Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863

What though thou beholdest her the bride of another, her own heart blinded so that she cannot see aright! She is thine through all the countless years of thy immortality! His but for a brief and fleeting season! He holds his treasure in a trembling, uncertain grasp. Change may separate her heart from his; death may wrest it from him; the grave cover her form forever from his sight; but neither Time, nor Change, nor Death – nothing in the present world, or in that which is to come, shall be able to separate thee from the soul that was formed for thine! She is his by man's frail and perishing enactments; thine by the great law of attraction, by the immutable decrees of God. Seeing now, with the eye of the spirit, the frail uncertain nature of the happiness which he fondly dreamed was founded on a rock, sorrow and envy left me, and I could pity him as one deluded; and with a strange triumphant feeling, I pressed forward and imprinted the first kiss on the pure brow of my heart's chosen as the bride of another. Was she dimly, vaguely conscious for a moment of the nature of the attraction that bound our souls together, as she clung tearfully to me for an instant, murmuring a loving farewell? It has given me comfort through all the long years that have passed since then, to think so. She leaned from the carriage, her sweet eyes meeting mine in a sad adieu. I looked my last then on the face of the mortal Jennie. But in a land of perpetual summer, lighted by the smile of God, robed in garments of everlasting light, faithful and true, there awaits me Jennie the immortal! She knows it all now. Those bright seraphic eyes lighted with heaven-born love, have turned from celestial light to mark my gloomy wanderings. When she died, there was added to the band of ministering spirits the one whose silent influence was most powerful for good, most potent to aid me in overcoming evil. I have been better and purer since then. She possesses some mystic power to make me feel her presence, and to draw me toward her.

Slowly, very slowly, the feeling of solitude and isolation departed from me, and I am not lonely now; bright unseen visitants soothe my solitude; their noiseless steps break not its solemn stillness; soft hands clasp mine; where'er I move, the spirit of loving companionship is with me. Ah! to the eyes and ears of the aged, whose material perceptions are closing forever on the sights and sounds of earth, there come, borne across the dark-waved river on whose brink they stand, sounds from the other side; and ever and anon the mist that broods there lifts and parts itself, revealing radiant but imperfect glimpses of the promised land beyond.

Ere long the shadow will pass from these dimmed eyes forever, and I shall look on what she looks in heaven.

I have lived the allotted time of man's probation. The days of the years of my pilgrimage are drawing to a close. It cannot be long now! A few months, it may be years, of patient endurance —

And then – Then!

THE GREAT RIOT

On Monday, the 13th day of July, 1863, the national conscription was proceeding in two districts of New York city. By Monday night the buildings and the blocks in which the provost marshals had their respective offices had been burned to the ground by a furious rabble, whose onset the police had in vain attempted to stay, and the great metropolis of North America was at the mercy of a raging mob, which roamed through the streets, robbing, beating, burning, murdering where they would.

By Tuesday the police had thoroughly organized, and the trial of strength between mob-law and authority began. Night closed over a still unconquered, defiant, law-contemning insurrection.

On Wednesday the public conveyances of the city were stopped, the places of business mostly closed, while the rioters alternated between hanging negroes, burning their houses, and plundering generally, on the one hand, and fighting the military on the other. Thursday the final struggle ensued, and when Friday dawned, though not until then, was the city fairly delivered from the hands of the insurgents, and restored to its wonted order. Now all is tranquil, and save the occasional ruins, the groans of the wounded in the hospitals, the agony of those who have lost friends or homes in the struggle, and the diminished number of the blacks, little remains to attest the scenes of terror through which New York has passed.

