May would
be safe in Faneuil Hall on the day of the meeting, and what seemed still
more significant of the inflamed state of the public mind, was the
confidence with which he predicted that a mob would follow the meeting.
The wild-cat-like spirit was in the air--in the seething heart of the
populace.
The meeting was held August 21st, in the old cradle of liberty. To its
call alone fifteen hundred names were appended. It was a Boston audience
both as to character and numbers, an altogether imposing affair, over
whom the mayor of the city presided and before whom two of the most
consummate orators of the commonwealth fulmined against the
Abolitionists. One of their hearers, a young attorney of twenty-four,
who listened to Peleg Sprague and Harrison Gray Otis that day, described
sixteen years afterward the latter and the effects produced by him on
that audience. Our young attorney vividly recalled how "'Abolitionist'
was linked with contempt, in the silver tones of Otis, and all the
charms that a divine eloquence and most felicitous diction could throw
around a bad cause were given it; the excited multitude seemed actually
ready to leap up beneath the magic of his speech. It would be something,
if one must die, to die by such a hand--a hand somewhat worthy and able
to stifle anti-slavery, if it could be stifled. The orator was worthy of
the gigantic task attempted; and thousands crowded before him, every one
of their hearts melted by that eloquence, beneath which Massachusetts
had bowed, not unworthily, for more than thirty years.
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