meanwhile, between the two, the consciences of those elders and church members who were holding slaves on bond and mortgage, or sending down orders to sell up the hands of plantations as securities for their debts, had a certain troublous peace.
How lucky it was for these poor tempest-tossed souls that the abolitionists were so imprudent and hot headed, that they wore garments of camel's hair, and were girt about the loins with a leathern girdle, and did eat locusts and wild honey, being altogether an unpresentable, shaggy, unkempt, impracticable set of John the Baptist reformers. Their unchristian spirit shocked the nerves of good pious people far more than the tearing up of slave families, or the wholesale injustice of slavery. "The abolitionists do things in such bad taste," said good society, "that it really makes it impossible for us to touch the subject at all, lest we should become mixed up with them, and responsible for their proceedings." To become mixed up with and responsible for the proceedings of slaveholders, slave-traders, and slave-drivers, who certainly exhibited no more evidences of good taste in their manner of handling subjects, did not somehow strike good society at this time as equally objectionable.
It had got to be a settled and received doctrine that the impudent abolitionists had created such a state of irritation in the delicate nerves of the slaveholding power, that all good Christian people were bound to unite in a general effort to calm irritation by suppressing all discussion of the subject.
When, therefore, James G. Birney, a southern abolitionist, who had earned a right to be heard, by first setting free his own slaves, came to Cincinnati and set up an abolition paper, there was a boiling over of the slaveholding fury. For more than a week Cincinnati lay helpless in a state of semi-sack and siege, trod under the heels of a mob led by Kentucky bullies and slave-traders. They sacked Birney's anti-slavery office, broke up his printing press and threw the types into the river, and then proceeded to burn negro houses, and to beat and maltreat defenceless women and children, after the manner of such evil beasts generally.
At the time the mob were busy destroying the printing press, Mr. Chase threw himself in among them with a view to observe, and if possible to obstruct their proceedings.
He gathered from their threats while the process of sacking the office was going on, that their next attack would be on the life of Mr. Birney. On hearing this, he hastened before them to Mr. Birney's hotel, and stood in the door-way to meet them when they came up.
No test of personal courage or manliness is greater than thus daring to stand and oppose a mob in the full flush of lawless triumph. Mr. Chase had a fine commanding person, and perfect courage and coolness, and he succeeded in keeping back the mob, by arguing with them against lawless acts of violence to persons or property, until Birney had had time to escape.
The upper ten of Cincinnati, when tranquility was once more restored to that community, were of course very much shocked and scandalized by the proceedings of the mob, but continued to assert that all these doings were the fault of the abolitionists. What could be expected if they would continue discussions which made our brethren across the river so uncomfortable? If nobody would defend the rights of negroes there would be no more negro mobs, and good society became increasingly set in the belief that speaking for the slave in any way whatever was actually to join the abolitionists, and to become in fact a radical, a disorganizer, a maker of riots and disturbances.
No young lawyer who acted merely from humane sentiment, or common good natured sympathy, would have dared at that time to plead a slave's cause against a master's claim. Then and always there were a plenty of people to feel instinctive compassion, and in fact slily to give a hunted fugitive a lift, if sure not to lose by it—but to take up and plead professionally a slave's cause against a master was a thing which no young man could do without making up his mind to be counted as one of the abolitionists, and to take upon his shoulders the whole responsibility of being identified with them.
Mr. Chase was a man particularly alive to the value of all the things which he put in peril by such a step. He had a remarkable share of what is called the "Yankee" nature, which values and appreciates material good. He had begun poor, and he knew exactly what a hard thing poverty was. He had begun at the bottom of the social ladder, and he knew exactly how hard it was to climb to a good position. He had just got such a position, and he truly appreciated it. His best patrons and warmest friends now, with earnestness warned him not to listen to the voice of his feelings, and take that course which would identify him with the fanatical abolitionists. They told him that it would be social and political death to him to take a step in that direction.