The Gentlemen’s Mob (episode 260)

Transcript

Music

Jake:
[0:05] Welcome to hub history where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of boston, the hub of the universe.
This is episode 260 the gentleman’s mob.
Hi, I’m jake.
This week. I’m talking about a riot in 19th century Boston,
that won’t come as a huge surprise to our long time listeners as we’ve discussed everything from anti draft riots, to anti catholic riots, to anti immigrant riots that took place in the city in the 19th century.
The incident on Washington Street on October 21, 1835 was different.
However, where most of boston’s 19th century riots erupted from street violence,
among and directed by the working classes, the mob’s attack on the female anti slavery society and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was led by a group characterized as gentlemen of property and influence.

[1:05] Enraged by the audacity of radical calls for immediate abolition.
This mob of respectable gentleman broke down the doors, scattered members of the female anti slavery society nearly lynched William Lloyd Garrison,
and inspired abolitionist leader, Maria chapman to exclaim, If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere.
But before we talk about this gentleman’s mob, I just want to pause and thank everyone who supports hub history on patreon.
Last week I made a vague reference to a lawsuit that I’m embroiled in thanks to the podcast and a lot of listeners responded to that.

[1:44] It looks like it’s headed for a settlement probably with some sort of confidentiality clause attached, but I’ll share as much information with you as I can when the settlement is final.
I can say that it definitely is into the tens of thousands of dollars, but it’s also not as bad as the worst case scenario in the meantime, until I can share more.
I’d like to say a big thank you to new Patreon sponsors rob K.
Michael E. And Guy are kurt, a longtime supporter on Patreon also increased his monthly support. So thank you to kurt.
Their ongoing support will help me get through this lawsuit as well as hopefully continuing to provide financial stability in the future.

[2:29] Sydney and Wayne contributed to the Legal Defense Fund with one time payments on paypal.
Wayne has his own very interesting history project called the 11 names project where he spent the last several years researching the lives of people who are enslaved on the south shore and in the Boston area.
Check it out at 11 dash names dot com.
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[3:19] Now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[3:23] Today, visitors to boston are met with stories of the city’s role in the movement to abolish slavery.
The black heritage trail takes them past stops on the underground railroad and the homes of black and white activists.
While the soldiers and sailors monument on the common and the Monument to the 54th massachusetts Volunteers across from the Statehouse, attest to the bloody price the black and white soldiers paid in the war that ended America’s peculiar institution,
boston remembers itself as an abolitionist city.
Yet in the decades leading up to the civil war, that was not always the case.
Even after slavery was phased out in massachusetts, the economy of our city and state were tied closely to the success of slave economies.
In the south, merchants and sea captains made their fortunes in the triangle trade,
and later the great textile mills that power, the 19th century booms in Low Lawrence Fall River and beyond relied on enslaved labor to produce the cheap cotton that they processed into marketable goods.

[4:25] In the earliest decades of the 19th century, Black Bostonians advocated for abolition, but they were usually ignored by the city’s white majority.
When arguments for abolition from black voices were distributed widely enough to reach white audiences, they were treated as dangerously radical,
most notably David walker and his appeal to the colored citizens of the world, which we discussed back in episode 1 17.

[4:52] When he started publishing the radical abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, in January 1831, William Lloyd Garrison had trouble reaching white audiences.
In an essay published in his book boston Miscellany historian William P Marchionne notes its financial condition during the first several years of its existence was precarious in the extreme,
It is significant that of the 1st 500 subscribers, only 5% were from Boston, and most of these were residents of the city’s small black community situated on the northern slope of Beacon Hill.
Free blacks comprise the bulk of Liberator subscribers. In the years that followed.

