But we soon found, by the concerted action of Republicans all over the country, that anti-slavery conventions would not be tolerated.

Thus Republicans and Democrats made common cause against the abolitionists.

The John Brown raid, the year before, had intimidated Northern politicians as much as Southern slaveholders, and the general feeling was that the discussion of the question at the North should be altogether suppressed.
From Buffalo to Albany our experience was the same, varied only by the fertile resources of the actors and their surroundings.

Thirty years of education had somewhat changed the character of Northern mobs.

They no longer dragged men through the streets with ropes around their necks, nor broke up women's prayer meetings; they no longer threw eggs and brickbats at the apostles of reform, nor dipped them in barrels of tar and feathers, they simply crowded the halls, and, with laughing, groaning, clapping, and cheering, effectually interrupted the proceedings.