Whence came this riot? From what causes did it spring? Was it, indeed, a part of the great Southern rebellion, instigated by the emissaries of Jefferson Davis? Was it instigated by the Catholic Church as a part of their scheme for the reconstruction of the Church in America, and for obtaining the overthrow of republican institutions as a preliminary means to this end? Was it the work of unprincipled politicians, who wish to put a stop to the war, in order to carry out their ambitious plans by the aid of their Southern allies, and who thought that by stopping the draft they could stop the war? Was it the work of plunderers and thieves who inflamed the passions of the people, and incited them to deeds of violence, that they might rob in security? Did it spring from the honest indignation of the poorer classes, who deemed they were wronged by the $300 exemption clause? Or, finally, was it a reaction against supposed injustice on the part of men who believed that the forcing of individuals to fight against their will was contrary to the very genius of our institutions and our government, which recognizes the right of each person, according to his understanding, to the pursuit of happiness absolutely in his own way? Each one of these has been loudly urged as the undoubted cause of the difficulty. Let us probe the matter with care, and ascertain the source of the disturbance.

It is one of the vices of our political system, not yet remedied, that it holds out great inducements to unscrupulous and ambitious men to deceive the ignorant and credulous masses, in order to obtain their good will and their votes. This deception has necessarily to be practised, moreover, concerning the individuals and the things in regard to which the highest interests of the people demand they should not be deceived. For the wicked and designing politician knows that good men, who really have the interest of the people at heart, will not elect him to office. On the contrary, they will expose his true character and unmask his deception to the poor dupes whom he is cajoling and deluding. Hence the necessity, on the part of such men, of putting a complete barrier between the really good portion of the community and the ignorant and weak, who most need their assistance. The politician of this stamp resorts, therefore, to every means in his power to destroy the confidence of the lower classes in the higher. He succeeds in convincing the thoughtless portion of the masses that the respectable and comfortable citizen is his enemy and cares not for his condition, while he himself is the poor man's friend, watchful over his interests, and carefully guarding him from the designs of his foe. Thus the isolation of the ignorant, the wretched, and the depraved, from the benevolent, the sympathetic, and the wise is completed, and the wily politician has his victim and voter secure within his grasp.

In no way is the coöperation of the simple-minded and ignorant man more easily secured and his faith more firmly riveted than, by flattering his vanity and treating him as the peer of others infinitely his superiors. The fundamental principle of our political fabric, the political equality of all men, has afforded ample opportunity for designing persons to mislead the uninformed among the mass, and to make them believe that political equality means social, intellectual, and moral equality, that all are in fact equal in all respects in society, and that their rights are infringed by their exclusion from such recognition.

But while plying the people with the most levelling dogmas of equality, it is the equality of the white race only that has been affirmed by the crafty demagogue. The efforts for the enfranchisement of the negro have been eagerly seized upon to widen still further the breach between the intelligent and the ignorant. The thoughtless among the masses have been persistently taught that the emancipation of the negro would result in his coming North, that this would bring him in as a competitor in the struggle for life, already so arduous and harassing, and that, consequently, the emancipation of the black was a direct blow at the interests of the poor white laboring man. When the present national conflict began, and the politicians of the cunning, unscrupulous school thought they saw it to be their interest to gain favor with the South, they opposed the war, and sought to league the populace on their side by raising the cry that the contest was for emancipation, not for saving the Union. And now, when all other efforts to end the struggle in favor of the South are unavailing, they have fastened on the prevention of the draft as the 'last ditch' in which to make a final stand and risk a last battle.

They have summoned all their forces to the field in this contest. They urge the poor man to resist the conscription, because it infringes the equality of the citizen and makes an invidious distinction between the rich and the poor. They teach him that he is being forced from fireside and friends, while others no better than himself are left at home; that his family are left destitute by his absence, while others remain to protect and support their dependants; that he is forced to do this in a war which has for its principal object the liberation of a people whom he believes he has every cause to hate, and who will become, on their liberation, his rivals in the race where suffering and perhaps starvation await the loser. Is it any wonder that they broke the wheel, scattered the names, and burnt the enrolling offices – that they plundered and murdered the negroes?

