USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I > Part 99
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. . " The disturbances referred to were not in Rhode Island. The "Journal" of 1835
reported riots occasionally-one at Philadelphia against negroes, another at New Bedford against Portuguese, and a riot at Detroit, of which it was alleged that Irish had assembled to assault a few sailors and citizens. The last item suggests that the riot in Providence in Sep- tember, 1831, might have been reported as precipitated by an assault of "assembled negroes" upon "a few sailors and citizens." Staples reported it* as beginning with an invasion of a negro neighborhood by sailors.
As an instance of the effect that prejudice might have on what was seen, the "New York Journal of Commerce," in an account of a mob attack upon the Montgomery Guards in Bos- ton in 1837, justified violence by the alleged "effrontery . ... of foreigners .... who had the total want of decency . . to appear with arms in their hands." The facts were these :
*Chapter XVIII.
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The Montgomery Guards were all citizens of the United States and of Massachusetts, and all naturalized Irishmen or native-born American sons of Irish parents; they were members of an organized body of militia enrolled in the service of the commonwealth, and had been ordered out on duty. Other divisions refused to parade with the Montgomery Guards, and the latter were stoned and otherwise maltreated by a mob as they marched back to their armory. The Adjutant General subsequently commended the Montgomery Guards for "exemplary conduct under the trying circumstances." For reasons noted above, additional to the Rhode Island doctrine of religious toleration, there was less agitation in Rhode Island than elsewhere, and Rhode Islanders for the most part were kindly disposed to Irish Catholics who came to live among them.
Catholics cherish the memories of Bishop Griswold, who invited Bishop Cheverus of Boston to preach from the pulpit of St. Michael's Episcopal Church at Bristol; of David Wilkinson, brother-in-law of Samuel Slater, who donated as a site for a Catholic church the land on which stands St. Mary's Church in Pawtucket; of Walter Allen, of Union Village, Woonsocket, who opened his house that Rev. Fr. Woodley might say Mass for a small con- gregation of Catholics; and others, including the owner of the old Sheldon School in Provi- dence. Except in rare instances, such as the "Journal's" reprint of a news item from the "New York Journal of Commerce," and except for a brief period following the turn of the half century, Rhode Island newspapers, although there was little else that these defiant exemplars of a free and unmuzzled press did not exploit in their bitterly partisan discussions of measures and of men who became candidates for public office, only occasionally printed articles that indicated religious prejudice, which was foreign to Rhode Island. The exception occurred in the period in which the Whigs recognized in the increasing strength of the reor- ganized Democratic party a possibly successful movement to increase the number of qualified voters.
Even the "Providence Journal," staunch at the time in opposition to the suffrage move- ment, published articles, with almost daily frequency, that kept the alien and religious ques- tions constantly before its readers. Quarrels in other states over division of school money furnished subject matter for reports and discussion. The building of Roman Catholic churches in Rhode Island, and the opening of Catholic parochial schools were noted. Two measures were presented in the General Assembly, in 1853, with the purpose of enforcing attendance exclusively on public instruction, and were opposed by Elisha R. Potter, then Commissioner of Public Schools, as in conflict with Rhode Island traditions of individual lib- erty. The compulsory attendance legislation that followed almost immediately, 1854, required instruction, but left the choice of school to the parents. Rhode Island thus anticipated the American solution of the problem, and put into practice, in 1854, the doctrine laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States in the twentieth century Oregont and Nebraska# cases. The General Assembly, in 1853, enacted legislation opening private schools and asylums claiming tax exemption to visitation and inspection by public school committees. The excess of newspaper agitation was abated somewhat with the passing of the Democratic party from power, to be taken up again by the "Tribune," then newspaper spokesman of the American or Know Nothing party, which supported William W. Hoppin, Whig in 1855 and Republican in 1856, as candidate for Governor, and in 1855 elected both Representatives in Congress.