[5:32] After nat Turner led an uprising among the enslaved population of Virginia that year, many southerners blamed both walker and Garrison for inspiring them.
David Walker ended up with a price on his head, as we discussed back in episode 1 17.
But Marchionne describes how easy it was to totally dismiss garrison as inconsequential Bostonians were quick to offer reassurances to their southern brethren that the Liberator did not speak for boston.
A letter from South Carolinian Benjamin F. Hunt, asking for the suppression of the paper listed a quick response from boston, Mayor Harrison Gray Otis, who pointed out that the Liberator and its editor enjoyed,
insignificant countenance and support in boston,
and while contending that boston hoped to see slavery eventually eliminated, as did the best citizens in the south.
What is asserted that there has been displayed among us less disposition to interfere in the actual relations of master and slave in our sister states that has been manifested in other places.

[6:40] As Garrison’s readership and influence slowly grew over the next few years. So did local opposition to his views.
By 1835, the Liberator publisher was known as one of the most prominent leaders of the Northern White Abolition Movement, which was still small but had ardent followers.
In an essay about the Garrison IAN mobs, Civil war scholar Patrick Brown describes the increasingly violent rhetoric of the anti abolitionists that preceded the riot.
Over the past months, Bostonians have been growing increasingly furious with the abolitionists in their midst.
In august a massive meeting had been held in Faneuil Hall, organized and attended by boston’s elite businessmen and politicians to denounce the abolitionists and the notion of immediate emancipation.
Their resolutions would have pleased any southern plantation owner.
Over the ensuing weeks, newspaper editors printed shrill editorials denouncing Garrison the Liberator and all of his followers quote, these dangerous men must be met.
They agitate a question that must not be tampered with.
They are plotting the destruction of our government.

[7:54] In October 1835. It was not a group of dangerous men who the anti abolitionists thought must be met.
It was the boston female anti slavery society who are planning to meet at Stacy Hall, a small meeting room adjacent to the Liberator offices at 46 Washington street, about where the boston news cafe on City Hall Plaza is today.
This was a multiracial coalition of women who raised money, published periodicals and signed petitions in circular letters to advance, the relatively new cause of abolition, according to the group’s constitution.
Written that same year, they believed slavery to be a direct violation of the law of God,
and of a vast amount of misery and crime, and convinced that its abolition can only be affected by an acknowledgment of the justice and necessity of immediate emancipation.
We hereby agree to form ourselves into a society to aid and assist in this righteous cause as far as lies within our power.

[8:56] That summer, there have been riots in cities across the north that disrupted abolitionist meetings, and there was reason to fear that the female anti slavery society could be next.
The society had invited a particularly divisive speaker to their October 21 meeting.
George Thompson was a british abolitionist who seemed to inflame opponents in both north and South.
According to Brown, a widely held conspiracy theory argued that Thompson and other foreigners aimed to inflame the South with anti slavery speeches and pamphlets and thus bring about the downfall of the Union.

[9:32] This view is reflected in an editorial that ran in Virginia’s Richmond Enquirer before Thompson’s expected appearance in boston.
Why above all, does not massachusetts with whom Virginia sympathize so keenly in the days of the boston ports. Bill drive that audacious foreigner from her bosom who is so grossly abusing the rights of hospitality to throw our country into confusion.
It is outrageous enough for tapping and for Garrison to be throwing firebrands into the south, but for that impertinent intruder Thompson to mingle in our institutions.
For that foreigner who has nothing american about him and name interest or principal.
The outrage exceeds all bounds of patience.

[10:15] Michael s Hindus in the journal issues and criminology draws a line from street violence in the run up to the revolution, like the stamp act, riots in the boston massacre through xenophobic violence like the Broad street riot, and the destruction of Charles Townes.
Ursuline convent directly to the violence that was expected to greet Thompson upon his arrival in boston.

[10:37] The abolitionists willingness to sanction disunion as the price of emancipation and their disdain for the constitution, the symbol of the american nationality as a compact with slavery, emphasized their estrangement.
In addition, their connection with british abolitionists seemed to confirm fears that abolitionists were conspiring with a foreign power in order to weaken America by disunion and to be able therefore to return it to foreign rule.
It is no coincidence that anti abolitionist rioters saw themselves as inheriting the mantle of the members of the boston Tea Party,
boston’s most famous anti abolitionist episode, The garrison mob of october 21st 18 35 was triggered in part by anti alien sentiment since the meeting, broken up by the rioters, was to be addressed by british abolitionist George Thompson.
On the morning of the riot. A handbill appeared denouncing that infamous foreign scoundrel, declaring that afternoon fair opportunity to snake Thompson out.

