(by the ghost of John Beauchamp Jones)
This morning dawned bright and chill, the streets alive with multitudes summoned to the capital by the voice of a single man. I walked amidst them and beheld banners borne aloft, crude inscriptions railing against the Congress within, and much noise of drums and chants, as though a festival were intended rather than the solemn counting of electoral tallies. Yet I perceived a dark temper in the air, for the faces of many were fierce, their speech intemperate, and their garments marked with the emblems of faction rather than union.
The President himself addressed the assembly near the Executive Mansion, inflaming them with words of grievance, declaring fraud and theft, and urging them toward the Capitol. The throng moved in mass, like a tide that would not be stemmed, and I among them to witness. At the very steps of the great hall of Congress the multitude surged and broke upon the barriers. Guards were swept aside, some yielding, some resisting, and in short order the mob gained entrance to that edifice where laws are framed.
Scenes of tumult followed — windows shattered, chambers invaded, the flags of rebellion unfurled beneath the dome itself. The representatives had fled, the Vice President spirited away, leaving behind papers strewn and doors splintered. I beheld men clad in strange garb, horns and paint upon their faces, standing where the Speaker presides, bellowing to the crowd as if conquest had been achieved. Others rifled through offices, carrying off trophies as in time of war. The smell of smoke and acrid gas filled the corridors, and cries echoed through the marble halls.
The spectacle bore no honor. It was not revolution in arms, but riot in disorder, a bread mob of another sort — not for sustenance, but for power. I recalled the Richmond tumult of ’63, when desperate women cried out for food, and were met with troops. Here were no famished matrons but sturdy men, well-fed, emboldened by falsehoods, storming their own legislature.
By evening, soldiers and police retook the ground, the chambers cleared, the work of certification resumed under guard. Yet the stain is indelible. This day will stand in history as a mark of disgrace upon the republic, when law was for hours overborne by lawlessness, and the seat of government violated by its own citizens. I have seen capitals under siege, but seldom by those professing loyalty to the very Constitution they assaulted.
Thus I record, with sorrow, that the American experiment trembles — not from the cannon of foreign armies, but from the fury of its own multitude, misled and inflamed, and turned loose upon the citadel of its liberty.