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 round 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.

Thus we passed the two days we had advertised for a Convention in St.
James' Hall, Buffalo. As we paid for the Hall, the mob enjoyed
themselves at our expense in more ways than one. At the appointed time
every session we took our places on the platform, making at various
intervals of silence renewed efforts to speak. Not succeeding, we sat
and conversed with each other and many friends who crowded the
platform and ante-rooms. Thus among ourselves we had a pleasant
reception and a discussion of many phases of the question that brought
us together. The mob not only vouchsafed to us the privilege of
talking to our friends without interruption, but delegations of their
own came behind the scenes from time to time, to discuss with us the
right of free speech and the constitutionality of slavery.

These Buffalo rowdies were headed by ex-Justice Hinson, aided by
younger members of the Fillmore and Seymour families and the Chief of
Police and fifty subordinates, who were admitted to the hall free for
the express purpose of protecting our right of free speech, which in
defiance of the Mayor's orders, they did not make the slightest effort
to do. At Lockport there was a feeble attempt in the same direction.
At Albion neither hall, church, nor school-house could be obtained, so
we held small meetings in the dining-room of the hotel.

At Rochester, Corinthian Hall was packed long before the hour
advertised. This was a delicately appreciative jocose mob. At this
point Aaron Powell joined us. As he had just risen from a bed of
sickness, looking pale and emaciated, he slowly mounted the platform.
The mob at once took in his look of exhaustion, and as he seated
himself they gave an audible, simultaneous sigh, as if to say, What a
relief it is to