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105 15 The Jerry Rescue Riot There came a day when the citizens of Syracuse were startled by the announcement that the great statesman, Daniel Webster, was coming to address them upon the questions of the day.1 He had selected the Convention City as the proper place for the delivery of one of his most important public utterances. Due preparations were made for his reception and the open space in front of the City Hall was made ready for the speech which was to come. An ample platform was provided for the speaker and the local great men who were to sit behind him and start the rounds of applause. Just in front of the platform was a wooden arrangement for the necessary brass band, for he was to have music as well as applause. I read all that the newspapers had to say and they said enough to set me on fire, let alone my determination to have a close look at the Great Expounder and to hear his eloquence. When the day came [in May 1851—ed.], it brought bright sunshine for the occasion and the town was astir early. Mr. Webster was to be escorted to his platform by the Syracuse Citizens Corps and these warriors, as a guard of honor, were to stand at parade rest in front of the speaker’s stand. My selected, but with difficulty obtained, position, was just in front of the foremost line of soldiers. I did it by going early and waiting and then by keeping step with a soldier so closely that I jostled him. The preliminaries were tediously over and then Mr. Webster arose and came forward, amid all the cheering any man need have asked for. He was indeed a noble presence, all that his pictures had taught me to expect,2 and when he slowly turned and looked around upon the crowd he appeared to be a very impersonation 106 the jerry rescue riot of political dignity, if not of national authority. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, and then his deep, mellow, sonorous voice rolled out, as it may have done when in the United States Senate he replied to Hayne of South Carolina.3 “Fel-low Cit-i-zens of Syr-a-cuse and On-on-daga County,” he began, with impressive deliberation, and the stillness became breathless. Shortly he said things concerning patriotism and the Constitution and the great country in which we live, and its future prosperity, which were cheered with sufficient heartiness but at last he came to his dangerous ground and he walked on into it with only too much courageous statesmanship. “Fellow citizens, the Fugitive Slave Law will be enforced! It will be enforced everywhere and at all hazards. It will be enforced even in Syracuse and even if the Abolitionist Convention shall be here in session at the time.” He said it slowly, solemnly, with tremendous emphasis, but his words were greeted by silence only, for something like an electric shock went through the crowd. On he went, after a brief pause, and he had no idea that he had been making a proclamation of war which hundreds of his hearers were mentally accepting. The speech ended, the brass band played patriotic music, the crowd dispersed and so did Mr. Webster, but an untellable amount of out-and-out mischief had been unnecessarily done.4 The average American is an unhandy man to threaten and we all felt that the great orator had left a threat behind him which it might be well for us to remember. Never, to that day, had any black fugitive been troubled in our city or county, although many were there and I knew some of them. Among them was a large, brawny, not ill-looking and entirely peaceable mulatto who worked in the furniture store of Ashley & Williston, opposite our own store. I had seen him often. He had a weakness for whiskey which now and then brought him before the police court and a mere arrest was to him no occasion for resistance or ill feeling. When the time came for the assembling of the Abolition Convention [in October 1851—ed.] Webster’s words were called to mind and men spoke about them, but there was really no general expectation that there would be any attempt to carry out the unpleasant threat. The too-eager servants of “Conservatism,” however, were taking a different view of the matter...

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