Hillard, who was one of the delegates from Boston, made a very carefully prepared speech on some pending question.
Allen closed the debate, making no reference whatever to Hillard's elaborate and most eloquent argument, until he was about to sit down, when he said: "Mr.President, I believe my time is up ?" The President answered: "The gentleman from Worcester has two minutes more." "Two minutes!" exclaimed Allen.

"Time enough to answer the gentleman from Boston." And he proceeded in that brief period to deal a few strokes with his keen scimitar, which effectually demolished Hillard's elaborate structure.
There is nothing in the political excitements of recent years which approaches in intensity that of the period from 1848 until the breaking out of the War.

The people of Massachusetts felt the most profound interest in the great conflict between slavery and freedom for the possession of the vast territory between the Mississippi and the Pacific.

But almost every man in Massachusetts felt the Fugitive Slave Law as a personal dishonor.

I think no great public calamity, not the death of Webster, not the death of Sumner, not the loss of great battles during the War, brought such a sense of gloom over the whole State as the surrender of Anthony Burns and of Sims.
Worcester, where I dwelt, was the centre and stronghold of the anti-slavery feeling in Massachusetts.