CHAPTER VI. — ABOLITION RIOTS OF 1834 AND 1835.
The Slavery Question agitated.—The End, Civil War.—The Results.—William Lloyd Garrison.—Feeling of the People on the Subject.—First Attempt to call a Meeting of the Abolitionists in New York.—Meeting in Chatham Street Chapel.—A Fight.—Mob take Possession of Bowery Theatre.—Sacking of Lewis Tappan's House.—Fight between Mob and Police.—Mobbing of Dr. Cox's Church, in Laight Street.—His House broken into.—Street Barricaded.—Attack on Arthur Tappan's Store.—Second Attack on Church in Laight Street.—Church sacked in Spring Street.—Arrival of the Military.—Barricades carried.—Mr. Ludlow's House entered.—Mob at Five Points.—Destruction of Houses.—The City Military called out.—Mob overawed, and Peace restored.—Five Points Riot.—Stone-cutters' Riot.
Most of the riots of New York have grown out of causes more or less local, and wholly transient in their nature. Hence, the object sought to be obtained was at once secured, or abandoned altogether. But those arising from the formation of Abolition societies, and the discussion of the doctrine of immediate emancipation, were of a different character, and confined to no locality or time. The spirit that produced them developed itself in every section of the country, and the question continued to assume vaster proportions, till the Union itself was involved, and what was first only a conflict between the police of the city and a few hundred or thousands of ignorant, reckless men, grew at last into the most gigantic and terrible civil war that ever cursed the earth. The Union was rent asunder, and State arrayed against State, while the world looked on aghast at the strange and bloody spectacle. The final result has been the emancipation of the slaves, and their endowment with all the rights and privileges of American citizens. But with this has come a frightful national debt, the destruction of that feeling of common interest and patriotism, which is the strongest security of a country; a contempt for the Constitution, the concentration of power in the hands of Congress, small regard for State rights, while the controlling power in the South has passed into the hands of an ignorant, incapable, irresponsible class; and, worse than all, the people have become accustomed to the strange spectacle, so fraught with danger in a republic, of seeing the legislatures and executives of sovereign States overawed and overborne by the national troops. That frightful conflict for the slave has sown dangerous seed; what the final harvest will be, the future historian alone will be able to show.
The inconsistency of having a system of slavery incorporated into a republican government was always felt by good men North and South, as well as its damaging effect on the social and political well-being of the whole community; and steps had been taken both in Virginia and Kentucky to do away with it by legislative action. Whether these incipient steps would ever have ended in relieving us of the evil, can only be conjectured. We only know that a peaceable solution of the question was rendered impossible, by the action of the Abolitionists, as they were called, who, governed by the short logic, that slavery being wrong, it could not exist a moment without sin, and therefore must be abandoned at once without regard to consequences. The system of slavery was no longer a social or political problem, calling for great wisdom, prudence, statesmanship, and patience, but a personal crime, not to be tolerated for a moment. The whole South was divided by them into two classes, the oppressor and oppressed, the kidnapper and kidnapped, the tyrant and the slave—a relationship which liberty, religion, justice, humanity, alike demanded should be severed without a moment's delay.
These views, in the judgment of the press at the time, and of sound statesmen, would eventually end in civil war, if adopted by the entire North, and hence they denounced them. The Abolitionists were considered by all as enemies to the Union, whom the lower classes felt should be put down, if necessary, by violence. This feeling was increased by the action of William Lloyd Garrison, the founder of the society, who went to England, and joined with the antislavery men there in abusing this country for its inconsistency and crime. These causes produced a state of public feeling that would be very apt to exhibit itself on the first opportunity. When, therefore, in the autumn of 1833, after Garrison's return from England, a notice appeared for an antislavery meeting in Clinton Hall, some of the most respectable men in New York determined to attend, and crush out, by the weight of their influence, the dangerous movement. Another class was resolved to effect the same project in another way, and on the 2d of October the following placard was posted in naming letters all over the city:
NOTICE
To all persons from the South.
All persons interested in the subject of the meeting called by J. Leavitt, W. Goodell, W. Green, J. Rankin, Lewis Tappan,
At Clinton Hall, this evening, at 7 o'clock, are requested to attend at the same hour and place.