They were both ignominiously laid upon the table, and what is more to the purpose as a straw to show the drift of popular opinion on the slavery question in Massachusetts, their author failed of a renomination as Senator at the hands of his dissatisfied constituents.
The conflict was raging not alone in Massachusetts but all through the free States.

In Congress the battle was assuming an intensely bitter character.

Here the South was the agitator.

Here she kept the political waters in a state of violent ebullition.

As the discord grew, sectionalism threw darkening and portentous shadows over the face of the Union.