Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 2, Part 14

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1048

USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 2 > Part 14

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

fact as is well known the Ohio contribution to the cause of anti-slavery was on entirely dif- ferent lines from that of Garrison. Chase was a practical politician and believed in the great advantages of political organization. Garrison relied on moral suasion and the certain truth of his cause. It was the Ohio idea that finally won the victory. The center of the agitation or rather the two centers of the agitation were the Connecticut Western Reserve in Northern Ohio and Cincinnati and its neighborhood. In the latter city were many of the most powerful enemies that slavery ever had to contend with, some of them sons of Southern slaveholders and others former slaveholders themselves.

Lane Seminary on Walnut Hills had been formed in 1829 for the purpose of training young men for the Presbyterian ministry. Its students were divided in sympathies so that of the 100 attendants more than one-half were Southern- ers. Dr. Lyman Beecher had been appointed its president in 1830 and took charge of the in- stitution two years later. Associated with him in the faculty was the husband of his daughter Harriet Beecher, Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, and at a little later time among the students was his son Henry Ward Beecher who in 1836 conducted for a year the Cincinnati Journal.

Another member of the faculty was Theodore D. Weld, an enthusiastic follower of Garrison. About 1833 after the Seminary had become well established, slavery became a constant topic of discussion by reason of the different antecedents of the students. This agitation become so pro- nounced that in 1834 a joint debate was insti- tuted in the chapel which lasted for 18 consecu- tive nights. A former slave was brought in and gave testimony as to his experiences and those of his race and as a result a minber of students from the South became converted to the cause of anti-slavery. This was followed by the institution of Sunday schools and day schools for the education of negro children and an or-

ganized effort to interest religious bodies gen- erally in the agitation. Intense opposition to this movement emanating as it did from an in- stitution of learning and religion was manifested throughout the city and a mob threatened the institution itself. In August, 1834, the trustees in the absence of Beecher and Stowe voted that there should henceforth be no discussion of slavery in any public room of the Seminary on the ground that it was a political subject. John Morgan, the principal of the preparatory department, an anti-slavery man, was dropped

594

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI

from the faculty. This action resulted in the resignation of one of the trustees, Asa Mahan. The students however did not accept the situa- tion and 51 of them left the Seminary in a body for the purpose of seeking an institution where free discussion would be tolerated.

"The venerable president of the institution, Dr. Lyman Beecher, whose family have, by their genius and writings, given to the anti-slavery sentiment of the nation and the world an extraor- dinary extension and power, said to the stu- dents : 'Boys, you are right in your views, but most impracticable in your measures. Min- ing and quiet strategy are ordinarily better as well as safer methods of taking a city, than to do it by storm. It is not always wise to take a bull by the horns. You are right ; but in your way you can't succeed. If you should succeed, I will be with you, and swing my hat and shout huzza!' Leading literary magazines and newspapers of Cincinnati combined to disband this Anti-Slavery Society of Lane Seminary, declaring it 'discreditable to the institution, and . calculated to inflict a deep wonnd on the great interests of education; and the indignation of the public will put it down.'" (Life of Thomas Morris.)

- James C. Ludlow (the son of Israel Ludlow ), whose daughter married Salmon P. Chase in 1846, thereupon proffered the use of a building near the city where for five months the students taught themselves with the assistance of some lectures by Dr. Gamaliel Bailey. One of these students, Amos Dresser, was found in Kentucky in the following year with abolition documents in his possession and was brutally whipped by a mob. About this time Oberlin College, which had been founded in 1833 on a very broad and liberal platform, including among its purposes "the elevation of female character by bringing within the reach of the misjudged and neg- lected sex all the instructive privileges which hitherto unreasonably distinguished the leading sex over theirs," concluded that colored people were even more misjudged and neglected than the unfortunate females. It was decided to en- gage as instructors Mahan and Morgan who had left Lane Seminary. They consented to go to Oberlin on condition that the students should be admitted irrespective of color. Mahan ac- cepted the presidency and Morgan a professor- ship and with them went 30 of the Lane seced- ing students, including Amos Dresser, while others went to the Western Reserve College at Hudson where Elizur Wright and Berial Green

as professors had won for that institution the name of the "Western Yale." In 1835 was forined as a result of the work of the Lane and Oberlin movements "The Ohio Anti-Slavery So- city." The feeling against the negroes and their friends became more and more intensified as these movements began to take form. The anti- slavery propagandists were in thorough earnest and carried their teachings throughout the State. (Ilart's Chase, Chap. 3.)

