Читать книгу Society in America - Harriet Martineau - Страница 18

Table of Contents

It is notorious that there is a remarkable failure in this department of political morals among certain parties in the United States. The mobbing events of the last few years are celebrated; the abolition riots in New York and Boston; the burning of the Charleston Convent; the bank riots at Baltimore; the burning of the mails at Charleston; the hangings by Lynch-law at Vickesburgh; the burning alive of a man of colour at St. Louis; the subsequent proceedings there towards the students of Marion College; and the abolition riots at Cincinnati. Here is a fearful list!

The first question that arises is, who has done these things? Whose hands have lighted green fagots round a living man? and strung up a dozen or twenty citizens on the same gallows? and fired and razed houses; and sent a company of trembling nuns flying for their lives at midnight? Here is evidence enough of ignorance—of desperate, brutal ignorance. Whose ignorance?

In Europe, the instantaneous and natural persuasion of men who hear the tidings is, that the lowest classes in America have risen against the higher. In Europe, desperate, brutal ignorance is the deepest curse in the cursed life of the pauper and the serf. In Europe, mobbing is usually the outbreak of exasperated misery against laws which oppress, and an aristocracy which insults humanity. Europeans, therefore, naturally assume that the gentry of the United States are the sinned against, and the poor the sinners, in their social disturbances. They draw conclusions against popular government, and suppose it proved that universal suffrage dissolves society into chaos. They picture to themselves a rabble of ragged, desperate workmen, with torches in their hands; while the gentry look on in dismay, or tremble within their houses.

It is not so. I was informed, twenty times over, by gentlemen, that the Boston mob of last year was wholly composed of gentlemen. The only working man in it was the truck-man who saved the victim. They were the gentlemen of St. Louis who burned the black man, and banished the students of Marion College. They were the gentlemen of Cincinnati who denounced the abolitionists, and raised the persecution against them. They were the magistrates and gentry of Vickesburgh who hanged way-farers, gamblers, and slaves in a long row. They were the gentlemen of Charleston who broke open the Post Office, and violated its sacred function, to the insult and injury of the whole country.

The case is plain. There are no paupers to rise against oppressive laws in a country, where the laws are made by all, and where pauperism is thereby excluded. There is no degraded class, subject to insults from the highest, which can be resented only by outrage. The assumption is a false one, that ignorance and poverty, knowledge and wealth, go together. Mobbing for European causes, and in European modes, is absolutely precluded where political rights are universal, and political power equally diffused through all classes.

The very few European causes which are in analogy with United States mobbing, are those riots for opinion, which bear only a subordinate relation to politics; such as the Birmingham riots, and the attempt of the Liverpool merchants to push Clarkson into the dock. The cases are very similar. The mobs of America are composed of high churchmen, (of whatever denomination,) merchants and planters, and lawyers.

One complete narrative of a riot, for the fidelity of which I can vouch, will expose the truth of the case better than a list of deeds of horror which happened beyond my sight. It is least revolting, too, to treat of a case whose terror lies in its existence, more than in its consequences. The actors in the riot, which it was my fortune to understand, were scarcely less guilty than if they had bathed their hands in blood; but it is easier to examine, undisturbed by passion, the case of those whose hands are, to the outward eye, clean.

