Men at the North felt that this was a great aggression, a great outrage upon freedom; yet, to give quiet and restore harmony, they submitted, consoled by the national pledge that slavery should be extended no further, and believing that the nation might joyously look forward to long years of happiness and repose.
Tompkins discusses the feelings of Northern citizens regarding the expansion of slavery and their hopes for peace.
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Before you complain of the free States, arrest and punish the scoundrels who so cruelly treated the Irishman at Columbia, South Carolina, for no offence but saying that slavery was detrimental to free labor.
Men who commit acts declared by the whole civilized world to be piracy, you permit to escape, while you say you will hang the man who circulates Helper's book.
Yet the whole power of this Government is devoted to that one object; its entire strength concentrated in one spasmodic effort to extend slavery.
I have also endeavored to show what are the aims and objects of the Republican party; and if they cannot be tolerated--if such principles cannot be sustained by the people of any section of this country--it is the misfortune of that people.
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