The final disturbance on the score of
conspiracy among the negroes themselves was in the summer of 1860 at
Dallas, Texas, where in the preceding year an abolitionist preacher had
been whipped and driven away. Ten or more fires which occurred in one day
and laid much of the town in ruins prompted the seizure of many blacks and
the raising of a committee of safety. This committee reported to a public
meeting on July 24 that three ringleaders in the plot were to be hanged
that afternoon. Thereupon Judge Buford of the district court addressed the
gathering. "He stated in the outset that in any ordinary case he would
be as far from counselling mob law as any other man, but in the present
instance the people had a clear right to take the law in their own hands.
He counselled moderation, and insisted that the committee should execute
the fewest number compatible with the public safety." [101]
[Footnote 101: _Federal Union_ (Milledgeville, Ga.), Aug. 21, 1860, quoting
the Nashville _Union_.]
On the whole it is hardly possible to gauge precisely the degree of popular
apprehension in the premises. John Randolph was doubtless more picturesque
than accurate when he said, "the night bell never tolls for fire in
Richmond that the mother does not hug the infant more closely to her
bosom.
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