[11:40] Hindus aside, that handbill announced in full Thompson, the abolitionist, that infamous foreign scoundrel, Thompson will hold forth this afternoon at the Liberator office number 48 Washington street.
The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of the unions. A snake Thompson out.
It will be a contest between the abolitionists and the Friends of the Union.
A purse of $100 has been raised by a number of patriotic citizens to reward the individual who shall first lay violent hands upon Thompson, so that he may be brought to the tar kettle before dark.
Friends of the Union be vigilant Boston, Wednesday 12:00.

[12:25] In his biography of his famous father, Francis Jackson. Garrison quotes James L Homer, the editor of the boston commercial gazette on the sudden appearance and wide distribution of the handbill that put a price on Thompson’s head.

[12:39] The handbill was short was soon put into type, and by one o’clock the copies had all been distributed in the insurance offices, the reading rooms, all along State Street, in the hotel’s bar rooms etcetera,
and about one third of the whole lot was scattered among the mechanics at the North End, who are mightily taken with it, as the mob subsequently gave abundant proof,
Tom Willington and several of the younger apprentices distributed the handbills the effect they produced.
You may remember by three or four o’clock in the afternoon, both sides of State Street near the old State House Washington street from Joy’s building to Court Street,
the bottom of the ladder street up to the courthouse etcetera were densely packed with an excited mob, who were determined that the meeting should not be held.
They were present from 6 to 10,000 men, including many gentlemen of property and influence.

[13:34] In reality, however, Thompson was not planning to appear at the meeting that night. In fact, he wasn’t even in boston.
Having seen the violent reaction to his planned address, Garrison warned Thompson to stay away.
Instead. William Lloyd Garrison volunteered to speak in his place.
This however, was not enough to restore peace and quiet to boston.
On the day of the female anti slavery society meeting as Francis Jackson Garrisons biography notes on parting from his brother in law mr.
Garrison proceeded to the anti slavery office and in the course of the four noon was visited by a deputy marshal from the mayor’s office to inquire whether Mr Thompson was to address the meeting or was in town.
Mayor Lyman had the day before been petitioned by the occupants of stores in the neighborhood of 46 Washington Street to prevent the meeting for fear of damage in case of a disturbance,
the air was full of gathering violence, which the mayor hoped to be able to draw off harmless by the simple announcement to the mob that Thompson was beyond their reach,
or if such was not the fact he wished to be prepared against an outbreak.
Mr Garrison at first resenting the inquiry, Finally assured the deputy that Mr Thompson was absent and the mayor took therefore no other precaution than to have a small number of police officers assembled for the afternoon.

[15:00] At about the same time, Garrison received an anonymous note attributed to 30 truck men that let him know that Thompson’s absence did not leave him completely in the clear.

[15:11] You are hereby notified to remove your office and not to issue the paper anymore.
If it is issued again. Beware of yourself, you will have a coat of tar and feathers and you will do well if you get your life saved.
We shall have no mercy on you. After this notification beware.

[15:30] Despite the threats and the dark mood that seemed to hang over, Boston.
Garrison kept his promise to address the women’s meeting on October 21,
and the collection of the Mass historical Society is a diary kept by Bradley Newcomb cummings, A clerk in a dry goods store not far from Stacy Hall in the Liberator offices,
in it, he describes what he witnessed when a crowd of thousands of people, many of whom had no doubt read the handbill and were outraged by the alleged presence of George Thompson packed into Washington street.

[16:04] Our city was such a scene of tumult and confusion this afternoon, as has not been witnessed before for many a year,
the female anti slavery society announced a meeting for this afternoon and two or 3000 persons assembled in front of 46 Washington Street expecting George Thompson would be present.
The mayor assured the populous he was out of the city, and they cried for Garrison.
The sign anti slavery society was taken down and torn into 1000 pieces.