A curious incident of the year 1835 is nar- rated by Rev. J. Hoby, a Baptist minister who took a trip through the United States in that year. He spent Independence Day in Cincin- nati, the guest of Mr. Lynd, pastor of the Sixth Street Baptist Church. He comments upon the fact that "there was nothing worthy of the name of a celebration on the 4th of July, at Cincinnati. The only attempt was the tricking out of the cartmen and their horses with a few ribbons, and the ascent of a balloon." Later in the day he attended a temperance commemoration and was drawn into a controversy on the subject of eman- cipation which seemed to be the principal topic of discussion at the time. Two days later how- ever he observed a demonstration of unusual character.

"If I was surprised at the absence of the cus- tomary procession and show on the 4th, I was still more so by a demonstration witnessed on the 6th. I had been prevented by increased in- disposition from leaving the city, and was writ- ing, when the sound of a drum, beaten to keep the regularity of march, caught my car. I was struck with the very genteel and uniform dress of a large body of fine-looking men, who wore blue coats and white trowsers, before I noticed the contrast of coal-black countenances of many of them with their snow-white linen. I soon saw they were all coloured people! This fact filled me with surprise, but how was it increased when the banners they carried were fairly in view? On one was inscribed-'We by steamboats live, and our families maintain.' Another was a ship, intended to represent the first slaver which sailed to the American shores! A third dis- played a kneeling negro; his chains were broken off, and lo! the genins of liberty hovered over the humble form, and was just about to place on his brows a chaplet of laurel! I could scarcely credit the evidence of my own senses; but from my heart did I bless God, that my eyes had beheld that sight. I learned that many were offended, and scandalized, at such a procession ; but the parties were so truly respectable, and

THE PUBLIC LANDING IN THE "THIRTIES."

...

597

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

those who employed some of them so influential and determined, that it was deemed expedient to let all pass. This was truly the right side of the Ohio; and surely these cheerful notes of freedom will not always be responded to across the silver stream, with nought but groans from the slave, while he sighs, 'Am I not also a man and a brother ?'" (The Baptists in America, P. 303. )

What seemed strange to the English visitor was a very serious matter to the Cincinnati populace. Their relations with the South were very close, both from a business and social stand- point, and they felt that such agitation could not but arouse their Southern brethren and break the apparent peace which thinly covered the smoldering volcano of unrest and dissatisfaction on this subject. This feeling of opposition broke forth in a pro-slavery riot on April 11, 1836, and for several days the streets of Cincinnati were the scene of a race war. The cause which start- ed this outburst was trifling as is usually the case on occasions of this sort. Two boys one of whom was black and the other white got into a quarrel about some small matter and unfor- tunately for the colored people the black boy whipped the white one. Immediately a cry of "Down with the nigger" was raised and the white boy's champions collected a mob. The violence started in the locality known as the "Swamp" just below Western row now Central avenue where was the foot of West Sixth street at that time. The houses of many negroes were burned to the ground and their occupants were shot down like dogs. The police were called upon and did make an effort to stop the riots but were entirely helpless. They were so over- whelmed by the mob that they were obliged to stand by and see negroes who had given no of- fense whatsoever shot to death. At last the Gov- ernor of the State, Robert Lucas, was obliged to declare the city under martial law and fix his headquarters at this point. He was able by adopting stringent measures to quell the mob and restore quiet.