The "Tribune," in March, 1855, printed an article in which it was alleged that Miss Rebecca Newell, an estimable young lady and prominent socially, had been persuaded by undue influence to enter as a nun the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy, then standing at Broad and Claverick Streets in Providence, on the present site of St. Xavier's Academy. The "Tribune"
¡Pierce vs. Sisters of Holy Name, 268 U. S. 510.
Meyer vs. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390.
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STATE AND NATIONAL POLITICS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
story aroused discussion, and the city was placarded with notices, reading: "Americans. To whom these presents may come: Greetings. When rumors are afloat of a certain transaction, of a certain anti-law party in the vicinity of the corner of Claverick and Broad Streets, every true native American-born citizen is requested, one and all, to assemble there Thursday eve- ning, March 22, 1855, at eight o'clock precise. There, with true regard to law, and consult- ing the feelings and sympathies of Sam, proceedings of the most solemn and unquestionable nature will be transacted. One and all to the rescue. The password is 'Show yourself.'" The "Journal" of March 21 published, at the request of Miss Newell, a letter in which she denied that she had been persuaded in any other way than by her own serious inclination and free will to enter the convent. The "Journal" added this comment: "However unpleasant it may be to see a young lady of high intelligence and character forsake the religion of her fathers, and devote her life to a conventual life instead of gracing the society which she is so well qualified to adorn, there is certainly no law against it in the land of Roger Williams, and she must judge for herself." The "Journal" on March 22 said: "Some mischievous fool, misled by the story about Miss Newell, which the young lady herself contradicts, has pla- carded on the streets an invitation for a mob to assemble in front of the convent. The nearest way to the watch house is by College Street, but if any rowdies prefer the more roundabout course of annoying and insulting defenceless women, they can accept the wild offer. The placard would be most atrocious if there was a chance that its suggestions would be acted upon, but this we do not regard as possible. Should an attempt be made to violate the laws, the authorities lack neither the disposition nor the means to preserve the peace of the city, and they would have the support of all the friends of law and order of every party. Providence is not a city where mobs flourish."
Reports of exactly what happened at Broad and Claverick streets on the evening of March 22 vary slightly in emphasis upon detail, but not essentially as to facts. Mayor Knowles was at the convent early, as was also Bishop O'Reilly. The Sisters of Mercy were adamant in refusing to leave under threat of danger. A large crowd assembled, including (I) some who came to participate in a riot should there be one; (2) some who came to defend the convent should occasion arise; and (3) the number of the curious that might be expected. Mayor Knowles read the riot act, and ordered those assembled to disperse. Bishop O'Reilly addressed the people, pleading for order and for manliness. The people dispersed, and there was no violence, although for a time thereafter the convent was carefully guarded. The "Journal" of March 23 reported the episode thus: "The Convent: The attempt to get up a row at the convent last evening was a failure. A large crowd assembled in front of the building ; but no violence was offered, and little disturbance was made. Most of the people were probably drawn there by curiosity, and many, doubtless, went with the design of sup- porting the authorities if aid should be required. The Mayor was present, a strong police force was in readiness, and it is understood that further preparations were quietly and judi- ciously made. The crowd dispersed at an early hour, with no other damage than one stone thrown at the house, and a few cheers and groans. The following notice was placarded in the streets yesterday : 'A Shameful Attempt to Create a Mob. The enemies of the American Order have called upon its members to gather for a mob at the corner of Claverick and Broad streets this evening. Let the enemies alone be held responsible for this call and its consequences. Welcome the scoundrels to all the party capital they can make out of it. The members of the order will, of course, take no further notice of it than to treat its originators with merited contempt, and leave them to do their own work of persecution.'" It seems to be certain that, whether the threat to sack the convent originated with the American Order or otherwise, the Mayor and government of Providence were faithful to their duty of preserving order and pro-
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tecting life and property, and that the "Journal," representing as it did the most influential citizens of state and city, frowned upon rowdyism and violence.
