The disunion sentiment in the North was not general; but
Garrison, publicly proclaiming "I am an abolitionist and
therefore for the dissolution of the Union", and his followers
who pronounced "the Constitution a covenant with death and an
agreement with hell", exercised a twofold effect far in excess of
their numbers. In the North, abolitionists aroused bitter
antagonism to slavery; in the South they strengthened the
conviction of the lawfulness of slavery and the desirability of
secession in preference to abolition. "The abolition question
must soon divide us", a South Carolinian wrote his former
principal in Vermont. "We are beginning to look upon it
[disunion] as a relief from incessant insult. I have been myself
surprised at the unusual prevalence and depth of this
feeling."[3] "The abolition movement", as Houston has pointed
out, "prevented any considerable abatement of feeling, and added
volume to the current which was to sweep the State out of the
Union in 1860." South Carolina's ex-governor, Hammond, wrote
Calhoun in December, 1849, "the conduct of the abolitionists in
congress is daily giving it [disunion] powerful aid". "The sooner
we can get rid of it [the union] the better."[5] The conclusion
of both Blair of Kentucky and Winthrop[6] of Massachusetts, that
"Calhoun and his instruments are really solicitous to break up
the Union", was warranted by Calhoun's own statement.

[3] Bennett, Dec. 1, 1848, to Partridge, Norwich University. MS.
Dartmouth.

[4] Houston, Nullification in South Carolina, p. 141. Further
evidence of Webster's thesis that abolitionists had developed