[16:36] In his biography, Francis Jackson Garrison quotes his father’s description of what it was like to climb the stairs to the third floor office of the Liberator as it was surrounded by the mob.

[16:48] On ascending into the hall, I found about 15 or 20 ladies assembled, sitting with cheerful countenances and a crowd of noisy intruders, mostly young men, gazing upon them, through whom I urged my way with considerable difficulty.
That’s Garrison, was the exclamation of some of these creatures as I quietly took my seed for the crowd that had been expecting George, Thompson.
Garrison’s presence was a surprise.
However many of them would have considered Garrison an even more radical figure than Thompson.
And of course, on mike Thompson, he was right there among them.
So Thompson’s absence didn’t have the calming effect that one might have hoped for.
Garrison’s account continues perceiving that they had no intention of retiring. I went to them, and calmly said, gentlemen, perhaps you’re not aware that this is a meeting of the boston.
Female anti slavery society called, and intended exclusively for ladies, and those only who have been invited to address them.
Understanding this fact, you will not be so rude or indecorous as to thrust your presence upon this meeting.

[17:59] If, gentlemen, I pleasantly continued any of you are ladies in disguise, why only apprise me of the fact.
Give me your names and I will introduce you to the rest of your sex, and you can take your seats among them accordingly.

[18:14] I then sat down, and for a few moments. Their conduct was more orderly.

[18:19] However, the stairway and upper door of the hall were soon densely filled with a brazen faced crew, whose behavior grew more and more indecent and outrageous at the time.
Men intruding into an explicitly female space uninvited, would have been seen,
as a shameful breach of decorum, so the fact that the men Garrison accosted were either in the meeting room or perhaps on the landing right outside where they could see into the meeting room was already a sign that they were willing to transgress social norms.
The transgressions would only get worse as the evening went on.
As Maria Western Chapman described in 1836, the two mote continually increased with horrible ex occassions, howling, stamping and finally shrieking with rage.
They seem not to dare to enter, notwithstanding their fury, but mounted on each other’s shoulders, so that a row of hostile heads appeared over the slate partition of half the height of the wall, which divides the society’s rooms from the landing place.
We requested them to allow the door to be shut, but they could not decide as to whether the request should be granted, and the door was opened and shut with violence until it hung useless from the upper hinge Francis.
Jackson Garrisons biography notes that the elder Garrison left the women’s meeting and went to the adjoining offices of the Liberator in an attempt to draw the wrath of the mob away.

[19:44] As the meeting of the female anti slavery society started with a reading from scripture, the crowd on the landing outside the door nearly drowned them out.

[19:54] Meanwhile the elder Garrison noted an assault was now made upon the door of the office, the lower panel of which was instantly dashed to pieces,
stooping down and glaring at me as I sat at the desk, writing an account of the riot to a distant friend.
The ruffians cried out.
There he is! That’s Garrison out, with the scoundrel turning to mr Burleigh.
By which he means Connecticut abolitionist leader Charles Burleigh, I said, You may as well open the door and let them come in and do their worst.
But he, with great presence of mind, went out, locked the door, put the key in his pocket, and by his admirable firmness, succeeded in keeping the office safe.

[20:42] In her own account of the evening Maria chapman remembers the moment when boston! Mayor Theodore Lyman intervened just as it seemed like the mob was about to burst into the room.
The slight partition began to yield. The mob hurled missiles at the lady presiding.
The secretary, Miss Ball Rosen began to read a report utterly and audible from the confusion.
At this moment the mayor Mr Lyman entered.

