LAWS shall be acknowledged and respected."

These resolutions were carried with acclamations and shouts and stamping
of feet.

There was no bluster in these resolutions, but their meaning was apparent
enough, and the city authorities understood it. From that hall, next
morning, would march at least five or six thousand determined men, and if
the mob rallied in force, to repeat the action of the day before, there
would be one of the bloodiest fights that ever disgraced the city. It was
believed that the great mass of the rioters were Irishmen, and the thought
that native-born Americans should be driven from their own ballot-box by a
herd of foreigners, aroused the intensest indignation. It was an insult
that could not and should not be tolerated.

The next morning, at half-past seven, Masonic Hall was filled to
repletion. The excitement can be imagined, when such a crowd could be
gathered at this early hour.

In the Ninth Ward a meeting was also called, and a resolution passed,
tendering a committee of one hundred to the general committee; that, with
a committee of the same number from each of the fourteen wards of the
city, would make a battalion eighteen hundred strong, to be ready at a
moment's notice, to march to any poll "to protect the sacred right of
suffrage."

These measures had their desired effect. The presence of large bodies of
men at the different polls, for the purpose of protecting them, overawed
the unorganized mob, although in some of the wards attempts were made to
get up a riot. Stones and clubs were thrown, and one man stabbed; it was