The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873Headley, Joel Tyler
History
The Great Riots of New York, 1712 to 1873
Headley, Joel Tyler
Draft Riot, New York, N.Y., 1863; New York (N.Y.) -- History; Riots -- New York (State) -- New York
The idle crowd had all day Sunday to talk over this call. Everywhere
knots of men were seen gathered before these placards--some spelling
out slowly, and with great difficulty, the words for themselves--others
reading the call to those unable to read it. The groggeries were filled
with excited men, talking over the meeting, and interspersing their
oaths with copious draughts of liquor, and threatening openly to teach
these rich oppressors a lesson they would not soon forget.
There was something ominous in the hour selected for the meeting; four
o'clock in February meant night, before it would get under full headway.
It was evident that the leaders did not mean the meeting to be one of
mere speech-making. They knew that under cover of darkness, men could be
incited to do what in broad daylight they would be afraid to undertake.
Before the time appointed, a crowd began to assemble, the character of
which boded no good. Dirty, ragged, and rough-looking, as they flowed
from different quarters together into the inclosure, those who composed
it were evidently a mob already made to hand.
At length, four or five thousand shivering wretches were gathered in
front of the City Hall. Moses Jacques, a man who would make a good
French Communist to-day, was chosen chairman. But this motley multitude
had no idea or respect for order, or regular proceedings, and they broke
up into different groups, each pushing forward its favorite orator.
One of the strangest freaks of this meeting, was an address to a
collection of Democrats by Alexander Ming, Jr. He forgot all about the
object of the meeting, and being a strong Bentonian, launched out into
the currency question, attributing all the evils of the Republic, past,
present, and to come, to the issue of bank-notes; and advising his
hearers to refuse to take the trash altogether, and receive nothing but
specie. This was the more comical, as not one out of ten of the poor
wretches he addressed had the chance to refuse either. Half starving,
they would have been glad to receive anything in the shape of money that
would help them through the hard winter. Yet when Mr. Ming offered a
resolution, proposing a memorial to the Legislature, requiring a law to
be passed, forbidding any bank to issue a note under the denomination
of a hundred dollars, the deluded people, who had been listening
with gaping mouths, rent the air with acclamations. It was a curious
exhibition of the wisdom of the sovereign people--this verdict of a
ragged mob on the currency question. They were so delighted with this
lucid exposition of the cause of the scarcity of flour, that they seized
the orator bodily, and elevating him on their shoulders, bore him across
the street to Tammany Hall, where something beside specie was received
from behind the bar to reward their devotion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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