nswered everywhere
throughout the free States by rotten eggs, clubs, and missiles. The
public journals, as a rule, were unfriendly and intolerant. Even
Boston could contemplate, with unruffled composure, a mob of her most
"reputable citizens" dragging Mr. Garrison through the streets with a
halter about his neck. Public meetings were broken up by pro-slavery
mobs; owners of public halls required a moneyed guarantee against the
destruction of their property, when such halls were used for
anti-slavery meetings. Colored schools were broken up, the teachers
driven away, and the pupils maltreated.

The mobocratic demonstrations in the Northern States were the
thermometer of public feeling upon the subject of slavery. The South
was, therefore, emboldened; for the political leaders in that section
thought they saw a light from the distance that encouraged them to
entertain the belief and indulge the hope that their present sectional
institution could be made national. Southerners thought slavery would
grow in the cold climate of the North, excited into a lively existence
by the warmth of a generous sympathy. But the South misinterpreted the
real motive that inspired opposition to anti-slavery agitation in the
North. The violent opposition came from the mercantile class and
foreign element who believed that the agitation of the slavery
question was a practical disturbance of their business affairs. The
next class, more moderate in opposition to agitation, believed slavery
constitutional, and, therefore, argued that anti-slavery orators were
traitors to the government. The third class, conservative, did not
take sides, because of the unpopularity of agitation on the one hand,
and because of an harassing conscience on the other.

There were two classes of men who were seeking the dissolution of the
Union. The Garrisonians sought this end in the hope of forming another
Union _without_ slavery.

In an address delivered by Wm. Lloyd Garrison, July 20, 1860, at the
Framingham celebration, he declares:

"Our object is the abolition of slavery _throughout the land_;
and whether in the prosecution of our object this party goes up
or the other party goes down, it is nothing to us. We cannot
alter our course one hair's breadth, nor accept a compromise of
our principles for the hearty adoption of our principles. I am
for _meddling with slavery everywhere_--_attacking it by night
and by day, in season