A very few years ago, certain citizens in New England began to discover that the planters of the south were making white slaves in the north, nearly as successfully as they were propagating black slavery in the territories of the south and west. Charleston and Boston were affectionate friends in old times, and are so still, notwithstanding the hard words that passed between them in nullification days: that is, the merchants and professional men of Boston are fond of Charleston, on account of their commercial relations. This attachment has been carried to such an extreme as to be almost fatal to the liberties of some of the best citizens of the northern city. They found their brothers dismissed from their pastoral charges, their sons expelled from colleges, their friends excluded from professorships, and themselves debarred from literary and social privileges, if they happened to entertain and express opinions unfavourable to the peculiar domestic institution by which Charleston declares it to be her intention to abide. Such is the plea of those citizens of Boston who have formed associations for the purpose of opposing, by moral influence, an institution which they feel to be inconsistent with the first principles of morals and politics. For a considerable time before my visit to that part of the country, they had encountered petty persecutions of almost every conceivable kind. There is no law in Massachusetts by which the free expression of opinion on moral subjects is punishable. I heard many regret the absence of such law. Everything was done that could be done to make up for its absence. Books on any subject, written by persons who avow by association their bad opinion of slavery, are not purchased: clergymen are no longer invited to preach: the proprietors of public rooms will not let them to members of such associations; and the churches are shut against them. Their notices of public meetings are torn in the pulpits, while all notices of other public meetings are read. The newspapers pour contempt and wrath upon them in one continued stream. Bad practices are imputed to them, and their denial is drowned in clamour. As a single instance of this last; I was told so universally in the south and west that the abolitionists of Boston and New York were in the habit of sending incendiary tracts among the slaves, that it never occurred to me to doubt the fact; though I was struck with surprise at never being able to find any one who had seen any one who had actually seen one of these tracts. Nor did it occur to me that as slaves cannot read, verbal messages would be more to the purpose of all parties, as being more effectual and more prudent. Mr. Madison made the charge, so did Mr. Clay, so did Mr. Calhoun, so did every slave-holder and merchant with whom I conversed. I chose afterwards to hear the other side of the whole question; and I found, to my amazement, that this charge was wholly groundless. No Abolition Society of New York or Massachusetts has ever sent any anti-slavery paper south of Washington, except the circulars, addressed to public officers in the States, which were burnt at Charleston. The abolitionists of Boston have been denying this charge ever since it was first made, and offering evidence of its groundlessness; yet the calumny is persisted in, and, no doubt, honestly believed, to this hour, throughout the south, whither the voice of the condemned, stifled by their fellow-citizens, cannot reach.

Only mortal things, however, can be really suffocated; and there has never yet been an instance of a murder of opinion. There seemed, in 1835, so much danger of the abolitionists making themselves heard, that an emphatic contradiction was got up, it was hoped in good time.

The abolitionists had been, they believe illegally, denied by the city authority the use of Faneuil Hall; (called, in memory of revolutionary days, the "Cradle of Liberty.") Certain merchants and lawyers of Boston held a meeting there, in August, 1835, for the purpose of reprobating the meetings of the abolitionists, and denouncing their measures, while approving of their principles. The less that is said of this meeting—the deepest of all the disgraces of Boston—the better. It bears its character in its face. Its avowed object was to put down the expression of opinion by opprobrium, in the absence of gag laws. Of the fifteen hundred who signed the requisition for this meeting, there are many, especially among the younger and more thoughtless, who have long repented of the deed. Some signed in anger; some in fear; many in mistake; and of each of these there are some, who would fain, if it were possible, efface their signatures with their blood.

It is an invariable fact, and recognized as such, that meetings held to supply the deficiency of gag laws are the prelude to the violence which supplies the deficiency of executioners under such laws. Every meeting held to denounce opinion is followed by a mob. This was so well understood in the present case that the abolitionists were warned that if they met again publicly, they would be answerable for the disorders that might ensue. The abolitionists pleaded that this was like making the rich man answerable for the crime of the thief who robbed him, on the ground that if the honest man had not been rich, the thief would not have been tempted to rob him. The abolitionists also perceived how liberty of opinion and of speech depended on their conduct in this crisis; and they resolved to yield to no threats of illegal violence; but to hold their legal meeting, pursuant to advertisement, for the despatch of their usual business. One remarkable feature of the case was that this heavy responsibility rested upon women. It was a ladies' meeting that was in question. Upon consultation, the ladies agreed that they should never have sought the perilous duty of defending liberty of opinion and speech at the last crisis; but, as such a service seemed manifestly appointed to them, the women were ready.

On the 21st of October, they met, pursuant to advertisement, at the office of their association, No. 46, Washington Street. Twenty-five reached their room, by going three-quarters of an hour before the appointed time. Five more made their way up with difficulty through the crowd. A hundred more were turned back by the mob.

