rights and social institutions of any other portion, those
sentiments should be relinquished." Another speaker, Judge George
W. Woodward, sneeringly asked: "Whence came these excessive
sensibilities that cannot bear a few slaves in a remote Territory
until the white people establish a Constitution?" Another, Mr.
Charles E. Lex (a Republican), speaking of the Southern People,
said: "What, then, can we say to them? what more than we have
expressed in the resolutions we have offered? If they are really
aggrieved by any laws upon our Statute-books opposed to their
rights--if upon examination any such are found to be in conflict
with the Constitution of these United States--nay, further, if they
but serve to irritate our brethren of the South, whether
Constitutional or not, I, for one, have no objection that they
should instantly be repealed." Another said, "Let us repeal our
obnoxious Personal Liberty bills * * *; let us receive our brother
of the South, if he will come among us for a little time, attended
by his servant, and permit him thus to come." And the resolutions
adopted were even still more abject in tone than the speeches.]

But the South at present was too busy in perfecting its long-cherished
plans for the disruption of the Union, to more than grimly smile at this
evidence of what it chose to consider "a divided sentiment" in the
North. While it weakened the North, it strengthened the South, and
instead of mollifying the Conspirators against the Union, it inspired
them with fresh energy in their fell purpose to destroy it.

The tone of the Republican press, too, while more dignified, was
thoroughly conciliatory. The Albany Evening Journal,--[November 30,
1860]--the organ of Governor Seward, recognizing that the South, blinded
by passion, was in dead earnest, but also recognizing the existence of