The peace was but for a short time and in July another serious affair occurred. The city . at that time was filled with Southern visitors who came here for the purpose of trade. As has already been said: "In many respects Cin- cinnati was a Southern city on free soil; the Southern buyer gladdened the heart of the mer- chant ; the Southern traveler and his family took the best rooms in the hotels; and in times of crises Southern sympathy for slavery was visible

in the newspapers. New Englanders were nu- merons and contended for their familiar stand- ards of education and intellectual life; but they were not here as in Northern Ohio the dominant element." ( Hart's Chase, p. 14.)

JAMES G. BIRNEY.

The formation of the Ohio Anti-Slavery So- ciety had resulted in the publication of a news- paper. No Cincinnati paper sympathized with the movement and it was felt then as now that any political contest must be aided by its rep- resentative organ. The man for such a paper was present in the person of James G. Birney. Birney was a Kentuckian by birth, of North Irish descent. He was a graduate of Transyl- vania University and of Princeton. He subse- quently studied law in Philadelphia and returned to his native State where he married a daughter of William McDowell, judge of the United States Court, a member of what was at that time the most influential family in Kentucky. In 1816 he was elected a member of the Kentucky Legis- lature, where he succeeded in defeating a propo- sition to demand of the States of Ohio and Indiana the enactment of fugitive slave laws. He moved in 1818 to Alabama and became a member of the first Legislature of that State in the following year. He found his cotton planta- tion unprofitable because he would not permit the use of the lash upon the slaves and in 1823 lie resumed the practice of the law. A few years later he became interested in the American Colo- nization Society. He had from the start favored various measures looking to the final emancipa- tion of the slaves. In the presidential election of 1828 he was an elector on the Adams ticket: He was repeatedly elected mayor of Huntsville and was regarded as a leader in educational matters. In 1830 he visited Henry Clay for the purpose of urging him to place himself at the head of the gradual emancipation movement in Kentucky. Ile failed in this and subsequently antagonized Clay. He had been for several years counsel of the Cherokee Nation, which ex- perience also led him to feel in sympathy with meu deprived of rights because of their race. In 1831 he determined to move his family to a Free State and was about to settle in Illi- nois when he was appointed by the American Colonization Society its agent in the Southwest. Feeling urged by his sense of duty, he devoted a year to that work which resulted unfortunate- ly in his losing faith in the ultimate success of the movement. His travels through the South

598

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI

west convinced him of the danger of permanent slavery and Southern control of the Senate with possibly civil war and disunion. He thereupon moved to Kentucky, hoping to bring about the separation of that State as well as Virginia and Tennessee from the Slave States. He found that during his absence slavery sentiment had been strengthened and that the opposition to emanci- pation was much greater than before. In 1834 he freed his own slaves and severed his con- nection with the American Colonization Society whose work he concluded simply tended to post- pone indefinitely the emancipation of the slaves. He formed an anti-slavery society in Kentucky in March, 1835, and was prominent at a meet- ing of the same character in New York in May of that year. In June, 1835, he issued a prospec- ' tus for the publication of an anti-slavery paper to begin in August at Danville, Kentucky. The feeling of opposition to anti-slavery agitation was becoming so strong that he found it im- possible to obtain a publisher or printer at his own home in Kentucky. The Postmaster Gen- eral had excluded anti-slavery papers from the mails and a little later President Jackson recom- mended in his message not only the refusal of the use of the mails to the so-called incendiary publications (anti-slavery ) but action on the part of the States themselves to suppress them. Bir- ney therefore crossed the river to Ohio and started his paper at New Richmond. There he was repeatedly threatened but never mobbed and in the spring of 1836 he removed the Philan- thropist to Cincinnati upon the encouragement of the anti-slavery element here. The paper had been published for several months to the pro- found disgust of the Southern sympathizers. Finally a public meeting was called to protest against the Philanthropist. The mayor of the city, Samuel W. Davies, presided and many prominent citizens acted as vice-presidents. Resolutions were passed "that no abolition paper should be published or distributed in the town." It took more than resolutions however to frighten Birney and the Philanthropist continued to ap- pear with regularity despite the protest of this meeting, including some of the most prominent citizens of the community. To give emphasis to their protest, a mob gathered on the 14th of July and entered the printing office of Achilles Pugh, the printer, and defaced and partially de- stroyed his press and materials. The pied type were distributed, the articles were set up again and the paper went on. The mayor issued a proclamation against the rioters but included in

it also a warning to the persistent abolitionists. As Birney continued in his obduracy, a great meeting of citizens was held on July 23rd at Lower Market "to decide whether they will per- mit a publication or distribution of abolition papers in this city."