The American party was short-lived in Rhode Island. Supporting Governor Hoppin, it helped to defeat Americus Vespucius Potter, the Democratic candidate, in 1855 and 1856. In the Eastern Congressional district it opposed a Democrat in 1855, and in the Western dis- trict helped to reëlect Benjamin B. Thurston, who had been elected previously as a Democrat. The American party Congressman in the Eastern district was reelected in 1857 as a Repub- lican, defeating Ambrose E. Burnside, who ran as a Democrat. The latter was later distin- guished as a Civil War General, and was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican. Ex-President Millard Fillmore, who became the American party candidate for President in 1856, was badly defeated; in Rhode Island his total vote was 1675 in a total of 19,822, which affords the only reliable estimate of the probable strength of the state party. As a well- organized minority, it achieved success in state politics by throwing its strength into the scales to offset marginal valence of stronger parties. Its endorsement of other party candidates or cooperation with other parties indicates that the division between Democrats and Whigs or Republicans was not on racial or religious lines. The American party was anomalous in Rhode Island and inconsistent with Rhode Island's best traditions; it disappeared altogether from Rhode Island politics with the advent of an issue that attained in 1860 a momentum that was irresistible. The efforts of statesmen to ignore the slavery issue failed eventually ; the forces restrained temporarily by compromises broke all barriers. The time had arrived in which America must answer : Free or Slave?
THE SLAVERY ISSUE-Forty-two Rhode Islanders in 1840, and 107 in 1844 voted for James G. Birney, candidate of the Liberty party, for President of the United States. The nomination of Edward Harris for Governor and of Stephen Wilcox for Lieutenant Governor by the Free Soil party in 1846 prevented in that year an election by popular vote under the majority requirement of the Constitution, and introduced a new national party question as an issue in state politics. Harris continued as a candidate for Governor annually, except in 1852, until 1853. Ex-President Martin Van Buren, candidate of the Free Soil party in 1845 for President, received 730 Rhode Island votes; John P. Hale, the party candidate in 1852, polled 644. Both Liberty and Free Soil parties opposed slavery. Rhode Island's position on slavery when slavery became a major issue had been foreshadowed two centuries earlier in a colonial law against slavery enacted May 18, 1652; and again at the close of the colonial period by (I) an act passed in June, 1774, which forbade the importation of slaves; and (2) an act passed February 23, 1784, which declared that all children born of slave parents in Rhode Island after March 1, 1784, were free. The Providence Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery was chartered by the General Assembly in June, 1790. A public anti- slavery meeting was held in Providence on July 4, 1833. The state Constitution of 1842 declared "Slavery shall not be permitted in this state." In the referendum in which the Con- stitution was adopted the people voted against excluding negroes from political rights because of color, although neither the People's nor the Landholders' Constitution of the period granted suffrage to negroes. When, in 1817, The Society of Friends of Baltimore petitioned Con- gress to adopt laws to prevent the slave trade§ and to join with other nations to obtain com- plete abolition, Senator James Burrill of Rhode Island moved to refer the petition to a com- mittee, and took a prominent part in the debate precipitated by his motion. "It is not opposed to our national policy," said Senator Burrill. "A provision was made for it in the Treaty of Ghent. Only by cooperation of nations, can the slave trade be abolished, for, no matter how many of them prohibited it, if one or two carried it on, the evil would continue to the same
§Importation forbidden 1808.
JAMES BURRILL, JR.
1772-1820-Attorney-General and Chief Justice of Supreme Court of Rhode Island and United States Senator
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degree." Maintaining that the United States was in honor bound to fulfil the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent, Senator Burrill continued: "The Senate should not give ground for the disgraceful suspicion that they were not sincere and honest in this cause of suffering human- ity. The slave states were joined with the free in working for the abolition of this abomi- nable traffic. Indeed, it was Virginia that had the honor of being the first state to prohibit it." Senator Burrill's motion was carried, 17-16; the report of the committee bore fruit in legis- lation. Congress authorized the President to send cruisers to the coast of Africa to stop the slave trade, and in 1820 declared the slave trade to be piracy. The Missouri Compromise, 1820, ended debating in Congress on slavery for the time being.
