The destruction of property, and the destruction of life instead of putting down the hated Abolitionists aroused in the public mind apprehensions and antagonisms in respect of mobs, which proved, immediately and ultimately, of immense advantage to freedom.

This revulsion on the part of the North from lawless attempts to abolish Abolitionism, affected almost unavoidably, and in the beginning of it almost unconsciously, the friendly dispositions of that section toward slavery, the root and mainspring of these attempts.

Blows aimed at the agent were sure, regardless of the actor's intention, to glance and strike the principal.
In spite of mobs then, and to a remarkable degree because of mobs, Abolitionism had become a powerful motor in revolutionizing public opinion in the free States on the subject of slavery..