The New York riot had its active origin, nucleus, and strength in a feeling of bitter injustice, entertained by ignorant, simple-minded, crude men, the lowest class of our population, who had been deliberately deceived in relation to facts, by unscrupulous politicians, for ambitious purposes. They had been inflamed with wrath by supposed wrong; their worst passions were aroused, they had lost their self-control, and became reckless. It matters little whether the actual hostilities began by a spontaneous outburst of anger, when the passions had simmered a long time; or whether the emissaries of the politicians actually incited to the specific act at a preconcerted period. The responsibility of the latter is noways diminished if no such intervention occurred; the essential nature of the outbreak is the same if it did. Had there not been this deep-seated feeling of wrong on the part of a portion of the people, the instigations of the emissaries would have met no response. The sinew of the insurrection was this honest resentment of fancied injury.

Everything goes to prove that, in the outset, so far as the original active rioters were concerned, the draft was the immediate cause of the disturbance. They first burnt one provost marshal's office, and then proceeded a mile or more to burn another. Then they burnt the colored asylum. This was the first day's work mainly. There is no adequate explanation of the hatred exhibited to the negro throughout this riot, other than the supposition that the mob, or rather that portion of it who were abusing the blacks, believed that they were being forced from their homes in the service of a war, the object and purpose of which was the liberation of the negroes, and that, therefore, in a certain sense, the colored people were the cause of their being drafted. The peculiar feature of this mob, as contrasted with ordinary ones, was this bitterness against the negro.

On the succeeding days, however, the elements of the mob changed. The same nucleus remained, but other constituents were added to it. Thieves and plunderers joined it, for the sole purpose doubtless of robbing in safety; probably the first peacebreakers themselves, not ordinarily pilferers, carried off the articles of value, which were scattered among the ruins their rage had created. Scheming politicians fanned the flame which their teachings had already lit; the journals which are almost undisguisedly in favor of a dishonorable peace, and of a return of the Southern States with slavery untouched, skilfully incited, while seeming to discourage, the now rum-maddened and blood-drunken fiends; the idle, the vicious, the curious joined the throng, and the motives of the mob became as varied and diverse as its elements. Some hoped to stop the draft and remain unmolested at home. Others hoped to stop the draft, in order to stop the war, and enable them to say to the South, We have prevented your subjugation: give us our political reward. Some hoped to overthrow all law and order, that they might revel in the wealth they could then sequester. The great mass probably neither knew nor cared to what end they tended – their worst passions were aroused and controlled them; they luxuriated in violence and bloodshed, and their brutal instincts were satisfied.

That the riot had any significant religious characteristics is not probable. Catholics were in it and of it, and so were Protestants. The mob was composed principally of those who scout all pretence of religion of any kind, and who are as little influenced by the priest as the negligent Protestant is by the preacher. Had it been otherwise, the priest who endeavored to get the body of Colonel O'Brien would have easily prevailed; for no church-going Catholics would refuse, in their wildest frenzy, the request of a priest for the possession of a dying man. That there are honest bigots in the Catholic Church who believe that within her pale only is safety for the human race, who believe, furthermore, that republican institutions are incompatible with her full supremacy, and rejoice, therefore, with holy zeal, at anything which seems to indicate their instability, is doubtless true. Some such individuals may have been among the rioters, urging them on in their frenzied work. But the manly, sincere, and indignant castigation given by the Catholic priesthood to the wretched miscreants on the Sunday following the disturbances, precludes any possibility of suspicion that the Church was either aware of the intended uprising, or that it approved the purposes or actions of the mob.

In deciding, then, as to the real character and purpose of the rioters, two distinct classes of persons must be taken into account: those actively engaged in insurgent proceedings, and those who, not appearing on the scene of action, incited and sustained the former in their demonstrations.

