The recent death of Elizur Wright naturally suggests reminiscences of his warm friend and coadjutor, Arthur Tappan, the New York merchant and would-be philanthropist, to whose memory, I hear, there is now some talk of erectin’ a monument. Tappan was, in his time, as much of a merchant and even more of a philanthropist than the late Wm. E. Dodge, who has been monumented, and besides, he never got into any dubious scrapes with the government or anybody else.
True, Tappan failed several times, but he failed on the “square” and his failures had somethin’ interestin’ and instructive in ‘em. He was the originator in New York of the one price system and he had a good deal of bother In carryin’ out his idea. In order to secure himself he marked this “one price” at the lowest figure he could afford to take, and so could not, on principal or with profit, allow any deduction. But no matter how low he marked his goods, his customers all insisted on beatin’ him down.
After a while Mr. Tappan found that his one price paid him, especially as he coupled with it another principle–”for cash only.” Had he stuck to both of these principles together he never would have failed. But, unfortunately, while he persisted in his one price he got kind of weak on his cash only, and first got to selling goods at thirty day’s credit, then at 3 months, then at 6 months and then at a year, just like the other traders who didn’t have one price. Of course this put him at a great disadvantage. Everybody was anxious to buy of him, it was true, so as to take advantage of his one price, and that the lowest, but then everybody put off paying in cash that one lowest price, so that the lost on his interest of the money was greater than his little profit on his goods; and he went to the wall. His failure gave the one price system “a black eye” from which it took a long while to recover, whereas it wasn’t stickin’ to the one price only, but not stickin’ to the cash only, that did the mischief.
On the whole Arthur Tappan was successful in his regular business; it was chiefly in his philanthropic schemes that he had trouble. As long as he was good to himself he got along all right. It was only when he tried to do good to other people that the circus commenced. In this respect he was no exception to the usual rule of merchants who try philanthropy. A. T. Stewart, for example, never made any mistakes in his business schemes, but almost all his philanthropic schemes, like his women’s hotel, came to grief.
Tappan’s first trouble in his outside schemes was when he tried to start a paper solely for the so-called “religious” people. He and a lot of other men of his stamp got the idea that theatres were all wrong and Sunday papers were all wrong, and that it would be a public benefit to publish a paper that wouldn’t print theatrical notices and wouldn’t issue any Sunday edition. So on this basis Mr. Tappan started the Journal of Commerce.
This paper was originally commenced on the sole capital and responsibility of Arthur Tappan, and its “sole original” editor was a William Maxwell, a Virginian, who was quite an original newspaper man in his way, as he didn’t swear, chew, drink or go to the theatre or circus. It took Tappan a deal of trouble to get such a newspaper man then, and it would cost anybody else a deal more trouble to get such a newspaper man now. Maxwell had two assistant editors, who were expected to be as “truly good” as he was, only they weren’t. One of ‘em took to whiskey and the other to the theatre, both on the sly. Outside of bein’ only human, they were pretty good fellows, and David Hall, the business manager of the paper, was the right man in the right place. Altogether the paper ought perhaps to have paid, but it didn’t. Tappan fulfilled his part of his pledges. He wouldn’t publish an ad, or a line about shows or saloons, he wouldn’t issue any paper on Sunday, but the “better classes” then were like the “better classes” now, and did a lot more talkin’ than they did subscribin’. And after a year of this sort of thing and a clear loss of $30,000, Mr. Tappan gave up his connection with the paper and never tried “religious” journalism again.
His next outside philanthropic scheme and bother was in connection with “colonizin’” the colored people. Before the late war it was a favorite idea with certain whites to get rid of the blacks by sendin’ ‘em all back to Liberia or Africa. Two classes of people joined in advocatin’ this colonizin’ hobby–those who didn’t care a continental for the blacks, only wantin’ to get ‘em off their hands, and those who made a specialty, as it were, of takin’ care of the colored “man and brother.” The first class thought that the American negro would soon die out if sent back to Africa. The latter class thought that really the colored man had a better chance in Africa than America. So for just the opposite reasons the two classes joined hands in the colonizin’ scheme. Tappan, for a while, took stock in “colonization” and was really honest about it, thinking he was doin’ just the best thing for the colored people. William Wilberforce, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and other big names were then connected with “the American Colonization Society,” as it was termed. So were a lot of gunsmiths and a big powder manufacturer, and a lot of liquor dealers. At first Tappan thought it was all O.K. Everybody, liquor dealers, powder dealers and gun dealers included, might feel an interest in the “future of the negro race.” But, in course of time, Tappan began to find out that the true inwardness of things, and as the slang sayin’ is “smelt a mice.” It wasn’t the negro’s future but their own present these dealers were all lookin’ after. They subscribed to send the colored people to Liberia, it was true, but they were also sending guns and powder and rum to Liberia, too, for the good of the colored man, of course–in a horn.
Tappan began to “kick” when he found this out, and insisted on stoppin’ the supplies of rum and powder. Then the rum and powder men began to kick back and then the leadin’ colonizers began to wrangle among ‘emselves. Dan Webster backed out, the negroes began to have somethin’ to say for ‘emselves and refused to be colonized. Like sensible colored people they preferred America to Liberia any time. The different leaders and members of the society began to call each other hard names, and altogether the American Colonization Society became a bear garden. So Mr. Tappan, after spendin’ a lot of money in the attempt to colonize, came to the conclusion that his money and his efforts had been wasted and that colonization was a failure.
