Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume Two).djvu/255

 pay their debts. Securities went topsy-turvy at the stock-exchange; the banks, feeling the ground shake under their feet, drew in their loans, and money became excessively stringent. General bankruptcy and ruin seemed to be impending. The nervousness of the commercial spirit lashed itself into frenzy. The agitation in favor of “concessions to the South” assumed a violent form. In the very city of Boston, a meeting of anti-slavery men was broken up by a furious crowd, among whom, as the paper reported, several of the “respectable conservative citizens” were conspicuous. Sumner was told by a Boston newspaper that it was time for him to hold his tongue, and his name was hissed at a meeting of workingmen in Boston. In Philadelphia, George William Curtis was refused a hall for a lyceum lecture because he was known as an anti-slavery man. In various other Northern cities, grave disturbances of a similar nature occurred. A cry went forth that no public expression of opinion should be permitted that might “irritate the South.”

But the very violence of those demonstrations served to bring on a reaction. People began to ask whether this did not sound too much like the crack of the slave-driver's whip. Moreover, news came from the South that the instigators and leaders of the secession movement did not wish any compromise, and that to them the election of the Republican president was really not the cause, but merely a welcome opportunity for their separation from the Union and for the realization of their long-cherished ideal of an independent confederacy of Slave States. The only question still undecided was whether those leaders could carry the great mass of their people with them. The probability was that they would be able to do so, for in such cases the most extreme counsel is apt to appeal most powerfully to the popular ear. President Buchanan's message at the