The weekly Anglo-African., 1860-01-28
THE ANr1.oCoNoR MEETING.

Democracy" was duly attended to by
large and intelligent gathering of color
ed citizens, at the Metropolitan Assembly
Rooms, on Thursday evening the 18th inst.
The meeting was called by the young men
of this city, for the purpose of replying
to the insulting speech" of Mr.. OConor at
the Academy of Music, Dec. 10TH
Mr.. George H. Hughes called the as
semblage to order shortly after 8 o'clock,
and remarked that the object of the meet
ing was to cast back the falsehoods utter
ed by Mr. OConor, at the aforementioned
place and time. He called upon fathers,
whose countenances had changed as they
read the statements, to hope. Mothers,
too, whose sighs they had heard as they
read the speech of that bitter traducer, were
welcomed here. He welcomed those of
the Anglo-Saxon race who had honored
them with their sympathising presence,
and the gentlemen of the press, who he
hoped would not miscontrue their motives
in calling this meeting. Upon his mo-
ton,
Rev. H. H. Garnet was appointed Pre-
sident
The further organization of the meeting
was effected by the appointment of the fol-
lowing officers:
Vice-Presidents- James MCune
Smith, L. B. Mathews, Jeremiah Powers,
Robert Hamilton, Peter S. Porter, Geo. 81.
Hughes.
Secretaries Wright Seaman, Jr., Theo-
dore S. w. Titus.
Rev. Sampson White made prayer, af-
tor which the President spoke as follows:
REV. H. H. GARNErs REMARKS
He thanked the meeting for the honor
conferred upon him, and proceeded to pay
his respects to the patron of the evening.
Said he, Mr.. O'Conor is lawyer of dis
tinction and wealth, walking in the upper
circles of society," man in whom we
should have expected to find friend. He
is an Irishman, though none the worse for
that; in fact, he Mr.. g. regretted his
identity with that people, because in his
travels through Ireland he had never found
people more noble hearted and hospita-
BILE than they. He believed that if Mr..
OConor had uttered such sentiments in
Dublin, Belfast, or the wild districts of
Tipperary, the men would have stoned
him, and the daughters of the Emerald Isle
would have whipped him within an inch
of his life with their garters. He regret
ted that O'Conor belonged to any race at
all, and thought that he should form race
of his own, so that when he died it would
be run out. He wondered that the bones
of Daniel OConnell had not turned over
in their coffin at the utterance of such sem
timents. Mr.. Garnet sympathized with
Ireland in the calamity-the giving birth
to O'Conor-because he had reason to love
her. The pleasant recollection of his re-
ceptions as he travelled over her beautiful
soil filled his heart with grateful emotions,
and he would say,
Buried in cold when my heart stills her motion,
Green be thy fields, sweetest isle of the ocean;
And thy harp striking bards sing aloud with emo
ton,
Erin mavourneen, Erin so bragh-
He then commented upon the impu-
dence of Mr. OConor, an imported Irish
man, interfering to dispose of what he terms
"our negro bondmen"-an Irish gentleman
with scarcely the rich brogue off his tongue,
who had left his country for his country's
good, talking about "our negroes" He
read further Release them, and they
will relapse into state of barbarism." Mr..
G.. apprized the audience of the unfortun-
ate condition which Mr. O'Conor, as law
yer, had opened up to their perception af-
ter thirty years of freedom. A little fur
ther on, Mr.. O'Conor says, ''Liberate them
and they will form set Of negro States
what leap } possessing political equality,
and form a powerful body in Congress" !"
He thought that this may have been slip
of the tongue; at all events, he was in
clined to think Mr. OConor had hard
case to work out for his pay. Now, as to
what Mr. O'Conor intended to do: 1t was
to drive back into slavery the free colored
people of the whole North. He would
take our learned men, our clergymen, our
physicians, our accomplished mechanics,
our daughters, and reduce us all to slavery.
What would become of our money! The
colored people of this city had five million
dollars in property, and he could imagine
Mr.. O'Conor standing by to take his share
of it. If the day were to come when
they must have slavery or death, they