This, briefly, seems to have been at the root of the great Know-nothing movement. The immediate and practical aim in view was that foreigners and Catholics should be excluded from all national, state, county, and municipal offices; that strenuous efforts should be made to change the naturalization laws, so that the immigrant could not become a citizen until a resident of twenty-one years in this country. My husband at once perceived the pernicious tendency of the movement, which was sweeping the Northern states with resistless force. Secret lodges were formed everywhere, secret ceremonies inaugurated—grip, passwords, and signs. The country was in a ferment of excitement, followed by outrageous lawlessness. Bands of women made raids on bar-rooms and smashed the glasses, broke the casks, and poured the liquor into the streets. Our one exemplar of similar enterprises should have lived in those days! Garrison burned the Constitution of the United States at an open-air meeting in Framingham, Massachusetts; and the crowd, in spite of a few hisses, shouted "Amen." A mob broke into the enclosure around the Washington Monument, and broke the beautiful block of marble from the Temple of Concord at Rome, which had been sent by the pope as a tribute to Washington. A street preacher, styling himself the Angel Gabriel, incited a crowd at Chelsea, Massachusetts, to deeds of violence. They smashed the windows of the Catholic church, tore the cross from the gable and shivered it to atoms. These were only a few of the outrages growing out of the excitement engendered by the Know-nothing party.
The Enquirer always claimed the credit of unearthing and exposing the signals, passwords, and ceremonies of the society. "I don't know" was one of the answers to the "grip" when brother met brother, and hence the popular name of the organization. Though Virginia had but few Catholics and few immigrants, yet, upon principle, she withstood and stayed the Know-nothing torrent that had hitherto swept over every other state.
Party feeling ran high during the election of a Virginia governor, and the junior editor of the Enquirer bore his part boldly and with vigor. For the first few years of his editorial life he devoted himself to study, confining himself closely to his office. A contemporary writer says of him: "Pryor evidently studied the highest standards in his reading, and his editorials were a revelation of strength and purity in classic English. It was impossible, however, for a man of his tastes and force not to drift into politics outside of the sanctum of his paper, and the public soon recognized him as one of the ablest and most eloquent speakers upon the hustings and in the bitter discussions that marked the proceedings of every gathering of the people in those years. In the mutterings and threatenings of the storm that was soon to break in fury upon a hitherto peaceful and peace-loving land, he found abundant opportunity for the cultivation and display of those rare powers of oratory in debate which subsequently forced him to the front of the forum."[3] I can only add to this tribute from a candid historian of the time one observation—the success was great: the memory of it sweet, but—it was bought with a price! The stern price of unremitting labor and self-abnegation.
It was a terrible time in Virginia. Henry A. Wise was the Anti-Know-nothing candidate for governor, and hard and valiant was the fight my husband made for his election. It involved him in two duels—not bloodless, but, thank God, not fatal. It is unnecessary to allude to my own fearful anxiety. It will be understood by all women who, like myself, have been and are sufferers from the false standard demanded by the "code of honor," in countries where, to ignore it, would mean ruin and disgrace. We were most devoted adherents of Mr. Wise, and ready to go to the death in his defence, standing as he did in the front, as we believed, of the battle for right, justice, and humanity. Finally, he was triumphantly elected, the pestilent society quenched, and comparative peace for a brief period reigned in Virginia.
The Democratic party was grateful for my husband's hard work, and gave him a beautiful service of silver, inscribed with the appreciation of the party for his "brilliant talents, eminent worth, and distinguished service."
Not long afterward he became the editor of The Richmond South, for which I had the honor to select a motto—"Unum et commune periclum una salus." Perhaps a pen picture of my "Harry Hotspur," as he was called, may amuse those whose kind eyes follow his venerable figure as it passes to-day. "The day after our arrival at the Red Sweet Springs we noticed among a crowd of gentlemen a face which strikingly contrasted with the faces around him. He was a slight figure, with a set of features remarkable for their intellectual cast; a profusion of dark hair falling from his brow in long, straight masses over the collar of his coat gave a student-like air to his whole appearance. We unconsciously rose to our feet on hearing his name, and found ourselves in the actual presence of the far-famed editor of the South and in such close vicinity, too! Why, our awe increased almost to trepidation; we felt as if locked in a vault full of inflammable gas, likely to explode with the first light introduced into it. Indeed, five minutes wore away in preliminary explanations before we could be brought to identify the youthful person before us—who might pass for a student of divinity or a young professor of moral philosophy—with the fiery and impetuous editor of the Richmond South. He is, we believe, considered one of the ablest political writers in all the South, and his articles were said to be highly influential in the late party controversy. For ourselves we regard with admiration," etc. "His young family cannot fail to create an immediate interest in the eyes of the most casual observer.... And then his beautiful, noble-looking children; they might serve as models for infant Apollos, such as Thorwaldsen or Flaxman might have prayed for."
They were lovely—my boys—my three little boys!
CHAPTER XVI
A bit of paper, yellow and crumbling from age, has recently been sent to me by the son of an old Charlottesville friend. The tiny scrap has survived the vicissitudes of fifty-one years, and because of the changes it has seen and the dangers it has passed, if for nothing more, it deserves preservation. It marks an important era in our life, although it contains only this:—
"Charlottesville, July 1, 1858.