The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
The relation of Dr. Bailey to a journal which was regarded by the
slave-owners as the organ of their worst enemies made him a marked man,
and called him to endure severe and unexpected ordeals. In 1836, his
opponents incited against him the memorable mob, whose first act was the
secret destruction of his press at midnight. Soon after the riot raged
openly, and not only destroyed the remaining contents of his
printing-office, but the building itself. Mr. Birney, being the older
and more conspicuous of the offenders, was of course more emphatically
the object of the mob's wrath than the junior associate. But the latter
shared with him the personal perils of the day, while bearing the brunt
of the pecuniary losses. As is usual in such outbreaks, after three days
of fury, the lawless spirit of the people subsided. There was a
repetition of violence in 1840, however, and during another three days'
reign of terror two more presses were destroyed. But such was the
indomitable energy of the man in whose person and property the
constitutional liberty of the press was thus assailed, that in three
weeks the Philanthropist was again before the public, sturdily defending
the truth it was established to proclaim; and this, be it remembered,
when the press-work of even weekly journals was not let out, in
Cincinnati, as jobs for "lightning presses," but was done in the
proprietors' own offices, on presses to be obtained only from distant
manufactories.
It was in this year that the Liberty party, of which Dr. Bailey was a
prominent leader, entered for the first time into the Presidential
contest, with James G. Birney as its candidate.
Not yet satiated, the spirit of mob violence manifested itself a third
time in 1843; but it was suppressed by the interference of the military
power, and its demonstration was followed by a growth of liberal
sentiment altogether unlooked for. Availing himself of this favorable
change, Dr. Bailey started a daily paper to which the name of "The
Herald" was given.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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