That the motives and purposes of the one class were different from those of the other, has been already indicated. The main object of the parties in the background, who had constantly been fomenting discord, was undoubtedly to aid the cause of the Southern rebellion, with whom they sympathize, not perhaps because they care for the South, but because they think their own interests demand its coöperation. The chief design of the first peacebreakers was to stop the draft, that they might not be forced away from home to fight, against their wishes. That they knew the real designs of their instigators, or that they had any prompters to the specific acts which inaugurated the riot, is not probable; that, after the commencement of the sedition, they were joined by such, and urged to further violence, cannot be doubted.

The insurrection had not, therefore, in its largest proportions, one single distinctive purpose, and was not the work of one set of men. It was a rising against the draft, but not wholly so. It was a blow in aid of the South, though not this only. It was a thieves' tumult, but that was not all. It was all of these, with some other ingredients, previously mentioned, the whole clustering and crystallizing around a nucleus of crude, ignorant, hard-working, passionate, rough, turbulent men, deceived by the adroit misrepresentations of interested persons, until, driven to madness by a sense of supposed injustice, they believed themselves justified in securing redress by the only means they knew.

Shall we stop here in our analysis of the nature and constituents of the New York mob? Have we yet discovered the fundamental causes which produced the riot, so that we shall be able to prevent such recurrences in the future? Or have we in reality only penetrated the crust of the question, and ascertained the immediate and superficial causes, not the radical and basic ones? The latter is the case. We have thus far seen the apparent and proximate causes merely – which brought to the surface, at the present time, a riotous disposition, always existent in the community, a volcano slumbering and smouldering, ever ready to burst forth and deluge society with its withering and destroying lava, whenever the flame is fitly fanned. Until we know the source of this riotous tendency in a portion of our population, the deeper cause of this recent outbreak, as of all our outbreaks, we are yet ignorant of the true sources of the frightful disturbance which our social order has sustained, in any such sense as makes a knowledge of causes practically available for remedy and cure.

Whether the preceding analysis of the mob be a true one or not, therefore; whether it were a part of the great Southern rebellion, brought about by rebel agents from abroad or living in our midst; or an outbreak of indignation against a law supposed to be unjust; or a riot of thieves, whose main purpose was plunder; or a politicians' bubble merely; – whether it were any or all of these, or something different from these or more than these; in any of these cases, we are yet at the threshold of our inquiry concerning it. We must go back over some ground which we have cursorily traversed, and look closer at the elements of society, to find a fitting solution to the spirit and conduct of the mob. Men are not given to acts of atrocious brutality, to frightful rage, or to wanton rapine, without the existence of some cause for their proceedings. However depraved a few individuals may be, the love of doing outrageous things for the mere sake of doing them is not natural to the human race. If there had not existed some deep feeling of supposed injustice on the part of the masses engaged in the sedition, coupled with the habitual misery of their lives, the wild frenzy of July would have been impossible. If the multitude had been rightly informed and judiciously cared for, neither the politicians nor the rebel emissaries could have stirred them to insurrection, nor thieves have gained their assistance and support.

The cause of the turbulent spirit exhibited in a large class of our population is, principally, the sense of pecuniary insecurity in which they live; the fear lest by an overabundance in the supply of labor, or by the disability of the laborer, they should be unable to get the means of living for themselves and their families. The writer of this article was impelled, by the duties of his profession, to spend his entire time, save the hours of sleep, during the days of the riot and the two weeks subsequent, among the active insurgents, in the neighborhood of the conflicts, and in other situations, which gave him peculiar advantages for knowing the nature of the mob and the causes of its actions. The prevailing complaint among the first active insurgents, and their sympathizers among the poor, was that they were about to be forced away from home to fight for the freedom of the blacks, who when free would become their competitors for the little they now earn. In listening to the knots gathered at the corners, to the conversation among the inhabitants of the most violently riotous districts, the words which fell oftenest upon the ear were those of bitter, burning, blasting denunciation against the apathy of the rich, who, while enjoying the comforts of a competency, are forgetful of the continuous, persistent, hopeless, never-to-be-relieved, and crushing poverty of the poor, with its inevitable accompaniments. The writer does not hesitate to affirm, that but for this sense of the insecurity of their means of living, and the mistaken notions which had been instilled into them in regard to the negroes and the object of this war, as increasing still further this insecurity – a deception to which their ignorance, the necessary result of their present pecuniary conditions, even were there no other causes for it, renders them at all times liable – they could not have been incited to the recent sedition.