A committee was appointed to advise Birney and the executive committee of the Ohio Anti- Slavery Society to cease the publication of their paper. Such men as Judge Burnet and Presi- dent Lawrence of the Lafayette Bank accepted membership on this committee. . The committee waited upon the conductors of the paper and a correspondence ensued. The point of the pro- test was that the paper was damaging the city. The anti-slavery committee refused to accede to the request and as a result the committee of citizens published the correspondence to which they added a resolution, part of which read as follows: "That in discharging their duties they have used all the measures of persuasion and conciliation in their power. That their exer- tions have not been successful the above cor- respondence will show. It only remains, then, in pursuance of their instructions to publish every proceeding and adjourn without day. But ere they do this they owe it to themselves and those whom they represent, to express their ut- most abhorrence of every thing like violence and earnestly to implore their fellow citizens to ab- stain therefrom."

As is usually the case the warning against violence produced violence. On Saturday night the 30th of July a concourse of citizens, com- posed in the main of young men of the better class, collected at the corner of Seventh and Main streets. After a consultation they marched to the office of Mr. Pugh the printer a few squares distant (No. 106 Main street). Here they forced an entrance and again seized the press and the types upon which the hated abolition paper was printed. After scattering the types in the street and dismantling the office completely, they smashed the press and carried part of it down Main street and threw it into the river. From this point this crowd of respectable and gallant young men rushed to Mr. Pugh's residence on Walnut street

't between Sixth and Seventh streets, hoping to find other material there. Nothing was found there however and no vio- lence was offered. A journey of another square took them to the residence of the Donaldsons on Eighth beyond Vine who were fellow crim- inals ( in the mind of the crowd) with Mr. Bir- ney. No one but ladies were found there and

599

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

the place was left in peace. Birney's own house on Race between Eighth and Ninth naturally came next. Here a boy was found at home and this brave assemblage felt that he was beneath their dignity. He too was left undisturbed. The next proposed victim of their anger was Dr. Isaac Colby, the brother-in-law of Chase, who lived on the east side of Broadway between Fourth and Fifth streets. He too sympathized with the cause of freedom and thereby had of- fended the Southern business men. Fortunate- ly the distance was a little too great for so sportive an assemblage and the gathering re- turned to the printing office. Here it was pro- posed to pile the contents of the office in the street, making a bonfire of them. Before the light was applied however one man more pru- dent that the rest climbed the pile and advised against burning it for fear the houses in the neighborhood might be set on fire. . This seemed to appeal to the mob and they contented them- selves witn breaking up everything in sight and carrying much of the debris to the river. So much effort required a rest and recuperation. The valiant warriors filed into the Cincinnati Ex- change Hotel kept by J. W. Garrison on Front between Sycamore and Broadway and partook of refreshments. Feeling renewed life from the supplies there taken, the desire to reform the community generally ( with the exception of themselves ) came upon them. The first person whose name was suggested as a proper victim was the distinguished editor of the Gazette, Charles Hammond. The office of the paper was on the east side of Main between Fourth and Fifth streets and Hammond's law office was op- posite to it. The suggestion was that these of- fices should be destroyed and the mob halted in front of the Gazette office for some time. Some clarky residences in Church alley near at hand however seemed a safer point of attack and the mob surged down the alley expecting an easy victory. Two shots from the proposed victims changed the face of affairs and a retreat more hasty than dignified was effected with no ap- parent loss. It was claimed that one man was hit but as the pistols were fired in the air and the man was never discovered it is probable that this claim was without foundation and was made to inflame the mob. It took some time to en- courage this self-elected vigilance committee to recover and many of its members protested that they had no idea of their bringing any danger upon their own heads and merely intended to endanger others. After a sufficient time had

passed to permit the victorious besieged to retire with honor, the mob regained courage and a second attack was made. As the negroes had de- parted they found no difficulty in entering the houses and destroying the contents. After this, finding no more worlds to conquer, this respec- table assemblage retired to their homes.

