illustrated danger of another sort. Hale of New Hampshire "would
let them go" rather than surrender the rights threatened by the
fugitive slave bill.[65] Giddings in the very speech ridiculing
the danger of disunion said, "when they see fit to leave the
Union, I would say to them 'Go in peace"'.[66] Such utterances
played into the hands of secessionists, strengthening their
convictions that the North despised the South and would not fight
to keep her in the Union.

[65] Mar. 19, Cong. Globe, XXII. II. 1063.

[66] Aug. 12, ibid., p. 1562.


It is now clear that in 1850 as in 1860 the average Northern
senator or anti-slavery minister or poet was ill-informed or
careless as to the danger of secession, and that Webster and the
Southern Unionists were well-informed and rightly anxious.
Theodore Parker illustrated the bitterness that befogs the mind.
He. concluded that there was no danger of dissolution because
"the public funds of the United States did not go down one mill."
The stock market might, of course, change from many causes, but
Parker was wrong as to the facts. An examination of the daily
sales of United States bonds in New York, 1849-1850, shows that
the change, instead of being, not one mill," as Parker
asserted, was four or five dollars during this period; and what
change there was, was downward before Webster's speech and upward
thereafter.[67]

[67] U. S. Bonds (1867). About 112-113, Dec., Jan., Feb., 1850;