[21:09] According to chapman’s account, Mayor Lyman said, Go home. Ladies, go home, asked why they had to leave, the Mayor continued.
Ladies, do you wish to see a scene of bloodshed and confusion? If you do not go home, chapman then chastised him, Mr Lyman, Your personal friends are the instigators of this mob.
Have you ever used your personal influence with them?
To which she claimed, the Mayor replied, I know no personal friends, I’m merely an official.
Indeed, ladies, you must retire. It is dangerous to remain, and that’s the point at which chapman made her now famous retort.
If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere.
The Mayor then asked, do you wish to prolong the scene of confusion?
If you will go now, I will protect you, but cannot, unless you do.
The group then voted to adjourn and chapman’s account recalls we passed down the staircase amid the manifestations of a revengeful brutality.

[22:19] This left William Lloyd Garrison alone in the adjoining office of the Liberator as the only remaining object to the mob’s wrath quoting his father Francis. Jackson Garrison noted Thompson was not there.
The ladies were not there. But Garrison is, there was the Cry Garrison Garrison.
We must have Garrison out with him, lynch him.
These are numberless. Other exclamations arose from the multitude for a moment their attention was diverted to me to the anti slavery sign, which other accounts records said anti slavery rooms,
and they vociferously demanded its possession.
It is painful to state that the mayor promptly complied with their demand.
So agitated and alarmed had he become that in very weakness of spirit, he ordered the sign to be hurled to the ground, and it was instantly broken into 1000 fragments by the infuriated populace.

[23:22] For years afterward, William Lloyd Garrison’s writings about that evening’s unrest are almost obsessive about the destruction of the sign that had hung outside the offices on Washington Street.
In his mind. The Mayor’s failure to defend the sign is a symbol of free speech and assembly meant a lack of commitment to those principles.
He doesn’t seem to have considered the possibility that Mayor Lyman might have hoped that the crowd convinced some of their fury on a piece of wood, and perhaps spare Garrison’s life.

[23:53] Unfortunately smashing a sign could only distract a mob of thousands for so long, and they soon turned their attentions to Garrison again, Charles burley’s account of the riot includes a description of Garrison’s apparent escape.
Now, for this to make sense. Picture Washington Street in downtown crossing,
today, Washington Street ends at State Street adjacent to the old State House, but prior to urban renewal, it continued into what’s now City Hall Plaza.
The offices of the Liberator were in a building in the first block of today’s City Hall Plaza, backing up on an alley that ran roughly where Congress Street does today.
Now, with that in mind, Barley describes how Garrison managed to disappear into that alley,
some of his friends united with the mayor and officers, and endeavoring to find a way of escape from the building in which they at length succeeded.
He complied with their request and retreated from the window in the rear of the building ie looking upon Wilson’s Lane, after which one of the Sheriffs announced to the populace that he had made diligent search for William Lloyd Garrison, but he could not be found.

[25:08] The dense crowd now began rapidly to grow thinner, and soon the street was almost wholly cleared.
This I at first supposed, was caused by the people’s returning to their homes, but it was not long before I discovered my mistake.
They were in chase of Garrison, having been informed by some spy, or look a route that he had escaped from a back window.

[25:32] The diary of dry goods clerk Bradley Newcomb cummings, describes the mob’s brief search for the abolitionist.
Some persons who unfortunately resembled Garrison, were roughly handled,
Garrison escape by a back window into a carpenter shop in Wilson’s Lane,
where for some time he lay concealed under a heap of shavings until one of the apprentices gave the information where he was when he was taken by the crowd into State Street with the valid purpose of applying a coat of tar and feathers.

[26:05] The mob had been whipped into a violent frenzy, but it’s not clear from the sources exactly what they had in mind for William, Lloyd Garrison, Were they going to tar and feather him lynch um or simply beat him to death and tear him limb from limb?
It was probably no more clear to the rioters in that moment than it is to us, but in any case their intentions were not good.
The younger Garrison’s biography quotes his father’s description at the moment, the mob discovered him hiding in the corner of the shop,
on seeing me, three or four of the rioters, uttering a yell, furiously, drag me to the window with the intention of hurling me from that height to the ground.
But one of them relented and said, don’t let’s kill him outright.
So they drew me back and coiled a rope around my body, probably to drag me through the streets.
I bowed to the mob and requesting them to wait patiently until I could descend, went down upon a ladder that was raised for that purpose.
I fortunately extricated myself from the rope and was seized by two or three powerful men to whose firmness policy and muscular energy. I’m probably indebted for my preservation and a footnote Francis.
In a footnote Francis, Jackson Garrison adds a detail identifying at least two of these powerful men who helped save his father’s life.