A day or so after this, E. D. Mansfield who had been in the South with Dr. Drake, Crafts J. Wright and others attending the railroad conven- tion at Knoxville for the purpose of consider- ing a railroad from Cincinnati to the South, re- turned. The outrage of Saturday night and Sunday morning seemed to him one which should not pass without notice and in company with Mr. Hammond, Chase and others he determined that a public meeting should be held to vindicate the right of free speech. They therefore called an afternoon meeting at the Court House to con- sider the outrage. According to Mr. Mansfield's account, the affair was a curious one. "We did not expect to announce opinions for the whole city but to give our own view of the subject. We did not therefore expect any interruption or opposition. What therefore was our sur- prise to find the Court House crowded and among the crowd the leading men of the city. We saw at once that we were checkmated and that like the market house meeting the result would be a neutral compound. A large com- mittee was appointed to propose resolutions. [ was upon that committee and as I was almost alone in my views, I agreed to bring in a single resolution condemning mobs in general terms and the meeting passed off in an amiable mood. Since then I have thought that I wanted moral courage in that meeting. After the experience of forty years, I think the true plan would have been to have made a minority report, expressing fully my opposition to the pro-slavery move- ments of the day. This would have raised a storm, but it would have made discussion and brought people to a full consideration of the subject." ( Personal Memories, p. 304.)

The meeting also adopted a resolution approv- ing the course of the American Colonization Society as being the only method of getting clear of slavery.

Ex-Governor Charles Anderson, writing many years afterwards a tribute to the memory of William M. Corry, is perhaps a little forgetful of the work of others but does not speak in too high terms of Corry's position at the time :

"All Cincinnati was aroused in 1836 into a wild ferocity towards the great Abolitionist,

600

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI

James G. Birney, Esq. He was a scholar, orator, gentleman, Christian, and philanthropist, if ever these sentiments did centre in any one man. But his paper, published from the corner of Main and Fifth streets, was universally esteemed and de- nounced as a most pestilent nuisance to the city, the State, and the Nation. And doubtless, in the morbid and reckless state of the public feel- ing in the Southern States, such an issue from Cincinnati did operate injuriously against the business and property of the citizens, which was based mainly upon their Southern trade. A pub- lic meeting was therefore held in the Court House for the denunciation, warning, and, if necessary, the expulsion of so great a culprit. Every man of influence or property in Cincin- nati, save one alone, was directly or indirectly a party to this outrage upon free thought, free speech and free press. That single man was William M. Corry. He alone, amidst the gen- eral obloquy and indignation, bared his brave breast to this popular tempest of the combined plutocracy and mobocracy of the whole city, and ably defended Mr. Birney's rights. It was in vain. His office was publicly pillaged. His press was smashed into splinters. His types were sown broadcast from the market place through Main street and into the Ohio River. He was driven into exile to Buffalo."

SALMON P. CHASE.

This outrage, however, as in other outrages of the same character throughout the country, had its good results in arousing the attention of noble minded men not only to the horrors of slavery but to the danger of a slave power to the cause of freedom among white people. Not the least important of these results is indicated in the autobiography found many years after- wards among the papers of a young man who had come to the city a few years before and who from that time became identified with Ohio as one of her greatest sons,-Salmon P. Chase.

Chase was born of an American line, which traced its history back to 1660 when Aquila Chase came to "Old Newbury." Salmon P. Chase's mother was of Scotch ancestry and he came into the world in "hill-ridden New Hamp- shire," January 13, 1808. He attended a dame school, a district school in Keene, a school in Windsor, Vermont, and studied under a tutor until 1820. Then another celebrated man in the history of the West, his uncle Philander, at that time Episcopal Bishop of Ohio, appeared upon the scene. There were to fatherless chil-

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 2, Part 14

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1048

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1048