Lethal Language: The Rhetoric of George Prentice and Louisville’s Bloody Monday

24 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Lethal Language: The Rhetoric of George Prentice and Louisville’s Bloody Monday Leslie Ann Harper O n the morning of August 6, 1855, American Party members took control of the voting booths in the city of Louisville, refusing entrance to naturalized citizens. Many immigrants who attempted to cast their votes were attacked and chased through the streets. As he watched from his office window, James Speed “saw many men, Irish and German, beaten in the courthouse yard. . . . It was not fighting man to man, but as many as could fall upon a single Irish or German and beat him with sticks or short clubs.” In the German part of town, mobs set houses on fire and looted immigrant businesses, “beating and shooting any German unlucky enough to be caught.” After raiding Ambruster’s brewery, the mob set it aflame, killing ten. In the city’s eighth ward, the mob set the Irish tenements on Quinn’s Row ablaze and shot any residents who tried to escape, murdering an estimated twelve people. The mob rejected Francis Quinn’s offer to pay the rioters to leave; instead he was brutally murdered and his body thrown atop the flames. “As night fell, the Louisville skies glowed red,” and pools of blood stained the city streets.1 Bloody Monday, as it came to be called, not only targeted immigrants but became one of the three worst anti-Catholic riots in nineteenth-century America. An estimated five hundred rioters left the city in shambles. The Artist’s rendering of the Bloody Monday riots, Louisville Post, Sept. 6, 1922. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY LESLIE ANN HARPER FALL 2011 25 number of people killed during the riots remains unknown, but estimates range from twenty two to a hundred. One of the victims was a Catholic priest, stoned to death by the mob as he rushed to the bedside of a dying parishioner. Though rioters set out to burn down the Cathedral of the Assumption and St. Martin’s—they believed the churches contained armed men and ammunitions—they spared them after a search by the mayor and two councilmen proved their fears unfounded. After the riot, hundreds of Catholic immigrants fled the city, and others were doubtlessly deterred from settling in Louisville.2 After the events of Bloody Monday, George D. Prentice, the editor of the Louisville Daily Journal, faced serious criticism for instigating the riots. In the months preceding the August 1855 election, Prentice filled his paper with hate speech against Catholics and immigrants. But how much can Prentice be blamed for voicing popular sentiments? In order to understand the events in Louisville that day—and Prentice’s role as an instigator—scholars must place them in a broader context. By 1855, debates over slavery, immigration, and religion had ratcheted up tensions nationwide. In addition to spurring violence, these debates also led to the demise of the Whig Party and the rise of the Know Nothings. While these issues fomented agitation around the country, disputes in Louisville became particularly intense. Louisville lay on the border that separated North and South, and also had a significant immigrant population, much of which was Catholic and politically active. Moreover, a shortage of polling places in the city meant that many voters could not cast their ballots. While all of these issues were kindling for the fire that erupted on Bloody Monday, many of Prentice’s contemporaries accused him of inciting the riots, and most historians have agreed. George D. Prentice (1802-1870), editor of the Louisville Daily Journal. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY Masthead of the Louisville Daily Journal, Aug. 3, 1855. COURTESY OF THE LOUISVILLE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY LETHAL LANGUAGE 26 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Analyzing the rhetoric of the articles in the Journal, as well as the circumstances surrounding the riot, reveals how “hate speech” helped to agitate his already inflamed readers. Mob violence occurred frequently in nineteenth-century America. One study ennumerated 403 riots against white targets in the southern United States between 1828 and 1861. Of these, sixty-eight mobs attacked criminals, thirty-five attacked insurrectionists, and 162 attacked abolitionists (a number of which took place in Kentucky). Proslavery activists claimed that emancipationists...