The decision of this mass meeting, composed of the business men of the city, was afterwards published in a leading local paper, and makes very good reading, although derived from a pro-slavery source, to wit: “On Saturday night, July 30th, very soon after dark, a concourse of citizens assembled at the corner of Main and Seventh streets, in this city, and, upon a short consultation, broke open the printing office of the Philanthropist, the abolition paper, scattered the type into the street, tore down the presses, and completely dismantled the office. It was owned by A. Pugh, a peaceable and orderly printer, who printed the Philanthropist for the Anti-Slavery Society of Ohio.
“From the printing office the crowd went to the house of A. Pugh, where they supposed there were other printing materials, but found none, nor offered any violence. Then to Messrs. Donaldsons, where only ladies were at home. The residence of Mr. Birney, the editor, was then visited; no person was at home but a youth, upon whose explanations the house was left undisturbed.... And proceeded to the ‘Exchange’ and took refreshments.”... “An attack was then made upon the residences of some blacks in Church alley; two guns were fired upon the assailants and they recoiled.... It was some time before the rally could again be made, several voices declaring they did not wish to endanger themselves. A second attack was made, the houses found empty, and their interior contents destroyed.”
Although all this kind of proceeding looked very much like an unlawful assemblage, it met with no opposition from the city authorities, and all that was ever done in a matter of this kind was to call a meeting of citizens, and “regret the cause of the recent occurrences,” and the next day would drive a Wendell Phillips from Pike’s Opera House, and seek him with a howling mob that he might be hung to a lamp-post, “the mayor refusing to allow the police to interfere.”
Cincinnati reaped a rich harvest for the examples given in “citizen” mobs. Still, at any time previous to the “salvation” of the city, it was impolitic if not dangerous for a minister of the gospel, a public speaker, press or private citizen, to mention the subject of slavery in a manner that might be construed unfavorable to its sanctity; for a black line had been drawn over the twenty-sixth verse of the seventeenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; the tenth verse of the second chapter of Malachi, and the spirit of the gospel dispensation, as effectually in their practical theology as was ever manifest in Danville or in any Southern translation of the ten commandments.
So determined were the pro-slavery elements to hold the fort in Cincinnati and aid the South in making it dangerous for a colored man in a “free state,” that they continued to supply the South with stores until the last moment; and only a week before the bombardment of Sumter, the city permitted cannon to pass through on way from Baltimore marked
“For the Southern Confederacy,
Jackson, Mississippi.”
And the same day, or the day before, returned a fugitive slave through the commissioner, and all went well with the city, reaping the fruits of the war, until General Wallace placed it under martial law, and, suspending business, demanded the citizens to enroll themselves for defense. “Some were at once taken very sick, others were hunted up by detailed soldiers, who turned them out of barns, kitchens, garrets, cellars, closets, from under beds, and in the disguise of women’s clothing.” For the seed sown was now ripe and mid air was resounding—“The harvest is here.”
At a time, in 1858, when public sentiment was beginning to be felt, and official prosecutions for the return of fugitive slaves became more or less unsatisfactory to the owners, James Buchanan, President of the United States, gave a surprise to every one by appointing Judge Stanley Matthews—an eminent lawyer, ex-editor of an abolition paper, and leader in the anti-slavery movements in Ohio, as United States District Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
To politicians, this seemed not only a deviation from all known precedents, but, politically, an unfathomable mystery. But, no more remarkable was the appointment than that, a lawyer at the summit of professional ability and large income—a noted abolitionist—opposed to the fugitive slave acts, should have accepted the position. But those who knew Judge Matthews and his patriotism best, could discern in it logical conclusions—the interests of freedom could be subserved and the public mind attained by a shorter method than by arguing, speaking, or publishing—“the enforcement of the iniquitous fugitive slave law.” And for three years he prosecuted “offenders” without just fault or favor—giving such lessons in its application, that made loyalty to freedom, and magnified the blessings of the free.
Judge Matthews resigned the office in 1861, and took the commission of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Twenty-third—afterward Colonel of the Fifty-first Ohio, and awaited the “proclamation.”