[27:30] One of the last letters ever received by Mr Garrison, bearing the date March 26, and signed by H. B. Thompson, Presumably a lady contained these reminiscences of the mob.

[27:45] I was at the house of Mr Nathaniel venal in Portland’s Street.
Mr vinyl was a grain merchant, doing business on finals war from the North End.
He had a son, Spencer van, all a young man, perhaps 25 years old.
He knowing, I suppose what was to be done, kept about looking on, but had no sympathy with you or your work.
He came home to his father’s house in the evening to supper, wearing your coat, from a pocket of which he took a handful of papers and letters, saying I have got the whole abolition correspondence, I guess, and then told us as follows.
Garrison went into a carpenter shop in Wilson’s Lane. They followed him, dragged him from under the bench and put a rope around his neck and brought him to the window to hang him out.
I thought it was good sport up to this time when I saw him standing there so pale, I thought it was going too far, and said to Aaron Cooley,
let’s go to the rescue, and with some more who helped us, we got him clear and ran him into the City Hall,
in 18 35.
City Hall was neither the brutalist monstrosity we know today, nor the Old City Hall that stands right behind King’s Chapel on School Street,
at the time boston was still governed from the old State House, which was nearly next door to the Liberator offices, and probably within sight of the Carpenter’s shop on Wilson Lane, where Garrison was captured.

[29:13] In his brief diary entry.
Clerk Bradley Newcomb cummings rights.
The Mayor, assisted by a number of his friends, came to his rescue, and as he was opposite the south door of the City Hall the mayor made a rush, and was fortunate enough to get him into City hall from one of the windows.
He desired the multitude to disperse, and soon after Garrison was conducted to jail for safekeeping.

[29:40] Mayor Lyman himself later wrote to the rescue that this was only affected by the use of great physical strength.
The mob made no attempt to come in at the south door, but great numbers ran round and entered at the north, so as to fill the lower hall.
Garrison was however carried upstairs. I took my station at the foot of the staircase leading to the Mayor in Alderman’s room, at the east end of the building.
The crowd was extreme for a minute. I spoke to the people, and said in substance that the law must be maintained the order of the city preserved, and that I would lay down my life on that spot to affect these objects.
These remarks were well received. The crowd continued in tents on the street in the south side of the hall.
I therefore went to the window over the south door and got out on the ledge or Cap over that door where I was able to stand.
Though the position was anything but safe, I hear again spoke to the people very much is in the hall.
These remarks were also well received.

[30:45] The mayor may have felt that his remarks were well received, but they weren’t enough to disperse the crowd, nor were they enough to ensure Garrison’s safety.
Mayor Lyman decided that the only municipal edifice that could withstand the onslaught of the gentleman’s mob was the Leverett Street jail.
The boston gazette later reported that Garrison was jailed Justin season to save him from a fate the well deserved, and which no one can contemplate without a shutter.
In other words, he was locked up to prevent him from being lynched.
The Garrison would find out the next day that he’d been charged with disturbing the peace as a pretext for the arrest.

[31:27] Under the circumstances, Jalen Garrison was easier said than done.
While the mayor’s address had at least temporarily prevented the mob from storming City Hall, they were still swarming around outside the building.
Mayor Lyman had city marshals and volunteer guards form up in double lines outside the south door of the building, making a safe passageway to a carriage. Outside.

