. From the first, the
Germans opposed it. Of their newspapers only eight out of eighty-eight
were favourable. Public meetings, full of enthusiasm and noble
sentiment, resembled religious gatherings enlisted in a holy war
against a great social evil. The first assembled in New York City as
early as January 30, six days after the repeal was agreed upon.
Another larger meeting occurred on the 18th of February. It was here
that Henry Ward Beecher's great genius asserted the fulness of its
intellectual power. He had been in Brooklyn five years. The series of
forensic achievements which began at the Kossuth banquet in 1851 had
already made him the favourite speaker of the city, but, on the 18th
of February, he became the idol of the anti-slavery host. Wit, wisdom,
patriotism, and pathos, mingled with the loftiest strains of
eloquence, compelled the attention and the admiration of every
listener. When he concluded the whole assembly rose to do him honour;
tears rolled down the cheeks of men and women. Everything was
forgotten, save the great preacher and the cause for which he stood.
"The storm that is rising," wrote Seward, "is such an one as this
country has never yet seen. The struggle will go on, but it will be a
struggle for the whole American people."[442] In the _Tribune_ of May
17, Greeley said that Pierce and Douglas had made more Abolitionists
in three months than Garrison and Phillips could have made in half a
century.

[Footnote 442: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 222.]

The agitation resulted in an anti-Nebraska state convention, held at
Saratoga on the 16th of August. It was important in the men who
composed it. John A. King called it to order; Horace Greeley reported
the resolutions; Henry J. Raymond represented the district that had
twice sent him to the Assembly; and Moses H. Grinnell became chairman
of its executive committee. In the political struggles of two decades
most of its delegates had filled prominent and influential positions.
These men were now brought together by an absorbing sense of duty and
a common impulse of resistance to the encroachments of slavery. People
supposed a new party would be formed and a ticket nominated as in
Michigan; but after an animated and at times stormy discussion, the
delegates concluded that in principle too little difference existed to
warrant the present disturbance of existing organisations. So, after
declaring sentiments which were to become strong