They knew that a hand-bill had been circulated on the Exchange, and posted on the City Hall, and throughout the city, the day before, which declared that Thompson, the abolitionist, was to address them; and invited the citizens, under promise of pecuniary reward, to "snake Thompson out, and bring him to the tar-kettle before dark." The ladies had been warned that they would be killed, "as sure as fate," if they showed themselves on their own premises that day. They therefore informed the mayor that they expected to be attacked. The reply of the city marshal was, "You give us a great deal of trouble."

The committee-room was surrounded, and gazed into by a howling, shrieking mob of gentlemen, while the twenty-five ladies sat perfectly still, awaiting the striking of the clock. When it struck, they opened their meeting. They were questioned as to whether Thompson was there in disguise; to which they made no reply.

They began, as usual, with prayer; the mob shouting "Hurra! here comes Judge Lynch!" Before they had done, the partition gave way, and the gentlemen hurled missiles at the lady who was presiding. The secretary having risen, and begun to read her report, rendered inaudible by the uproar, the mayor entered, and insisted upon their going home, to save their lives. The purpose of their meeting was answered: they had asserted their principle; and they now passed out, two and two, amidst the execration of some thousands of gentlemen;—persons who had silver shrines to protect. The ladies, to the number of fifty, walked to the house of one of their members, and were presently struck to the heart by the news that Garrison was in the hands of the mob. Garrison is the chief apostle of abolition in the United States. He had escorted his wife to the meeting; and, after offering to address the ladies, and being refused, out of regard to his safety, had left the room, and, as they supposed, the premises. He was, however, in the house when the ladies left it. He was hunted for by the mob; dragged from behind some planks where he had taken refuge, and conveyed into the street. Here his hat was trampled under-foot, and brick-bats were aimed at his bare head; a rope was tied round him, and thus he was dragged through the streets. His young wife saw all this. Her exclamation was, "I think my husband will be true to his principles. I am sure my husband will not deny his principles." Her confidence was just. Garrison never denies his principles.

He was saved by a stout truckman, who, with his bludgeon, made his way into the crowd, as if to attack the victim. He protected the bare head, and pushed on towards a station house, whence the mayor's officers issued, and pulled in Garrison, who was afterwards put into a coach. The mob tried to upset the coach, and throw down the horses; but the driver laid about him with his whip, and the constables with their staves, and Garrison was safely lodged in jail: for protection; for he had committed no offence.

Before the mayor ascended the stairs to dismiss the ladies, he had done a very remarkable deed;—he had given permission to two gentlemen to pull down and destroy the anti-slavery sign, bearing the inscription, "Anti-Slavery Office,"—which had hung for two years, as signs do hang before public offices in Boston. The plea of the mayor is, that he hoped the rage of the mob would thus be appeased: that is, he gave them leave to break the laws in one way, lest they should in another. The citizens followed up this deed of the mayor with one no less remarkable. They elected these two rioters members of the State legislature, by a large majority, within ten days.

I passed through the mob some time after it had begun to assemble. I asked my fellow-passengers in the stage what it meant. They supposed it was a busy foreign-post day, and that this occasioned an assemblage of gentlemen about the post-office. They pointed out to me that there were none but gentlemen. We were passing through from Salem, fifteen miles north of Boston, to Providence, Rhode Island; and were therefore uninformed of the events and expectations of the day. On the morrow, a visitor who arrived at Providence from Boston told us the story; and I had thenceforth an excellent opportunity of hearing all the remarks that could be made by persons of all ways of thinking and feeling, on this affair.

It excited much less attention than it deserved; less than would be believed possible by those at a distance who think more seriously of persecution for opinion, and less tenderly of slavery than a great many of the citizens of Boston. To many in the city of Boston the story I have told would be news: and to yet more in the country, who know that some trouble was caused by abolition meetings in the city, but who are not aware that their own will, embodied in the laws, was overborne to gratify the mercenary interests of a few, and the political fears of a few more.