Then he drifted into bein’ an abolitionist and a red-hot one. And this gave him more trouble than all his other philanthropic schemes put together.
In the last generation it was really a dangerous thing to be an abolitionist even in New York. It was a term of reproach and caused mischief. Tappan never could do anythin’ by halves, so he became an abolition leader–one of the high priests of anti-slavery. He began by payin’ the fine of William Lloyd Garrison, who had been put into jail for speakin’ his sentiments about freedom a little too freely.
Tappan didn’t know Garrison personally, but had heard of him. Everybody was hearing about William Lloyd Garrison just then, and Tappan paid his fine without even callin’ upon him. But Garrison called later on Tappan himself and thanked him.
Tappan then helped to start an anti-slavery sheet in New York called the Emancipator. He also printed at his own expense a large addition of one of Whittier’s pamphlets about slavery. He was also an attendant in the anti-slavery meetin’s at old Clinton Hall. These last caused lots of disturbances.
Finally one night when a big meetin’ had been announced at Clinton Hall by the abolitionists the other side called for a meetin’ at the same buildin’ on the same evenin’, and the trustees of Clinton Hall, knowin’ enough about natural philosophy to be aware that two bodies can’t occupy the same place at the same time without somebody bein’ hurt, shut down on both sides and wouldn’t allow the use of the hall by either. Tappan and his abolitionists were mad at this and tried to get into the Clinton Hotel close by and hold a meetin’ there, but the hotel man wouldn’t mix up in politics and shut down on ‘em. Then about half past nin o’clock they made a raid on the old Chatham Street Chapel and held a rousin’ meetin’ there till midnight.
Meanwhile the other side, headed by a lot of Southerners, who were then in New York, after trying in vain to get into Clinton Hall or to use the Clinton Hotel, got into old Tammany Hall and had a sort of jamboree there, and then went down to the Chatham Street Chapel to rout out the abolitionists there.
It was about eleven o’clock when they got down to the chapel, and there must have been three tousand of ‘em to not over three hundred of the abolitionists. But three hundred inside a buildin’ are worth three thousand outside of it, if the gates are kept shut, and the old Chatham Street Chapel had big iron gates, against which the mob dashed in vain. The crowd got unruly and yelled and offered a reward for the head of Arthur Tappan, and all that, but the merchant and his men were safe inside and kept on talkin’ and resolvin’ and findin’ fault with the United States government till midnight. Then they all put out the lights of a sudden and crept out one by one through a little back door and a sort of blind alley which the mob didn’t know anythin’ about, so that when, with a wild yell of triumph, the mob did to get into the hall at last, they didn’t find anybody there, or anythin’, save darkness and a few chairs and tables, big cry and little wool.
Later on, however, the abolitionists and the anti-abolitionists got up a regular riot in New York between ‘em, in the course of which Tappan’s house was gutted, and Tappan himself would undoubtedly have been killed if he had been caught. But you have got to find a man before you can kill him, and, fortunately for all hands, Tappan had taken mighty good care that they mob shouldn’t find him that night.
On another occasion, Mr. Tappan, bein’ in danger of bein’ mobbed, quietly put on a thick muffler, the weather bein’ cool, and walked, unknown and unnoticed, right through the mob who were lookin’ for and threatenin’ him. This required a good deal of quiet “nerve,” but old Tappan had “grit,” as was shown still later on, one night, when the mob tried to attack his store. There was only one gun in the whole establishment that night (Tappan not havin’ expected or prepared for such a hostile demonstration) and that wasn’t loaded, but the old fellow called out to the mom that his place was a regular powder magazine, fairly bristlin’ with firearms, and that if anybody offered the buildin’ violence he would order his men to fire a volley on ‘em. The old fellow said this so bravely that the mob got frightened and absolutely retired from one old gun.
Time passed on and then Tappan got interested in the temperance question and made a hobby of that. And like all other temperance reformers he got into trouble with other temperance fanatics, and there was for a while the deuce to pay.
But at last he got into smooth waters, and the evenin’ of his life was passed in peace, comfort and honor.
With all his little foibles and failures, Arthur Tappan was an honest man and one who loved his fellow men, and he is as much entitled to public reverence and respect as many man who have had costly monuments erected to their memory.
[Editor’s notes: The Anti-Abolitionist Riots took place in July, 1834. The above Harry Hill’s Gotham column (which appeared fifty years later) contradicts other contemporary accounts. There were two incidents at the Chatham Sttreet Chapel, one on July 4 and the other on July 7. The July 4 incident began as a meeting to celebrate New York State’s emancipation, and was broken up by a mob. On July 7, a black church service at the chapel conflicted with a regular meeting of the New York Sacred Music Society, and the two groups got into fistfights.
Also, in other accounts, Arthur Tappan’s besieged store staff was armed with muskets–not just one unloaded gun.
The Harry Hill column also does not mention the related rioting at the Bowery Theatre and in Five Points, or the looting of Arthur’s brother Lewis Tappan’s house.]
