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APRIL, 1862. DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. 635. [[line]] [[3 columns]] [[column 1]] THE MOBBING OF WENDELL PHILLIPS IN CINCINNATI. [[short line]] Disgraceful Scenes at the Opera House. [[short line]] The Cincinnati papers of Tuesday bring us full accounts of the mobbing of Wendell Phillips at the Opera House in that city. The Enquirer, a Democratic paper, says: "The announcement that Wendell Phillips would speak at the Opera House last night caused much speculation upon the streets.- Threats of disturbance were common, and the prediction that he would not be permitted to address his audience was in the mouth of everybody. Yet it is apparent that no one believed that any serious attempt to molest him would be made, for a large audience of ladies and gentlemen, representing all shades of political faith, were gathered soon after the doors were opened. How soon these hopes were crushed, and how outrageous the disturbance, will soon be seen. "Mr. Phillips was accompanied by the following gentlemen, who occupied seats upon the stage: Messrs. Samuel Reed, editor of the Gazette ; John P. Foote, William Goodman, Judge Stallo, Orson Murray and William Green. "When Mr. Phillips stepped upon the stage he was greeted with a tumult of mingled groans, hisses and cheers, the latter greatly predominating and subduing the former. "When they had subsided Judge Stallo walked to the stand and began to introduce the speaker to his audience. The remarks of the Judg were facetious and full of pleasantry, comparing Mr. Phillips to a piece of artillery, the report of which had disturbed the quiet of the Potomac. MR. PHILLIPS' SPEECH. "When Mr. Phillips arose to speak, he walked to the foot amidst a volley of hisses which, like the first, was drowned in the cheers of his friends. He said: " 'I have been invited, ladies and gentlemen, to speak to you on the war-the convulsion which has divided the Union for a year, and threatens, in the opinion of some, to divide it forever. No more serious subject can engage the attention of the American people, for I believe that within six months, perhaps within the coming hundred days, we, the people, are to decide what the future of these thirty-four States is to be. Certainly no question of deeper import can be presented to an American audience. It is easy to say that the war came no man knows how, and that it was the fault of this man or of that party, and that it will end in ninety days or a year. But I believe that the war is no man's fault, that it is the work of neither section. It will not end in our day, and it will be a fortunate Providence if our children can look around upon a clear sky and a united country. "'I believe the war to be the result of a seventy years struggle with one idea. It comes to us as a duty which God lays upon this generation. Two or three questions spring out of the present state of things.— How long will the war last? What will become of slavery? What will become of the Union? In regard to the first question none can answer. We are entering upon the great struggle which no people have ever avoided -a struggle between the few and the many -a struggle between aristocracy and democracy. The North represents a democracy, founded on brains and money; the South an aristocracy, founded on slave labor-an aristocracy whose right hand is negro slavery, and whose left is the ignorant white man.' "At this point a heavy boulder was thrown from the third tier of boxes. It struck a few feet from the speaker. It came crashing among the footlights like a cannon shot. Simultaneously with the boulder came a couple of eggs, that burst like bombs, dispensing a perfume more potent than fragrant. One of these odorous missiles struck the speaker.- The eggs were thrown from the left of the second tier, and were accompanied by a series of yells, like nothing unless it be the war whoop of a score of infuriated Indians:- 'Down with the traitor,' 'Egg the nigger Phillips,' and a dozen other opprobrious epithets. It is due to Mr. Philips to say that he stood calm and collected, without moving a muscle or flinching an inch. [[/column 1] [[column 2]] "When the tumult had somewhat subsided, the speaker resumed his discourse. 'Allow me one word more. I do not know what that fellow-man meant who sent that stone, but I meant no insult to the non-slave-holding white man of the South. I sympathize with them, for they suffer from a despotism whose right hand is power and whose left hand is ignorance. If South Carolina ever sees the utmost exaltation of her masses, it will be when the Stars and Stripes guaranty freedo[[m]] to every member of the thirty-four States. There are many things which American citizens cannot do, and one thing which I know they cannot do, and that is to prevent this belt of the American continent from being, in seventy years or less time, one country, governed by one sceptre, indissoluble as granite. For thirty years I have been an abolitionist and nothing else.' [The hisses which had been intermittent, here became like a perfect hurricane ] A TREMENDOUS TUMULT. "As soon as his voice became audible Mr. Phillips retorted: "'Before we Yankees went to Roanoke and Potomac we tutored ourselves to respect free speech, and I know that you will grant it to me. For sixteen years I had been a disunionist.' [At this word the row became general; eggs were thrown ad libitum, and the stage was odorous with their disgusting fragrance. Sulphurated hydrogen was the popular perfume, and it was long before Mr. Phillips could gain a hearing. When he attempted to explain the obnoxious phrase, he was so inaudible amid the general tumult that we could not report his words.] The Commercial (Union) labored under no such difficulty, for we find in that paper the following report of the very words used by Mr. Phillips in this part of his speech: "Mr. Phillips stated in so many words that he was an abolitionist, and that he had for fifteen years been a disunionist ; but now he was satisfied that the Union meant justice to all men and races, and he was for it-for the measures that in his opinion were essential to its safety.