It left the North in a hyper-sensitive condition on all matters touching the peace and stability of the Union.

The silence and oblivion policy on the subject of slavery was renewed with tenfold intensity.

Ulysses-like the free States bound themselves, their right of free speech, and their freedom of the press on this subject, for fear of the Siren voices which came thrilling on every breeze from the South.
Quiet was the word, and quiet the leaders in Church and State sought to enforce upon the people, to the end that the vision of "States dissevered, discordant, belligerent, of a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched it may be, in fraternal blood," might not come to pass for their "glorious Union." The increasing friction and heat between the sections during twenty-five years, had effected every portion of the Federal system, and created conditions favorable to a violent explosion.

Sectional differences of a political and industrial complexion, forty years had sufficed to develop.

Sectional differences of a moral and social character forty years had also sufficed to generate.