219

HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 847

258.31-33 in 1835. . .was revived] From its inception, abolitionism faced criti-
cism and, at times, violent protest. Churches, politicians, the press, and mobs con-demned it on grounds that it threatened the stability of the Union. Boston, in particular,
harbored strong antiabolition sentiments, which in 1835 erupted into violence against
Garrison and his cohorts. A few weeks after a well-publicized abolitionist meeting at
Faneuil Hall on 26 September 1835, Garrison's printing press was broken up and
burned, while Garrison himself was attacked. Throughout the North, more attacks on
abolitionists followed, but the excessive actions of their opponents ultimately con-
verted more to the abolitionist cause. Hilary Abner Herbert, The Abolition Crusade
and Its Consequences: Four Periods of American History (New York, 1912), 67-70,
84-90; Stewart, Holy Warriors, 65-73.

258.34-36 With others, I. . .of that city] In November 1860 James Redpath , sec-
retary of Boston's "John Brown Anniversary Committee," issued a call for a full day
of meetings that would both commemorate the first anniversary of Brown's death and
address the question "How can American Slavery be Abolished?" The committee
invited Douglass to be one of the featured speakers. Although the city's business elite,
who had strong commercial ties with the South, denounced the holding of such an
"anti-Southern" meeting so soon after Lincoln's election, no one expected public
disorder when the abolitionists gathered. The first session convened at Tremont
Temple shortly after 10:00 a.m. on 3 December 1860. "The attendance was then at the
opening," reported the New York Daily Tribune, "and mostly composed of colored
people, but soon the body of the hall began to fill up." Among the spectators was a
hostile element of several hundred men that the New York Daily Tribune described as
"a diversified mob, composed chiefly of North End roughs and Beacon street aristo-
crats" and that the Liberator labeled as Constitutional Union party supporters "with a
sprinkling of the Custom House demon-ocracy." This "gentlemen's mob. . .of the
'DOLLAR STAMP,'" as Douglass called it, "well dressed, well conditioned [and]
we11 looking. . .undertook to wrest control of the meeting from the smaller number of
abolitionists by electing two of its own members, Richard S. Fay and James Murray
Howe, as chairmen. Although the antiabolitionists attempted to silence him, Douglass
spoke repeatedly. At one point. according to the New York Daily Tribune, he actually
fought his way to the rostrum "like a trained pugilist." After three hours of heckling,
skirmishing, and acrimonious debate, the Boston police cleared the hall on orders of
the mayor. Douglass, Redpath, J. Sella Martin, Franklin Sanborn, and the other abo-litionists, forced to cancel their afternoon meeting, reconvened that evening at
Martin's Joy Street Baptist Church, Lib., 23, 30 November, 14, 28 December 1860;
Boston Herald 3 December 1860; New York Daily Tribune, 4, 7 December 1860;
New York Times, 4 December 1860; NASS, 8 December 1860; DM, 3:389-95
(January 1861).

259.9-10 Charles Francis Adams] The third son of John Quincy and Louisa
Catherine Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1807-86) was born in Boston but spent
much of his childhood in St. Petersburg, Russia. where his father was the U.S. ambas-