January 16, 1861, The New York Herald
It is certainly very gratifying to all of us dwellers in the commercial metropolis to know that the Empire City stands firm for Union, the constitution and the enforcement of the laws. The hard times have thrown at least fifteen thousand workingmen out of employment, but as yet there have been no disturbances of the peace, nor any marked increase in crimes against property. The laboring population of New York is the most patient, orderly, law loving and forbearing in the world. Were England and France disturbed as this country is at present, the mobs of London and Paris could only be restrained by military force. Here, however, we have no mob, so to speak. The people meet peaceably and discuss the questions of the day in an orderly manner, as the workingmen’s gathering did last night. It is a little curious to see that the place where the workingmen held their meeting is located upon the site of the ‘Temple of Reason,’ from which Fanny Wright enunciated her peculiar doctrines twenty-five years ago, and the workingmen may find in the circumstance occasion for the reflection that, next to the philosophers who seek to overthrow the social fabric, the professed politicians are the most dangerous persons in the community. Everybody should pray that we may be delivered both from the pseudo philanthropists and the trading politicians. Let the workingmen keep a sharp lookout for the latter.