Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 2

[218] they leave the hall and make their way through the rioters in the streets. Again the colonizationists exult in the persecution of the abolitionists, excusing it on the ground of the mixed colors in the audience and on the streets.¹ R. J. Breckinridge, addressing a colonization gathering in Philadelphia, asserts that Pennsylvania² Hall was built expressly for the propagation of felony— intermarriage, namely, between the two races—against which the law should have been invoked as much as against the mob. His Quaker ally, Elliott Cresson, as foreman of the Grand Jury, follows the Alton example³ in presenting both the rioters and the abolitionists, and returns approvingly to the court sundry petitions against the rebuilding of the hall, ‘under the full persuasion that “the peace, tranquillity, and safety” of the community will be endangered by its reconstruction.’ Finally, once more there is an answer to the foolish and heartless taunt—‘Why don't you go South?’ The Boston abolitionists pass from Mayor Lyman to Mayor Swift—⁴ southward, to a city, on the border of slave territory, frequented by Southerners. As little as in the city of Faneuil Hall is speech free, or life or property secure, in the city of Independence Hall—that hall now a ⁵ courtroom from which fugitives are sent back to bondage. Boston, in its turn, attempted to copy the example of Philadelphia. Marlboroa Chapel, the analogue of ⁶ Pennsylvania Hall in its conception, was completed nearly at the same time. Its dedication was appointed for the ensuing week. On May 25, Mr. Garrison writes to G. W. Benson:

The spirit of mobocracy, like the pestilence, is contagious; and Boston is once more ready to re-enact the riotous scenes of 1835. The Marlboroa Chapel, having just been completed,