Rhode Island opposed the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War .* The General Assembly, in 1848, passed "An act further to protect personal liberty,"¿ which forbade state officers, including justices of courts, sheriffs and their deputies, coroners, constables, jailers and others, to assist in enforcement of the fugitive slave law enacted by Congress, February 12, 1793, thus leaving enforcement exclusively to federal officers .; When Congress, in 1850, yielded to Southern demand for a more drastic fugitive slave law, the General Assembly, in 1854, ordered the Rhode Island "personal liberty" statute of 1848 reprinted and republished, with an amendment declaring it applicable to the later act of Congress. By 1850 the slavery issue had been defined so clearly that the General Assembly did not hesitate to declare the position of Rhode Island. The occasion was the debate in Congress on the admission of Cali- fornia as a free state; the latter, with the discovery of gold, January 19, 1848, had been populated more rapidly than any territory in the history of the United States. Adventurers poured in from all parts of the country, including a numerous contingent from Rhode Island. The people of California had adopted a Constitution which prohibited slavery, and admission was opposed by the South for that reason.
The Rhode Island resolutions, besides condemning slavery, urged the preservation of the union as of "paramount importance," thus anticipating Abraham Lincoln's famous dec- laration in his letter to Horace Greeley, in which the President announced his purpose to be the preservation of the union. The resolutions, in part, follow: "That the people of this state retain, with unchangeable fidelity, that attachment to the principles of freedom which has distinguished their whole history; that, having long since abolished slavery within their own borders, they look with gratification and hope to the time when it will be abolished in the states of our confederacy and throughout the world; that the General Assembly, having often heretofore expressed its opinion upon the subject of slavery, have full confidence that our Senators and Representatives will use all honorable means to carry into effect the wishes of the people of this state, by aiding to abolish slavery and the slave trade in all places within the jurisdiction of Congress, and by using their influence to prevent its extension to terri- tories now free; that we welcome into the confederacy the new state that has just been formed upon the western confines of our republic; and that, in our opinion, any attempt to exclude her from the Union because she has of her own free will prohibited slavery, will be a violation of the true spirit of the Constitution, which leaves the subject of slavery in every state to the exclusive control of the people thereof ; that we believe the preservation of the union of these states to be important not only to the happiness, honor and interest of our own country, but to the progress of the principles of republican government throughout the world; and that it is the duty of every patriot and philanthropist to contribute to its preser- vation by all means not involving a sacrifice of honor or principle, or a violation of our national Constitution ; that all questions which threaten the harmony of our confederacy
*Chapter XVII.
#Repealed January 25, 1861.
* The Supreme Court had decided that the function of enforcement was federal ; the Rhode Island statute forbade assistance to federal officers. Priggs vs. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters 539.
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should be approached in a spirit of mutual forbearance, and with the consideration that the preservation of our union is of paramount importance to all temporary or local interests." The foregoing resolutions, adopted in January, 1850, were followed by others in May which covered most of the subjects that were being debated in Congress along with the question of the admission of California, as the South attempted to obtain so much as possible by way of compromise or concession for yielding to the inevitable conclusion with respect to California. A part of the resolutions adopted at the May session follow: "That, in the opinion of this General Assembly the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787,* with respect to slavery, should be applied to all the territories of the United States now possessed by them or hereafter acquired, and enforced by such further provisions and sanctions of law as the exigency of the case may require; that the people of Rhode Island cherish an unabated attachment to the union and to the Constitution, which is its surest guarantee; that, appreciating the inestimable blessings which flow from that instrument, they think it the dictate of wisdom rather to encounter and overcome any evils which may be incident to its operation, by a just and liberal interpretation of its provisions, than to aim at removing them by destroying it; that these, in their opinion, are the sentiments of a large majority of the people of the United States, without distinction of parties or sections, and ought to dispel any dread of those threats of disunion with which we are too often menaced ; that the preservation of our authority over the territories acquired by the treaty with Mexico which border on the Pacific Ocean, the increase of our navigation and commerce with these territories, and