[31:53] At the same time, a second carriage pulled up to the north door of the building, and it was into the second carriage that Garrison was hustled while the ruse on the other side of City Hall worked just long enough to get them into the carriage.
The mob quickly realized the deceit began trying to overturn the carriage that Garrison was in.
However, the carriage driver applied his whip liberally to the men surrounding the carriage and the horses were soon able to break free,
Upon arriving at the Leverett Street Jail, which was demolished in the 1850s, but stood not too far from today’s Nashua Street jail Frances.
Jackson Garrison’s biography quotes his father’s recollections.
In a few moments I was locked up in a cell safe from my persecutors, accompanied by two delightful associates, a good conscience, and a cheerful mind.
In the course of the evening several of my friends came to my grated window to sympathize and rejoice with me, with whom I held a pleasant conversation until the hour of retirement, when I threw myself upon my prison bed and slept tranquilly during the night.
In the morning I woke quite refreshed, and after eating an excellent breakfast, furnished by the kindness of my keeper, I inscribed upon the walls of my cell the following items.

[33:13] William, Lloyd. Garrison was put into this cell on Wednesday afternoon october 21st 18 35,
to save him from the violence of a respectable and influential mob, who sought to destroy him for preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine that all men are created equal, and that all oppression is odious in the sight of God.

[33:36] At his arraignment. The next morning, Garrison heard the complaint that Sheriff Daniel Parkman swore out against him the night before,
Daniel Parkman of said boston esquire complains, and gives the said Justice to understand and be informed that William Lloyd, Garrison of boston, and said county printer,
together with diverse other persons, to the number of 30 or more to your complainant?
Unknown on the 21st of october instant.
At boston, four, said in the County of Four, said, did as your complainant barely believes, and has no doubt unlawfully riotously and routed.
Slee assemble, and then and there did disturb and break the peace of the commonwealth, and a riot did cause and make to the terror of the good people of the commonwealth, and against the peace and dignity of the same.
Therefore your complainant prays that the said William Lloyd Garrison may be apprehended and dealt with as to law and justice shall pertain.

[34:34] Though it sounds odd or modern ears, that the target of a lynch mob would be charged with disturbing the peace inciting a riot.
The charges were aligned with the public opinion of the day.
People truly believe that by publicly expressing the unpopular opinion that slavery is wrong and should be immediately ended.
Garrison himself was responsible for the violence that followed.

[34:58] The biography of William Lloyd Garrison by his son contains a roundup of the boston newspapers the day after the riot.
The respectable press of boston had but one voice on thursday concerning the occurrences of the previous day.
The atlas charged the abolitionists with the disturbance. While coyly repelling the imputation of having itself been mainly instrumental in getting it up an atlas mob.
The Mercantile Journal, called for the prevention of anti slavery meetings by the strong arm of the law,
seeing that they were but the signal for the assemblage of a mob, and would have garrison and Thompson arrested as disturber of the peace and manufacturers of brawls and riots,
and made to give security in a large amount for their future good behavior.
The transcript congratulated the city on the absence from the mob, of what is called the rabble, the vicious dregs of society, who in other populous cities give terrific features, too popular and excited assemblages.

[36:03] The courier thought of the most shamefully good mob.
The Daily Advertiser regarded the assemblage not so much as a riot, as the prevention of a riot.
We consider the whole transaction of a triumph of the law over lawless violence and the love of order, over an attempt to produce riot and confusion.

[36:26] As these congratulatory reports spreading the pro slavery press the day after the riot Garrison started to receive what became a deluge of congratulatory and sympathetic letters.
First among them was a note from George Thompson.
What could he possibly say to the man who was almost lynched in his place?
The news has reached me of yesterday’s proceedings in boston.
I rejoice that you have escaped the jaws of the Lion and are yet among the living.
The living who praise God to him. Let us render our humble acknowledgements.
I sympathize with you and every sufferer in our holy cause, and could almost envy you the honor of having been assaulted by a bloodthirsty multitude.
After all? What have our enemies done? What have their tar and feathers?
There, lacerations, scourging and hangings affected?
Have they extinguished the truth? No. Have they shaken our principles? No.
Have they proven wrong to be right, falsehood. Truth, cruelty, kindness, or slavery, liberty.
No, let them make mob law paramount to all other law. And those respectable instigators will at no distant day be destroyed by the recoil of their own weapons.