It is not easy for men who do not feel the daily and hourly pressure of poverty, to comprehend the constant solicitude which weighs upon the indigent. It is still less easy for them to understand the intensely practical point of view from which the poor must regard every question submitted to them, and the equally practical and speedy solution which they must find to problems of social interest presented for their consideration. The citizen who is comfortably situated in relation to money matters, can afford to look at the result which any social, economical, or mechanical change will introduce in his affairs with reference to a period of time more or less extended into the future. The man who has no capital, who literally earns his daily bread, and whose ability to gain a livelihood for himself and his family depends upon his constant, unintermitted labor, is in no condition to look at any aspect of any question but in the one, vital, all-important view of his personal necessities. Anything which stops his work, for a week even, is destructive to him, no matter how beneficial its after results may promise to be. The binding force of dire necessity coerces him into this position; and even were he intelligent enough to see that all progress, no matter how destructive to particular departments of industry at first, eventually benefits all classes and all individuals, he cannot afford to consider the question from this stand-point, if it affects his immediate occupation. The benefits of progress must be of secondary importance to an individual, when the present issue which the case presents to him is starvation or work. If the proposed improvement is liable to throw him out of employment for even a brief period, he must look upon it as a hostile invader and resist its introduction. It is this insecurity of social condition, therefore, which has always arrayed a portion of the masses against the introduction of new inventions, improvements in machinery, and labor-saving appliances of all descriptions, and which has caused the riots and violent demonstrations which, at times, have accompanied the first use of new mechanical contrivances. One of the first results of the introduction of labor-saving machinery is to throw a large number of people temporarily out of employment. This is forcibly felt by the ignorant masses. They are not educated enough to see that this first result is more than counterbalanced by subsequent benefits; – indeed, it is still a debated question with many people of ordinary intelligence whether, on account of the large number of people primarily deprived of occupation, labor-saving machinery be a benefit to society; – and if they were so educated, their immediate necessities cannot be satisfied with this solution. The same is true in regard to the abolition of slavery. One of the first fruits of this measure will be, as they believe, to cause a large number of negroes to emigrate North. This is the practical point of the question which the poor and ignorant see. The results of this immigration have been magnified to them; a statement of the counteracting tendencies has been withheld by those interested in fomenting discord, or if not withheld, they do not see these as operating immediately on their condition, and hence regard them as practically not existing.

It is, therefore, the wretched material condition of the poorer masses and the ignorance, stupidity, brutality, and degradation accompanying these, together with the apathy of the rich and intelligent classes to their situation, which are the latent causes of our social broils, the recent riot included. In speaking of the pecuniary conditions and the sufferings of the lowest masses, let it be understood that no reference is intended to the present economical relations of labor and price, as compared with those of other times. I refer to the status of the poorest classes in society; to the miserable method of their lives, always wretched, ever burdensome, with but one source of temporary relief within their means, the grogshop, which deepens their misery; to their hopeless degradation and perpetual ignorance, under present social arrangements, whether labor be a little higher for a time or not. On the other hand, in referring to the apathy of the rich and intelligent classes, I do not charge them with a want of large benevolence on the ordinary charitable plane, but to something far different, as will appear in the sequel.

