Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[291] Hall. A sporting-house which he opened became a Democratic rendezvous and the headquarters of the Empire Club, an organization of roughs and desperadoes who acknowledged his ‘captaincy.’ His campaigning in behalf of Polk and Dallas in 1844 secured him the friendly¹ patronage of the successful candidate for Vice-President,² and he took office as Weigher in the Custom-house of the metropolis. He found time, while thus employed, to engineer the Astor Place riot on behalf of the actor³ Forrest against his English rival Macready, on May 10, 1849, and the year 1850 opened with his trial for this⁴ atrocity and his successful defence by John Van Buren. On February 16 he and his Club broke up an anti-Wilmot⁵ Proviso meeting in New York—a seeming inconsistency, but it was charged against Rynders that he had offered⁶ to ‘give the State of New York to Clay’ in the election of 1844 for $30,000, and met with a reluctant refusal. In March he was arrested for a brutal assault on a gentleman⁷ in a hotel, but the victim and the witnesses found it prudent not to appear against a ruffian who did not hesitate to threaten the district-attorney in open court. Meanwhile, the new Whig Administration quite justifiably discharged Rynders from the Custom-house, leaving him free to pose as a saviour of the Union against traitors—a saviour of society against blasphemers and infidels wherever encountered. There was a manifest disinterestedness, therefore, in his vindication, at the Tabernacle, of the President who had thrown him back upon his resources as a blackleg and bravo. We left him pushing his way to the front of the platform, with menace in his stride, his uplifted arm, the bellow of his voice. This, according to the Herald, was what greeted Mr. Garrison's ear:

Captain Rynders (clenching his fist)—I will not allow⁸ you to assail the President of the United States. You shan't do it (shaking his fist at Mr. Garrison).

many voices—Turn him out, turn him out!

Captain Rynders—If a million of you were there, I would