By the end of the 1850s, most American citizens—especially business leaders and property owners—were tired of paying the property damage bills and had had enough. The business leaders of St. Louis were the first to take the initiative and raised up a volunteer vigilante force in 1854 to try to prevent election-day rioting. The next year, they made the force permanent and created the first modern-style, standing police force in a major American city—and then Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Cincinnati, and other cities followed suit across the country, with 57 of America’s largest
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