CHAPTER V.


SPRING ELECTION RIOTS OF 1834.

Fatal Error in our Naturalization Laws.--Our Experiment of Self government
not a fair one.--Fruit of giving Foreigners the Right to Vote.--Bitter
Feeling between Democrats and Whigs.--First Day of Election.--Ships
"Constitution" and "Veto."--Whigs driven from the Polls.--Excitement.--
Whigs determined to defend themselves.--Meeting called.--Resolutions.--
Second Day's Election.--Attack on the Frigate "Constitution."--A Bloody
Fight.--Mayor and Officers wounded.--Mob triumphant.--Excitement of the
Whigs.--The Streets blocked by fifteen thousand enraged Whigs.--Military
called out.--Occupy Arsenal and City Hall all Night.--Result of the
Election.--Excitement of the Whigs.--Mass-meeting in Castle Garden.

This country never committed a more fatal mistake than in making its
naturalization laws so that the immense immigration from foreign countries
could, after a brief sojourn, exercise the right of suffrage. Our form of
government was an experiment, in the success of which not only we as a
nation were interested, but the civilized world. To have it a fair one, we
should have been allowed to build and perfect the structure with our own
material, not pile into it such ill-formed, incongruous stuff as the
despotisms of Europe chose to send us. Growing up by a natural process,
educating the people to the proper exercise of their high trust,
correcting mistakes, and adjusting difficulties as we progressed, the
noble building would have settled into greater compactness as it arose in
height, and all its various proportions been in harmony. We should have