As already indicated, the position of President Buchanan and the doctrines of his message had aided in the development of this feeling in the North.

It was further stimulated by the commercial correspondence between the two sections.

The merchants and factors in the South did not as a class desire Disunion, and they were made to believe that the suppression of Abolitionism in the North would restore harmony and good feeling.

Abolitionism was but another name for the Republican party, and in business circles in the free State that party had come to represent the source of all our trouble.

These men did not yet measure the full scope of the combination against the Union, and persisted in believing that its worst enemies were in the North.