ties of American citizens, and have a right to be protected in their persons and property against all assailants whatsoever. We trust that the authorities will this night show that this right is not a mere mockery; we trust that the rioters will be dealt with in a way that may long ensure the quiet of the city, if they dare again congregate to carry their incendiary purposes into further execution. In making these remarks, we do not wish to be understood as intimating that there has been any remissness on the part of the civil authorities during the previous nights. On the contrary, last night in particular, they were exceedingly active, and took their measures with great promptitude and discretion. But it was evident that the disorders were far more extensive than had been anticipated, and the force under the direction of the Mayor was therefore not sufficient for the simultaneous protection of all the different points where the riot was expected to show itself. ABOLITION RIOTS. [From the Evening Post, July 12, 1834.] The details which are published below, from the Journal of Commerce and the Daily Advertiser of this morning, are already on their way to every quarter of the country, to inform the whole people of the United States of the additional and deplorable blot which the events of last night have stamped on the character of this city. The fury of demons seems to have entered into the breasts of our misguided populace. Like those ferocious animals which, having once tasted blood, are seized with an insatiable thirst for gore, they have had an appetite awakened for outrage, which nothing but the most extensive and indiscriminate destruction seems capable of appeasing. The cabin of the poor negro, and the temples dedicated to the service of the living God, are alike the objects of their blind fury. The rights of private and public property, the obligations of law, the authority of its ministers, and even the power of the military, are all equally spurned by these audacious sons of riot and dis. order. What will be the next mark of their licentious wrath it is impossible to conjecture. This night the trial is to be once again made whether the public authorities or a lawless mob are to be masters of the city; whether a motley assemblage of infuriated and besotted ruffians, animated with a hellish spirit, are to destroy and slay at the promptings of their wild passions and prejudices; or whether the true sentiments of this great community are to have their due preponderance. We accord to the city magistrates all the praise which their conduct hitherto deserves. But at the same time we must take leave to advise them, in the most serious manner, no longer to forbear resorting to stronger measures, to such measures as it is now evident can alone effectually quell the insurrectionary and destroying spirit which the proceedings of the Abolitionists, the indiscreet comments of certain prints, and most especially the seditious and inflammatory advice of that journal of whose tone and temper a specimen is given above, have aroused.* We call upon them not again to repeat the * The extract here referred to is omitted for the reason stated in the Preface, that it is not the intention of this publication to re idle pageant of a military procession; not to add to the confidence of the rioters by an empty, ineffectual display of unused weapons. Let them be fired upon, if they dare collect together again to prosecute their nefarious designs. Let those who make the first movement towards sedition be shot down like dogs-and thus teach to their infatuated followers a lesson which no milder course seems sufficient to inculcate. This is no time for expostulation or remonstrance. Forbearance towards these rioters is cruelty towards the orderly and peaceable part of the community. Let us act with such promptness and decision now as to ensure that there will be no repeti. tion of such outrages in time to come. Let us restore the dignity of the violated law. Let us not pause to parley when the foe is at the gate. Let us be brief when traitors brave the field. We would recommend that the whole military force of the city be called out; that large detachments be stationed wherever any ground exists to anticipate tumultuary movements; that smaller bodies patrol the streets in every part of the city, and that the troops be directed to fire upon the first disorderly assemblage that refuses to disperse at the bidding of lawful authority. This will restore peace and quietness to the city, and nothing short of this will do so. vive the temporary controversies of the time when these articles were written. CIATION ANTI-SLAVERY ASSOCIATION. [From the Evening Post, July 22, 1834.] It will be seen by the report of the proceedings of the Board of Aldermen last evening, published in another column, that the communication of the Executive Committee of the Anti-Slavery Association was treated with great contempt by that body. As the communication has been inserted, as an advertisement, in nearly all the newspapers, the public generally are probably pretty well apprized of its contents. It is a perfectly respectful document, prepared with the purpose of showing that the association above named had transcended none of those rights which are guarantied to its members, in common with all their fellow-citizens, by the Constitution of the United States; and that the objects of the society are not incompatible with the duties of its members as citizens under the existing institutions of this country. With all due respect for the motives which actuated the Board of Aldermen in unanimously refusing to entertain this document, we must take the liberty to say that we think they did not act wisely in casting it out. An occasion was presented them for the expression of a calm and temperate opinion on the conduct of the aboli. tionists, as it affects the peace and order of society, which, properly embraced, might have been productive of much good, both on the minds of the enthusiasts in the cause of negro emancipation, and those, more especially, of the community at large. We would not have the Common Council throw itself in as a disputant in the fierce and inflammatory discussion which has already engaged so many fiery antagonists; but we should have been glad to see it treat the subject as a legislative body-as a body of municipal magistrates, charged with the framing and the enforcing of the laws. We VOL. I.-4 should have been glad if this letter of Arthur Tappan ́and his associates had been referred to a discreet and intelligent committee, to the end that they might draw up a report, not controverting the abstract notions of the abolitionists on the subject of the emancipation and equal rights of the blacks, but proving by mild and judicious arguments, that even if the end they aim at is in itself proper, the time is ill chosen, and the means employed calculated, not merely to defeat their object, but to plunge the negroes into a far worse condition than that which they are now taught by their deluded guides to repine at. The report might further have shown, that, even allowing the time to be well chosen for the work, and the means adapted to the end, they pursue a radically erroneous course in addressing their doctrines to the negroes themselves, whom they thus render discontented and wretched, but whose condition they cannot meliorate. To effect their object the minds of the whites must be convinced of its propriety; and all discourses addressed to the blacks meanwhile, to show them the degradation of their situation, and their natural right to an equal footing with the race of white men, must inevitably tend, at the best, to make them unhappy, and may lead to scenes of outrage which the mind shudders to contemplate. In a report such as we are supposing, the committee might also have taken occasion to speak words of salutary counsel to those classes of the community most likely to be stirred up to acts of violence by the fanatical conduct of the abolitionists. They might have shown them that any insurrectionary movement, instead of effecting the object desired, would, by an invariable law of human nature, be followed by a very contrary result. They might have shown, that persecution is the very fuel that feeds the fire of fanaticism; that such men as the abolitionists are but fixed more firmly in their faith by the op |