In the Middle and Western States the feeling was much deeper.

In many of their laws a discrimination was made against the negro, and a direct interference with the habits of loyal communities on this subject involved many considerations which did not in any degree attach to legislation affecting only the Southern States.

There was among Democratic leaders a confidence as marked as the timidity on the part of the Republicans.

They were sure of a re-action in their favor; they believed that the Republicans had taken the step which would prove fatal to them, and that with the prejudices of the people supplemented by the patronage of the President a serious division would ensue, which would prove fatal to Radical ascendency in a majority of the Northern states.

Overcome in both chambers by the aggressive force of a majority which transcended the limit of two-thirds, they congratulated themselves that this very power, beyond the restraint of the Executive and exercised in defiance of his opinions, would prove the pitfall of Republicanism wherever race prejudice was kept alive.
The passage of these bills by Congress, their persistent veto by the President and their re-enactment against his objections, produced, as had been anticipated, not only an open political hostility, but one which rapidly advanced to a condition in which violent epithet and mutual denunciation indicated the deplorable relations of the two great departments of the Government.