The first person with whom I conversed about this riot was the president of a university. We were perfectly agreed as to the causes and character of the outrage. This gentleman went over to Boston for a day or two; and when he returned, I saw him again. He said he was happy to tell me that we had been needlessly making ourselves uneasy about the affair: that there had been no mob, the persons assembled having been all gentlemen.

An eminent lawyer at Boston was one of the next to speak upon it. "O, there was no mob," said he. "I was there myself, and saw they were all gentlemen. They were all in fine broad-cloth."

"Not the less a mob for that," said I.

"Why, they protected Garrison. He received no harm. They protected Garrison."

"From whom, or what?"

"O, they would not really hurt him. They only wanted to show that they would not have such a person live among them."

"Why should not he live among them? Is he guilty under any law?"

"He is an insufferable person to them."

"So may you be to-morrow. If you can catch Garrison breaking the laws, punish him under the laws. If you cannot, he has as much right to live where he pleases as you."

Two law pupils of this gentleman presently entered. One approved of all that had been done, and praised the spirit of the gentlemen of Boston. I asked whether they had not broken the law. Yes. I asked him if he knew what the law was. Yes; but it could not be always kept. If a man was caught in a house setting it on fire, the owner might shoot him; and Garrison was such an incendiary. I asked him for proof. He had nothing but hearsay to give. The case, as I told him, came to this. A. says Garrison is an incendiary. B. says he is not. A. proceeds on his own opinion to break the law, lest Garrison should do so.

The other pupil told me of the sorrow of heart with which he saw the law, the life of the republic, set at naught by those who should best understand its nature and value. He saw that the time was come for the true men of the republic to oppose a bold front to the insolence of the rich and the powerful, who were bearing down the liberties of the people for a matter of opinion. The young men, he saw, must brace themselves up against the tyranny of the monied mob, and defend the law; or the liberties of the country were gone. I afterwards found many such among the young men of the wealthier classes. If they keep their convictions, they and their city are safe.

No prosecutions followed. I asked a lawyer, an abolitionist, why. He said there would be difficulty in getting a verdict; and, if it was obtained, the punishment would be merely a fine, which would be paid on the spot, and the triumph would remain with the aggressors. This seemed to me no good reason.

I asked an eminent judge the same question; and whether there was not a public prosecutor who might prosecute for breach of the peace, if the abolitionists would not, for the assault on Garrison. He said it might be done; but he had given his advice against it. Why? The feeling was so strong against the abolitionists—the rioters were so respectable in the city—it was better to let the whole affair pass over without notice.

Of others, some knew nothing of it, because it was about such a low set of people; some could not take any interest in what they were tired of hearing about; some had not heard anything of the matter; some thought the abolitionists were served quite right; some were sure the gentlemen of Boston would not do anything improper; and some owned that there was such bad taste and meddlesomeness in the abolitionists, that people of taste kept out of the way of hearing anything about them.

Notwithstanding all this, the body of the people are sound. Many of the young lawyers are resolved to keep on the watch, to maintain the rights of the abolitionists in the legislature, and in the streets of the city. Many hundreds of the working men agreed to leave their work on the first rumour of riot, get sworn in as special constables, and keep the peace against the gentry; acting vigorously against the mob ringleaders, if such should be the magistrates of Boston themselves. I visited many of the villages in Massachusetts; and there everything seemed right. The country people are abolitionists, by nature and education, and they see the iniquity of mob-law. A sagacious gentleman told me that it did him good to hear, in New York, of this mob, because it proved the rest of Massachusetts to be in a sound state. It is always 'Boston versus Massachusetts;' and when the city, or the aristocracy there, who think themselves the city, are very vehemently wrong, it is a plain proof that the country people are eminently right. This may, for the humour of the thing, be strongly put; but there is much truth in it.

The philosophy of the case is very easy to understand; and supremely important to be understood.

