Syracuse University Library
Special Collections Research Center
Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

West Point mob / by Gerrit Smith.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 561

THE WEST POINT MOB.

[BY GERRIT SMITH]

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Nothing else is so frightful as a mob - that many beaded monster, whose every head refuses to be controlled Mobs and their dramshop inspiration threaten the ruin of our country. Ours is emphatically the country of mobs Slavery made it such. All over the laud lawless slavery was served by lawless mobs, until in 1861 came the crowning mob. Well may the Rebellion be called such, since all the worst elements or features of mobocracy characterized it The Rebellion was simply slavery-in-arms; and slavery-in arms is, like every other great mob, bell-broke-loose. Slavery has passed away - but its spirit still lingers amongst us, and still with the help of the dramshop, manifests itself in mobs. Every day we hear of them in one and another part of the Southern States - and they are often naked murders on s large scale. Not unfrequently do we hear of them in the Northern States also. But whether the mobs be at the South or at the North, the pro-slavery education of the country goes far to account for them. The mobs, occurring now and then at West Point, are to be counted neither as Southern nor Northern, but as strictly national - the mobocrats in these instances being supported, educated, owned by the nation. Neither Northern nor Southern mobs, however, partake more largely than do these of the spirit of slavery.

The recent mob at West Point will, if honestly traced to its sources, be found, I have little doubt, to be especially the product of that caste-spirit, which grows so rankly out of slavery. The mob flattered itself that to get rid of its three young victims upon the charge of lying would facilitate the getting rid of the brave colored cadet against whom a similar charge is trumped up. That this mob was prompted by high and honorable motives is a mere pretense. Its affection of a patriotic, not to say pious concern for the cause of truth is silly and impudent to the last degree. Of what, at the worst, were any of the lads guilty ? Of nothing more than one of those petty dissemblings, which occur in nearly all schools, and which, as they proceed from no ill will, are mildly dealt with. But the lying of which these men - grown mobocrats were guilty - especially in reporting as deserters those, whom they had themselves kidnapped - was not slightly wicked, and was also exceedingly heartless and cruel.

In mitigation of the crime of the kidnappers it is said that they were guilty of no violence upon the persons of their victims. The highwayman has seldom occasion to shoot. Simply holding a pistol to his ear suffices, in most cases, to bring the remonstrant to terms, and produce the surrender of his purse. So, too, the fear of what might follow from their venturing to resist the ruffians was enough to make the poor terrified boys submissive and silent. They knew not what fate awaited them. But they feared the worst at the hands of a gang of men who could take them from their beds and walk them, thinly clad, through the midnight cold, and threaten them, as they went, with tar and feathers. Men, circumstanced as were these lads, (two of them but seventeen years old and the other only nineteen) might have been able to control their fears, but these dear children could not. I bear that they were not without the fear that they might be hung upon the next tree. It is no small crime to inspire a person, and especially a youthful and therefore timid one, with the fear of being murdered. All the time he fears murder he undergoes murder.

It is, however, alleged that the mobocrats showed the kindness toward the boys in giving them money to help the on their unknown way. But this giving money to them, after having reduced them to straits in which they were compelled to submit to the humiliation of accepting it at the hands of their kidnappers, was the crowning insult.

Many will be the unhappy effects on the outraged lads the crime perpetrated against them. One will be the spirit

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of revenge it must necessarily breed and nourish in their hearts. Think you that they will ever forgive their kidnappers? Think you that their parents will? They will, of course, have them punished by the Courts, and, I trust, severely. But that will not suffice to atone for an injury so deep. The revenge will still remain unsatisfied, and will still be calling for retaliation.

The Government has been talking upon this matter of the West Point mob. We have become impatient for its action upon it. Will its action be as thorough and decisive as the case demands? Government has been so dilatory and hesitant in regard to Southern mobs, that we fear it does not dare to grapple with this West Point mob. Southern mobs, because the Government has borne so patiently, if not indeed so pusillanimously with them, have brought the country to the eve of another civil war. The blood of the thousands slain by these mobs has pleaded in vain ; the terrors of the living have shrieked in vain; the claim to the whole military power of the nation, if need be, to protect the Union blacks and Union whites, who have put their trust in the good faith of the nation, has been urged in vain. Government still shrinks from encountering these mobs - perhaps from fear, perhaps from what is baser, political party calculations.

God forbid that Government should delay longer to strike for the salvation of the South from mobs! Added to the conclusive reasons for striking now is the present opportunity afforded to Government to testify its impartiality and consistency. Thus it will testify if it suppresses its own mob-ruled school. Let it not delay to stamp out the pro-slavery mob spirit at West Point. To do this effectually, it must stamp out the Academy itself - for that spirit, ever fostered in the Academy, inheres in it ineradicably. That spirit trained traitors to officer the Great Rebellion; and the Academy, as long as it shall be permitted to live, will train enemies to republican simplicity and traitors to republican institutions.

I referred to the colored cadet. A very remarkably self-possessed and high-souled youth must he be if be is not driven to rage and even to insanity by the cruel and malignant treatment he receives on account of his connexion with the proscribed and despised race. The pro-slavery caste-spirit, which reigns at West Point, forbids all social intercourse with him. So much as speaking to him would work the forfeiture of the respect and companionship of every white cadet. Is this a school, which the friends of equal rights - the friends of justice and fair play - should longer be taxed to support? No! - it is a school to be indignantly and instantly broken up. Government cannot continue this school without alienating from itself the best portion of the American people - that portion whose moral power is indispensable to its successful administration.

Obviously the first work of Government is not to enlarge our territory either at the South or at the North-but to govern thoroughly, and, where need be, with an iron hand, our present territory. Hence, both the Federal Government and the State Governments are without delay to put an end to mobs and to turn our lawless land into a land of law, that so person and property shall be no longer at the mercy of mobs or any other kindred forms of lawless violence.

But it will be asked - how then, if our national military school is broken up, shall we be able to teach our sons the art of war. To the extent that such teaching is necessary, schools for imparting; it will spring up, all over the land. Our colleges will provide a military department, whose pupils, instead of being the proud, arrogant and tyrannical young men into which West Point moulds so large a share of its scholars, will bear themselves as modestly as the pupils of their other departments. Very unlike in spirit will they be to a large share of the young men, who are made exclusive and haughty by belonging to the only national military school. I close with saying that the genius of our institutions requires that Government be permitted to do nothing that the people can do, and that the people be left free to do all they can do. Let the people all over the country be left to educate in schools of generous rivalry with each other the defenders of their whole country; and let this West Point school so prolifio of tyrants and ruffians be suppressed, and this far worse than useless drain upon the treasury be stopped.

PETERBORO March 13 1871.