-Any one of our citizens could have made the same remarks to a mass meeting in the market-place without exciting a demonstrative antagonism. But a mob had been organised, and was ravenous for mischief." MR. PHILLIPS RESUMES. [The Enquirer's report continues:] "He resumed-To-day the contest takes the form of battle. The war is nothing to me as an abolitionist. It has no more interest to me as such than a novel has to you after you have found the hero and heroine happily married on the last page. Whatever your opinion may be, mine is that slavery has received its death blow in the house of its friends. The American people have opened that page of their history which will record the death of slavery. In due time and after a reasonable interval, slavery will die. The cry has been 'Cotton is King.' South Carolina dragged Lyons and Lancaster to her feet, and said, 'Babies, keep quiet.' She has starved them for eleven months, but at last accounts they were doing quite well. "Another idea w[[a]]s that the North would not fight. South Carolina had tried that on in miniature, when she pitted Missouri against Kansas. When their orchards were grubbed up, the Yankees went home to New England and begged rifles. Let the war continue twenty-four months, and McClellan will be a jayhawker. The third idea of the death of slavery is derived from the message of the President. I believe the President is an honest man, but a very slow one. He desires to stand between the parties, and finding which way the tide was setting, he warned the border states that now was their time to sell. "Mr. Phillips continued to speak for over an hour, but the melee in the second tier created so much confusion that we should not be able to do him much justice, did we attempt to report him further. "Cries and execrations resounded from all parts of the house. Eggs were occassionally hurled at the stage, one of which struck Mr. Murray. "The cries of 'Lynch the traitor.' 'Hang the Nigger,' 'Tar and Feather the Abolitionist,' (we omit the profanity. Ladies and timorous gentlemen made their escape. THE END. "The stage was in confusion,and gentlemen [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] from the audience mounted it as a favorable stand point from which to witness the row. The speaker vainly continued to speak, but could not be heard. "The rowdies came down stairs with cries of 'Let us take the stage,''Lynch him,' 'Put out the gas.' When they reached the middle aisle the riot became general, stools and umbrellas were freely used. Some ladies fainted and others scrambled ungracefully over bench tops. Mr. Pike and other gentlemen were struck while endeavoring to keep the peace. It being probable that some of the evil-disposed would find the 'gas-stop,' and put out the lights, in which case the loss of life would have been frightful, Mr. Phillips was induced to cease speaking and the meeting was dispersed. Both exits from the opera house [[w]]ere beset by gangs determined to lynch the obnoxious speaker. After some delay he was disguised and passed out through the crowd undetected, but it was well on to midnight before the rowdies left the vicinity of the Opera House." The Commercial's account adds : "The ladies, of whom there were several hundred, had passed through the exciting scenes with exemplary equanimity, but now began to leave in large numbers, the men accompanying them crowding through the mob close packed about the doors[[.]] Mr. Phillips continued to speak for some time, and succeeded in making himself heard by most of those present. At length he remarked [[t]]hat as he had spoken for an hour and a half, and had passed over the ground which he had intended to discuss, and as his voice was inadequate for further speaking, he would close. "Large crowds lingered on the sidewalks ; drunken men, threatening to lay violent hands on the orator of the evening. One of them brandished a large knife in front of the Opera House, and avowed his purpose of committing murder. Mr. Phillips, however, left the building unobserved." [[line]] Seventy-Five Guerrillas Captured. [[short line]] Gen. Halleck transmitted the following dispatch to Headquarters, at Washington: ST. LOUIS, March 24, 1862. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War : A detachment of First Iowa Cavalry, sent out from Jefferson City by Brig. Gen. Totten against a guerrilla band, had a skirmish with the enemy, killing two, wounding one, and taking seventy-five prisoners, over twenty horses, forty-eight kegs of powder, and a number of arms captured. Our loss, four wounded. H. W. HALLECK, Major General. [[line]] -While George Nutter, of Branston, N.H., was teasing a horse, the indigent animal bit his nose off close to his face. HORRIBLE.-Several correspondents who have been to Bull Run within the last week assert that they have found numerous human skeletons, left unburied after the battle. Some of the people in the neighborhood also assert that some of the bodies were stripped of flesh and the bones carried off as trophies by the rebels. Fremont has been most bitterly censured for the inevitable expenses for accomplishing what he was required to do in Missouri and the Western Department. Yet Mclellan's personal expenses, "for which there is nothing to show except the Tax bill," amounts to more than 20 per cent. of the entire expenses of the Western Department under Major General Fremont. A correspondent of the New Haven Journal, in a letter from Roanoke Island to that paper, says that in one company of the Wise Legion, out of sixty-four men but seven only could sign their names, and in another of the same legion, out of fifty-eight men but five were able to accomplish it. Yet these are the men who scorn our free, educated Northern mechanics. [[/column 3]]]
Transcription Notes:
Judg or Judge? Slave-holding or slaveholding?
