You have been called to a fearful ordeal, but one I trust
necessary for the future stability of our government and civilization, — the
result of New York City legislation for the past ten or twenty years. Nothing
could cure the evil but a full appreciation of its effects on the property of
your citizens. You have men among you always ready to inflame the passions of
the ignorant and debased, but too cowardly to publicly control the
element when roused to fury. Those men must be unearthed and the punishment due
to their crimes meted out to them, as a warning in the future, or you will be
called to do the work over again, perhaps under still more trying circumstances.
When the rebellion broke out here I was with our Governor. I
told him it was rebellion (not riot), organized by Jeff. Davis, when here in
1860, and only controlled by circumstances till the present time. What I have
been talking in private to my friends for two years is made manifest, and if we
would have peace and quiet in the future, we must have the leaders arrested and
punished.
Fortunately for Boston and all New England, a dose of
canister on the first night fired into a dense crowd, which is said to have
killed and wounded more than fifty, settled the affair, and we have been safe
here from that moment.
SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public
Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 299-300
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