fire-bell in the night."




CHAPTER XII.

THE AWAKENING OF THE LION.


The repeal of the Missouri Compromise caused great excitement
throughout the land. The conscience of the anti-slavery portion of the
community was shocked, as was also that of the large numbers of people
who, though not opposed to slavery in itself, were opposed to its
extension. It showed that this institution had a deadening effect upon
the moral nature of the people who cherished it. There was no
compromise so generous that it would satisfy their greed, there were no
promises so solemn that they could be depended on to keep them. They
were not content with maintaining slavery in their own territory. It
was not enough that they should be allowed to take slaves into a
territory consecrated to freedom, nor that all the powers of the law
were devoted to recapturing a runaway slave and returning him to
renewed horrors. They wanted all the territories which they had
promised to let alone. It was a logical, and an altogether probable
conclusion that they only waited for the opportunity to invade the
northern states and turn them from free-soil into slave territory.

The indignation over this outrage not only flamed from thousands of
pulpits, but newspapers and political clubs of all kinds took up the
subject on one side or the other. Every moralist became a politician,