Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1

[334] 3d day of the month, we might have supposed every man to know that a meeting was to be protected against a mob, that the duty of the police was not to settle disputed questions and motions, but only to see that they were argued out without violence,--that they were there to arrest any man who committed an assault. The absurdity of turning the Convention out of doors to quiet its tumult, is the method of a quack who stabs his patient in order to cure the disease.

But our Mayor, poor as he is, did know all this. He was awed out of his duty by the social position of the mobocrats. The individual policemen were respectable and orderly, evidently disposed to enforce order, had they been allowed. No complaint can be made of them. But we know neither them nor their chief. For us, the Mayor represents the City Government. I hold him, single and alone, responsible for the success of the mob. [Slight hissing.] Abolitionists are the best judges; they have been through many such a scene. They assert that, if they could have been left alone, they could have quelled that mob, unaided. [Derisive laughter.] Mr. Hayes, of the Temple, the most competent witness in the city, offered the Mayor, on the spot, to keep order within the building if he could be allowed six men; and he has publicly avowed his belief, that, had the chief simply announced, from the platform, his purpose to keep order impartially, order would have reigned; but the mob knew that the police, in spite of their individual feelings, must obey orders, and were therefore, of course, on the mob side. The rioters were constantly boasting, “The police are all right,” “They are with us,” “Three cheers for the police!” [Cheers and hisses.]

To the courtesy and forbearance of the Abolitionists the Chief of Police has borne public witness. They were the only persons assaulted, yet they were the only persons