The law, in a republic, is the embodiment of the will of the people. As long as the republic is in a natural and healthy state, containing no anomaly, and exhibiting no gross vices, the function of the law works easily, and is understood and reverenced. Its punishments bear only upon individuals, who have the opposition of society to contend with for violating its will, and who are helpless against the righteous visitations of the law.

If there be any anomaly among the institutions of a republic, the function of the law is certain to be disturbed, sooner or later: and that disturbance is usually the symptom by the exhibition of which the anomaly is first detected, and then cured. It was so with free-masonry. It will be so with slavery; and with every institution inconsistent with the fundamental principles of democracy. The process is easily traceable. The worldly interests of the minority—of perhaps a single class—are bound up with the anomaly:—of the minority, because, if the majority had been interested in any anti-republican institution, the republic would not have existed. The minority may go on for a length of time in apparent harmony with the expressed will of the many—the law. But the time comes when their anomaly clashes with the law. For instance, the merchants of the north trade in products which are, as they believe, created out of a denial that all men are born free and equal, and that the just powers of rulers are derived from the consent of the governed; while the contrary principles are the root which produces the law. Which is to be given up, when both cannot be held? If the pecuniary interest of merchants is incompatible with freedom of speech in fellow-citizens, which is to suffer?—The will of the majority, the lawmaker, is to decide. But it takes some time to awaken the will of the majority; and till it awakes, the interest of the faction is active, and overbears the law. The retribution is certain; the result is safe. But the evils meanwhile are so tremendous, that no exertion should be spared to open the eyes of the majority to the insults offered to its will. There is no fear that the majority will ultimately succumb to the minority—the harmonious law to the discordant anomaly: but it is a fearful thing, meantime, that the brave should be oppressed by the mercenary, and oppressed in proportion to their bravery; that the masters of black slaves in the south should be allowed to make white slaves in the north; that power and wealth should be used to blind the people to the nature and dignity of the law, and to seduce them into a preference of brute force. These evils are so tremendous as to make it the duty of every citizen to bring every lawbreaker, high or low, to punishment; to strike out of the election list every man who tampers with the will of the majority; to teach every child what the law is, and why it must be maintained; to keep his eye on the rostrum, the bench, the bar, the pulpit, the press, the lyceum, the school, that no fallacy, no compromise with an anomaly, no surrender of principle be allowed to pass unexposed and unstigmatized.

One compound fallacy is allowed daily to pass unexposed and unstigmatized. "You make no allowance," said a friend who was strangely bewildered by it—"you make no allowance for the great number of excellent people who view the anomaly and the law as you do, but who keep quiet, because they sincerely believe that by speaking and acting they should endanger the Union." This explains the conduct of a crowd of "excellent people," neither merchants, nor the friends of slave-holders, nor approving slavery, or mobbing, or persecution for opinion; but who revile or satirize the abolitionists, and, for the rest, hold their tongues. But is it possible that such do not see that if slavery be wrong, and if it be indeed bound up with the Union, the Union must fall? Is it possible that they do not see that if the question be really this—that if the laws of God and the arrangements of man are incompatible, man's arrangements must give way?—I regard it as a false and mischievous assumption that slavery is bound up with the Union: but if I believed the dictum, I should not be for "putting off the evil day." Every day which passes over the unredressed wrongs of any class which a republic holds in her bosom; every day which brings persecution on those who act out the principles which all profess; every day which adds a sanction to brute force, and impairs the sacredness of law; every day which prolongs impunity to the oppressor and discouragement to the oppressed, is a more evil day than that which should usher in the work of renovation.

But the dictum is not true. This bitter satire upon the constitution, and upon all who have complacently lived under it, is not true. The Union is not incompatible with freedom of speech. The Union does not forbid men to act according to their convictions. The Union has never depended for its existence on hypocrisy, insult, and injury; and it never will.

Let citizens but take heed individually to respect the law, and see that others do—that no neighbour transgresses it, that no statesman despises it unrebuked, that no child grows up ignorant or careless of it; and the Union is as secure as the ground they tread upon. If this be not done, everything is in peril, for the season; not only the Union, but property, home, life and integrity.