Most of the members retired unmolested excepting by abusive, profane, and obscene epithets. A cry was raised by some of the Committee for “the minutes” of the Convention, and members pressed upon the venerable Secretary, demanding that he should give them up. But he resolutely refused, though they crowded him against the wall, seized him by the collar, and threatened to beat him. A member of the Committee of twenty-five, a man holding an important public office, raised his cane over that aged and faithful minister of the Gospel and cried out, “God damn you! give the papers up, or I will knock you on the head.” At this, another of the Committee, a young man—his son—sprang forward and begged him, “Do, father, give them up and save your life. Give them to me, and I will pledge myself they shall be returned to you again.” With this Rev. Mr. Wetmore complied, and was let off without any further harm.
Many of the newspapers, especially those of New York City, exulted over the results of the riots of the 21st of October in Boston and Utica. They boasted that, by thus dealing with the Abolitionists, the people of the Northern States proved themselves to be sound to the core on the subject of slavery. “Hereafter,” said the New York Sunday Morning News, “hereafter the leaders of the Abolitionists will be treated with less forbearance than they have been heretofore. The people will consider them as out of the pale of the legal and conventional protection which society affords to its honest and well-meaning members. They will be treated as robbers and pirates, as the enemies of the human kind.”
The most important incident of the Utica riot was the accession which it caused of Gerrit Smith to our ranks. The great and good man had, for many years, been an active opponent of slavery. He had always been in favor of immediate emancipation, and was unusually free from prejudice against colored people. But from almost the beginning of the Colonization Society he had been a member of it, deceived as we all were by the representations which its agents at the North made of its intentions and the tendency of its operations. He believed its scheme was intended to effect and would effect the abolition of slavery. He therefore joined it, and labored heartily in its behalf, and contributed most generously to its funds,—ten thousand dollars, if not more. Mr. Smith was repulsed from the American Antislavery Society, and kept away for nearly two years, because he thought Mr. Garrison and his associates were unjust in their denunciations of the Colonization Society, and too severe in their censures of the American churches and ministers, as virtually the accomplices of slaveholders.
But the outrages committed upon the Abolitionists in the fall of 1834, and throughout the year 1835, fixed his attention more fully upon them. He determined to know, to search, and prove those who had become the subjects of such general and unsparing persecution. When, therefore, the Convention for the formation of a State Antislavery Society was to be held in Utica (only twenty-five or thirty miles from his residence), he could not withhold himself from it. He went thither, not as a member of any Antislavery Society, not intending to become a member, but determined to hear for himself what should be said, see what should be done, learn what might be proposed, and decide as he should find reason to, between the Abolitionists and their adversaries. Alas, that the prominent, influential, professedly religious men in every part of our country did not do likewise! Then would the names of comparatively few of them have gone down, in the history of this generation, as the leaders and instigators of a most shameful persecution of the friends of freedom and humanity.
Mr. Smith was so disgusted, shocked, alarmed, at the proceedings of “the gentlemen of property and standing” in Utica, that he invited all the members of the antislavery convention to repair to Peterboro’. And a large proportion of the members accepted his invitation. Insults and threats of violence were showered upon them wherever they were met in the streets of Utica and at the hotels where they had quartered themselves. The same evil spirit of hatred pursued them on their way. Especially at Vernon, the hotel at which they had stopped for refreshment was beset by a mob, with an evident determination to rout them and drive them from the village. But the resolute action of Captain Hand, the landlord, dispersed the rioters.
Arrived at Peterboro’, the Abolitionists were most cordially received, not only at the hospitable and spacious mansion of Gerrit Smith, but into the houses of most of his neighbors. And the next day was held in the Presbyterian Church the first meeting of the New York State Antislavery Society. At that meeting Mr. Smith brought forward the following resolution:—
“Resolved, That the right of FREE DISCUSSION given us by our God, and asserted and guarded by the laws of our country, is a right so vital to man’s freedom and dignity and usefulness that we can never be guilty of its surrender, without consenting to exchange that liberty for slavery and that dignity and usefulness for debasement and worthlessness.”
This resolution he supported and enforced by a speech of surpassing power,—a speech which deserves to be printed in letters of light large enough to be seen throughout our country.[G]
Ever since that eventful period of our history Gerrit Smith has been a most zealous fellow-laborer in the antislavery cause, and bountiful contributor of money in its behalf. He has made as many speeches in large meetings and small as any man who has not been a hired agent. He announced the doctrines of the immediate Abolitionists in the Congress of the United States and maintained them in several speeches of great ability. He has made frequent donations to some special, or to the general purposes of our Society of one, two, five, ten thousand dollars at a time. He has in every way befriended the colored people of our country, and at one time gave forty acres of land, in the State of New York, to each one of three thousand poor, temperate men of that class. I shall have an occasion in another place to speak more particularly of the acts of this almost unequalled giver.