the augmentation of our wealth, no less than the diffusion of liberal institutions over every part of this continent, require that the territory of California be admitted into the union with the Constitution it has adopted, without reference to or connection with the litigated and entirely distinct questions with which it is sought to be connected ; that the sentiments of the people of Rhode Island on the subject of the delivery of persons held to labor, when escaping from other states, as expressed by the resolutions of the General Assembly heretofore adopted, remain unchanged; that the Supreme Court of the United States, having decided that the execution of that clause in the Constitution which requires such delivery is to be regulated, exclusively, by the enactments of Congress,¿ it becomes more important that all abuses incident to its execution be effectually restrained by said enactments, and, especially, that the facts of being held to labor and escaping therefrom be established by a decision of a jury of the state where such person is demanded ;; that the General Assembly, in behalf of the people of this state, distinctly disclaim any right or pre- tension to interfere with the institution of slavery in any of the states of the union which have thought fit to permit its continuance or establishment within their respective limits; that the opinions of the people of the state, on the subjects enumerated in these resolutions, having been often and unequivocally expressed, the General Assembly has entire confidence that their Senators and Representatives in the Congress of the United States will on all occasions respect them, and, to the extent of their opportunities and influence, give them effect in the delibera- tions and decisions of that body." California was admitted as a free state, September 9, 1850.
Four years later, the issue that persisted was again before Congress in the discussion of the Nebraska bill, involving the Missouri Compromise; again the Rhode Island General Assembly adopted resolutions against slavery, thus: "Whereas, Congress by a provision of an act approved March 6, 1820, commonly called the 'Missouri Compromise Act' forever prohibited slavery or involuntary servitude except for crime north of the parallel of 361/2 degrees of latitude in all the territory acquired from France, except that portion lying within the state of Missouri, and, whereas, certain propositions have recently been made tending to
*Declared Northwest Territory free soil.
#The act of 1850 placed the jurisdiction with the state of escape.
+Priggs vs. Pennsylvania, 16 Peters 539.
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disturb the compromise; it is, resolved, that it be recommended to our Senators and Repre- sentatives in Congress to use their best efforts to prevent the passage of any law whereby slavery or involuntary servitude except for crime, can, under any circumstances, ever be introduced or established north of said parallel." Congress enacted the Kansas-Nebraska Act, including repeal of the Missouri Compromise, notwithstanding Rhode Island opposition, and the General Assembly in June expressed Rhode Island's disapproval, thus: "Whereas, the Congress of the United States, at its present session, have passed certain laws for the organization of territorial government in the territory of Nebraska and Kansas, wherein by a repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery is allowed to extend itself into territories made free by the said act of 1820; and, whereas, the passage of the said laws by the said Congress is deemed by this Assembly to be a violation of the public faith pledged by Con- gress to the whole extent of the power of Congress to pledge the public faith, and greatly impairs the confidence of the people in this state in the integrity and honor of the national government, and that of the states which sustain the institution of slavery within their juris- diction, therefore : Resolved, that the attempt to extend the odious institution of slavery over a vast region of territory from which it has once been by law excluded, with the consent of the slaveholding states, given in the form of a compromise, hitherto deemed to be solemnly binding upon all the states of the union, ought to awaken the people of the free states to the aggres- sive character of slavery as a political power, and unite them in hostility to its extension and its existence wherever it comes constitutionally within the reach of federal legislation; that the act of Congress of 1850, known as the fugitive slave law, operating as it does, when enforced in the manner contemplated by its provisions, to deprive man of one of the most sacred rights which man can enjoy, and to doom him to unmitigated bondage without a trial by jury, is contrary to the spirit of liberty, and ought to be amended or repealed; that no further acquisition of foreign territory by the general government is, in the opinion of this Assembly, desirable. In no case should territory now free be doomed to slavery by law ; nor should slave territory be acquired without giving to such territory all the freedom which the general government, in case of such acquisition, can constitutionally give; that the course of the delegation in Congress from this state on the bill for the establishment of territorial govern- ment in Nebraska and Kansas is entitled to and receives our hearty approval."
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