New method of assorting the mail, as practised by Southern slave-holders, or attack on the Post Office, Charleston, S.C.

A portrayal of the nocturnal raid on the Charleston post office by a mob of citizens and the burning of abolitionist mails found there in July 1835. Mail sacks are handed through a forced window of the ransacked post office, torn open and bundles of newspapers such as "The Liberator," the Boston "Atlas" and "Commercial Gazette" removed and strewn about. At left, in an open square before a church, a crowd surrounds a bonfire. A sign reading "$20,000 Reward for Tappan" hangs on the wall of the post office, referring to the bounty placed by the city of New Orleans on the head of Arthur Tappan, founder and president of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
The Library's impression of "New Method of Assorting the Mail" was printed on the same sheet as another abolitionist print, "Southern Ideas of Liberty" (no. 1835-3), and may have been part of a series with that title.
Title appears as it is written on the item.
Weitenkampf, p. 38.
Forms part of: American cartoon print filing series (Library of Congress)
Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston : G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1835-2.