ABSTRACT
The agitation by the Abolitionists in the North, the attempt of the Southern members in Congress, by voting against receiving petitions relating to slavery, to abrogate the right of petition guaranteed to citizens in the Constitution, and other factors had roused passion on both sides. Little by little the cords which had bound North and South together had been breaking under the strain of the Northern attack on slavery and the Southern defense of it. The North had just been indulging in an orgy of fanaticism against foreigners and Catholics, but the threat to extend slavery threw all minor crusades into the discard. The North saw the South trying to reintroduce the slave trade and extend conquest to the southward in the West Indies, while insisting on bringing its black property into the North or making the Northerners capture its slaves for it if they escaped thither.