It is time, then, that the intelligent and opulent classes began to reflect upon the nature of the community in which they live, and upon the conditions of their neighbors; not, as heretofore, in a casual way, and without any intention of thoroughly considering the question, or doing anything to remedy radically the defects which they may discover, but in the spirit of desire and determination to relieve the masses permanently of burdens which press heavily upon them, to rescue them from the persistent deception of the intriguing demagogues whose snares are winding closer and closer around them, and to unite in bonds of respect and mutual assistance the physical substratum of society with the moral, intellectual, and substantial. The scenes of the New York riot are a solemn warning that the time has come when society must begin in earnest the work of lifting the masses out of their degradation, their squalor, their ignorance, and their poverty, or the lowest classes, driven to desperation, will make the attempt, at least, to drag society down to their level. The doctrine of equality has been pushed to its utmost in the hands of political cajolers, until the practical logic of the crude multitude, spurred to its intellectual conclusions by physical necessity, asks, What sort of equality is that which keeps the largest portion of the people in want, while the smaller rolls in plenty? So long as the estrangement of the lower classes from their natural directors and advisers continues, so long will these dangerous distortions of truth be powerful weapons in the hands of unfeeling men, whose interests and purposes are subserved by deception. And this estrangement will never cease until the intelligence and wealth of the community withdraw the allegiance of the masses from tricksters and schemers, and transfer it to themselves by the inauguration of such methods of social amelioration as shall convince the multitude of the falsity of the demagogue's teaching, and satisfy them of the fact that the higher classes have really their welfare at heart, and are anxious for their comfort and happiness. When this is done, the ignorant population will no longer be leagued on the side of falsehood, no longer stand the steady opponents of that progress which is so beneficial to themselves. The argument of practical help will have convinced them who their true friends are, and neither the rebel emissary, the dishonest politician, nor the thief will be able to stir them to insurrection, nor control them to the opposition of salutary and judicious laws.

The kind of relationship which must exist between the rich and benevolent classes and the ignorant poor, must be a closer one in the future than has ever been in the past, and of a different character. In earlier times the isolation and separation which are common between the various orders of society in America, were unknown. There are many countries in which the powerful and opulent feel an obligation resting upon them to be the guardians and social providence of the weak and the humble. Hence the two classes are united to each other by ties of respect and order on the part of the indigent, and of care and protection on the part of the wealthy. The sense of pecuniary insecurity is there little felt, and the ignorant poor are not left to the machinations of any trickster whose interest it may be to deceive them. It is for this reason that even in societies where the oppression of the poor and weak is, in other ways, infinitely greater than in this country, riots and seditions are difficult to create. It is because of the social providence which, theoretically, and, in an appreciable degree, practically, the Southern master extends over his slaves, that it is so difficult to arouse them to insurrection. True, in the case of the slave and the landed peasant, the security from physical want is purchased by the sacrifice of other and higher advantages, but to a large proportion of the ignorant and the weak the means of life are more important than any other blessings.

In accordance with the spirit of our institutions, we enter as equals into the competitive struggle of life, where all cannot be gainers, and where it is inevitable that the strong and the intelligent should succeed, while the feeble and the ignorant must fail. But as both classes have been admitted freely into the race, there is no feeling on the part of the winners of duty or obligation toward the losers. If one chooses to be charitable, he may; if not, society has no claim upon him, no right to expect that he will make the care of others a part of his duty or his business. Thus the community is arrayed in two great classes: the intelligent, the strong in mind, and those of larger capacities, who, as a class, are rich, on the one side; and the ignorant, the weak-minded, the crude, who, as a body, are poor, on the other. A great gulf separates these two classes, who have nothing in common, and society rests on a social basis composed of forlorn, dissatisfied, ignorant people, developing day by day still more the accompaniments of ignorance and poverty – brutality, viciousness, drunkenness, and ferocity. This separation has too long continued, has too long left the country a prey to political demagogues, who have plunged it into repeated turmoils, and finally into civil war, by being able to operate upon the fears and feelings of the ignorant, deprived of all natural and proper guidance. It is a question, not only of duty, but of safety, for the rich and intelligent, whether they will suffer the lower orders to remain in their wretchedness and sullen dissatisfaction, sinking daily into still deeper degradation, and engendering still more bitter hatred; or whether they will accept their proper position as the organized guides and permanent social providence of the weak, and faithfully perform its functions.