MOBS
In his _Recollections_, the Rev. Samuel T. May, who was one of the
most faithful and zealous of the Anti-Slavery pioneers, and belonged
to that band of devoted workers who were known as Abolition lecturers,
tells of his experience in delivering an Anti-Slavery address in the
sober New England city of Haverhill.
"It was a Sabbath evening," he says. "I had spoken about fifteen
minutes when the most hideous outcries--yells and screeches--from
a crowd of men and boys, who had surrounded the house, startled
us, and then came heavy missiles against the doors and the blinds
of the windows. I persisted in speaking for a few minutes, hoping
the doors and blinds were strong enough to withstand the attack.
But presently a heavy stone broke through one of the blinds,
scattered a pane of glass, and fell upon the head of a lady
sitting near the center of the hall. She uttered a shriek and fell
bleeding on the floor."
There was a panic, of course, and the Abolition lecturer would have
been roughly handled by the mob if a young lady, a sister of the poet
Whittier, had not taken him by the arm, and walked with him through
the astonished crowd. They did not feel like attacking a woman.
There was nothing unusual, except the part performed by the young
lady, in the affair described in the foregoing narrative. Mobs were of
constant occurrence in the period of which we are speaking. It was not
in the slave States that they were most frequent. Northern communities
that were regarded as absolutely peaceable and perfectly moral thought
nothing of an anti-Abolitionist riot now and then. They occurred "away
up North" and "away down East." Even sleepy old Nantucket, in its
sedentary repose by the sea, woke up long enough to mob a couple of
Abolition lecturers, a man and a woman.
The community in which the writer resided when a boy, was fully up to
the pacific standard of most Northern neighborhoods. Yet it was the
scene of many turmoils growing out of Anti-Slavery meetings. The
district schoolhouse, which was the only public building in the
village that was open for such gatherings, called for frequent repairs
on account of damages done by mobs. Broken windows and doors were
often in evidence, and stains from mud-balls, decayed vegetables, and
antiquated eggs, which nobody took the trouble to remove, were nearly
always visible.
On one occasion, at an evening meeting, the lecturer was a young
professor, who was "down" from Oberlin College, against which, as "an
Abolition hole," there was a very strong prejudice. He had not got
more than well started, when rocks, bricks, and other missiles began
to crash through the windows. The mob was resolved to punish that
young man, and had come prepared to give him a coating of unsavory
mixture. He was a preacher as well as a teacher, and his "store
clothes" were likely to betray him; but some thoughtful person had
brought an old drab overcoat and a rough workman's cap, and arrayed in
these garments he walked through the crowd without his identity being
suspected.
But another party was not so fortunate. He was a respected citizen of
the village, an elder in the Presbyterian church, and a strong
pro-slavery man. He dressed in black and his appearance was not unlike
that of the lecturer. By some hard luck he happened to be passing that
way when the crowd was looking for the Abolitionist, and was
discovered. "There he goes," was the cry that was raised, and a fire
of eggs and other things was opened upon him. He reached his home in
an awful plight, and it was charged that his conversation was not
unmixed with profanity.
On another occasion the writer was present when the friends of the
lecturer undertook to convey him to a place of safety. They formed a
circle about him and moved away while the mob followed, hurling eggs
and clods and sticks and whatever else came handy. We kept quietly on
our way until we reached a place in the road that had been freshly
graveled, and where the surface was covered with stones just suited to
our use. Here we halted, and, with rocks in hand, formed a line of
battle. It took only one volley to put the enemy to rout, and we had
no further trouble.
At last, after several men had been prevented from speaking in our
village, the services of a female lecturer were secured. The question
then was, whether the mob would be so ungallant as to disturb a woman.
The matter was settled by the rowdies on that occasion being more than
usually demonstrative. The lecturer showed great courage and presence
of mind. She closed the meeting in due form, and then walked calmly
through the noisy throng that gave her no personal molestation or
insult. Deliberately she proceeded to a place of safety--and then went
into hysterics.
Finding that it was impossible to hold undisturbed public meetings,
the Abolitionists adopted a plan of operations that was altogether
successful. They met in their several homes, taking them in order, and
there the subject they were interested in was uninterruptedly
discussed. Intelligent opponents of their views were invited to
attend, and frequently did so. So warm were the discussions that arose
that the meetings sometimes lasted for entire days, and conversions
were not unusual.
It was in one of these neighborhood gatherings that the writer first
became an active Anti-Slavery worker. He had memorized one of Daniel
O'Connell's philippics against American slavery, and, being given the
opportunity, declaimed it with much earnestness. After that he was
invited to all the meetings, and had on hand a stock of selections for
delivery, his favorite being Whittier's _Slave Mother's Lament over
the Loss of Her Daughters_:
"Gone, gone--sold and gone
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
Where the slave whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings;
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews;
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air.
Gone, gone--sold and gone
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters--
Woe is me my stolen daughters!"
It was marvelous how little damage all the mobs effected. Lovejoy of
Illinois was killed--a great loss--and occasionally an Abolitionist
lecturer got a bloody nose or a sore shin. Professor Hudson, of
Oberlin College, used to say that the injury he most feared was to his
clothes. He carried with him what he called "a storm suit," which he
wore at evening meetings. It showed many marks of battle.
Among those who suffered real physical injury was Fred. Douglass, the
runaway slave. While in bondage he was often severely punished, but he
encountered rougher treatment in the North than in the South. He was
attacked by a mob while lecturing in the State of Indiana; was struck
to the earth and rendered senseless by blows on the head and body, and
for a time his life was supposed to be in danger. Although in the main
he recovered, his right hand was always crippled in consequence of
some of its bones having been broken.