[37:47] Among those congratulatory and sympathetic letters, there are many from everyday citizens who have never heard of and a handful from luminaries like Angelina Greinke,
the native south Carolinian from a family of enslave Urz, who grew up to be one of the most radical abolitionists of her era, who wrote,
the ground upon which you stand is holy ground, never, never surrender it.
If you surrender it, the hope of the slave is extinguished and the chains of his servitude will be strengthened a hundredfold, but let no man take your crown.
And success is as certain as the Rising of tomorrow’s Sun, there are no laws by which reformers can be punished.
Consequently, a lawless band of unprincipled men determined to take matters into their own hands and act out in mobs.
What they know are the principles of a large majority of those who are too high in church and state to condescend to mingle with them, though they secretly approve and rejoice over their violent measures.

[38:50] I wish I could say that the spectacle of a lynch mob in the streets of boston was enough to win hearts and minds for the abolitionist cause, that seeing the mayor order.
Not the violent mob, but the peaceful women’s group to disperse and arresting not the ringleaders of the mob, but their victim would have stirred the consciences of white Bostonians.

[39:12] I wish I could say that, but I can’t not really Sure.
Over the course of the ensuing decades, enough minds were changed. There was notable resistance, the fugitive slave act in 1850 and to provide the first troops to the federal side when southerners fired on the garrison at Fort Sumter.
But the sort of radical abolitionism, the people like William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Greinke and David walker espoused remained a slim minority until the eve of war with unionists and gradual ists making up the local majority,
The opinions of the gentleman of property and influence who nearly lynched William Lloyd Garrison in 1835 remained prominent enough that another famous abolitionist had a similar run in 26 years later,
On December 3, 1860, about a month after Lincoln’s election and with the Southern States Openly discussing secession, Frederick, Douglass was scheduled to speak at the famous Tremont Temple.
The occasion was the first anniversary of john Brown’s execution in Virginia for attempting to spark a widespread uprising among the states enslaved population.
Before Douglas could start his remarks, a mob broke down the doors and rushed the stage and in the chaos that followed constables once again cleared the abolitionists from the room.

[40:36] A few days later, Douglas delivered a plea for freedom of speech in boston at the boston music hall, where the Orpheum stands today, just two very short blocks down Tremont from the Tremont Temple.
In part, he said, the world knows that last monday a meeting assembled to discuss the question how shall slavery be abolished?

[41:00] The world also knows that that meeting was invaded, insulted, captured by a mob of gentlemen and thereafter broken up and dispersed by the order of the mayor, who refused to protect it. Though called upon to do so.
This has been a mere outbreak of passion and prejudice among the base er sort, maddened by rum and hounded on by some wily politician to serve some immediate purpose, A mere exceptional affair.
It might be allowed to rest with what has already been said, but the leaders of the mob were gentlemen, they were men who pride themselves upon their respect for law and order.
These gentlemen brought their respect for the law with them and proclaimed it loudly, while in the very act of breaking the law, theirs was the law of slavery.
The law of free speech and the law for the protection of public meetings, they trampled underfoot while they greatly magnified the law of slavery, no right was deemed by the fathers of the government more sacred than the right of speech.
It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men.
The great moral renovator of society and government, Slavery cannot tolerate free speech.
Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the south.

[42:22] They will have none of it there, for they have the power. But shall it be so here?

[42:31] To learn more about the mob of gentlemen of property and influence.
Check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 260.
I’ll have links to the letters from George, Thompson and Angelina Greinke as well as the diary injury from Bradley Newcomb cummings about the riot.
I’ll link to an online copy of Francis Jackson, Garrison’s biography of his father, as well as digital copies of several editions of the Liberator discussing the gentleman’s riot.
I’ll also include links to the modern journal articles and blog posts that I quoted from this week.
Plus for your amusement, I’ll include a hand drawn cartoon showing the well dressed mob tearing down Garrison’s precious sign that was created by an anonymous artist and resides in the collection of the boston public library.
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Music

Jake:
[43:56] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there listeners.