RIOTING
The New England Galaxy
Boston, Saturday, March 21, 1835,
Vol 18, No. 12.
RIOTING. We regret to learn that a riot occurred in New York on Friday week,
at a meeting of the Protestant Association at Broadway Hall. A mob (Catholics
we presume) forced the door, tore up benches, and committed many acts of
violence. The sexton had an arm broken, and many ladies fainted, and were
trampled on in the confusion. Several of the assembly escaped through a
back passage, and the hall was completely cleared of the first audience,
and left in possession of the rioters. A breach of hospitality in the maltreatment
of citizens of foreign extraction who seek in this country the truth of
the national boast that America is the home of the exile, and the land of
religious toleration, is disgraceful. Such was the burning of the Convent.
But a fiendish attack upon American citizens, by foreigners, upon whatever
pretext founded, is ungrateful,--and many shades worse than the ill-conduct
of an American mob upon men or institutions of foreign extraction can be.
There is a strong feeling in this country against Catholics--we should be
glad to see prejudice removed, and to have Catholicism calmly and dispassionately
examined, and rebutted, if need be, by argument alone.--But this state of
feeling can never arrive, if the shillelah is taken up in defence of the
Roman Church. It is no excuse for such conduct that Protestants were aggressors.--It
is a fact that Catholicism is viewed with undisguised abhorrence by a majority
of the citizens of this republic. Still no legal bar or disqualification
is thrown in the way of its professors--and throughout the country, except
in one instance, they have been allowed the unmolested enjoyment of their
religious principles and institutions. In that one instance, there is ground
for doubt whether the building burned, can strictly be denominated a religious
institution--or,--in other words we doubt whether in calm and dispassionate
times, the Catholics would claim Convents as institutions essential to their
church.--And while the unprejudiced among Protestants and Catholics are
striving to heal the breach created by that event, a portion of the most
unworthy of the New York Catholics commit a breach of the peace, infinitely
more flagrant in wickedness than the Charles town riot, because while the
Convent affair, was principally odious for its intolerance, the New York
disturbance is marked by black ingratitude. Catholics, who are admitted
to the privileges of freemen, in a Protestant country, should beware of
deporting themselves ungratefully toward those who afford them an asylum.
But it is only an occurrence in keeping with the spirit of the age, after
all. The questions between Slavery and Abolition, Jackson and the Opposition,
Bank and no Bank, Protestants and Catholics, have been referred to the arbitrement
of the cudgel and the torch--and why should not all hands keep pace in the
march of improvement? Since in questions of religion, policy and politics,
`Apostolic blows and knocks
To prove one's doctrines orthodox,'
have come to be considered fashionable
arguments, how can we wonder at the occurrence of tumults? There are always
apologists for every riot,-- people who are ready to show conclusively,
that because there are different shades in complexions, the wearers must
devotedly hate each other,--and because there are differences in politics,
people are perfectly justifiable in breaking each other's heads at the ballot
box; and that the dominant religious party have a right to burn down the
houses of the minority. Away with all apologies for rioters! Let us hear
no ore attempts to white-wash gross infractions of the law. When rioters
shall be on all hands, as unhesitatingly denounced as they deserve, riots
will cease.
The Catholics in this city merit all praise for the fact that at the late
celebration of St Patrick's day, by a dinner in this city, no allusion
whatever was made to the destruction of the Convent--and no Irishman
was brought to the bar of the Police Court, on the day succeeding for disorderly
conduct.
W.
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