At that moment, and even long after the heat of temper subsided,[358] party feeling tended to favor the rioters rather than the Federalists, who had, as was said, “given aid and comfort to the enemy;” but when the political effects of the massacre showed themselves, the war party became aware that a blunder had been committed more serious than any ordinary crime. The Baltimore massacre recalled the excesses of the French Revolution, still fresh in men’s minds; and although Democrats in Pennsylvania and Republicans in Virginia might feel themselves too strong for disorder, in the North and East the murder of Lingan shook the foundation of society. Massachusetts and Connecticut looked to their arms. If their political opinions were to be repressed by such means, they had need to be unanimous on their own side. The town of Boston, August 6, declared in strongly worded resolutions[359] that the riot was “the first fruit of the unnatural and dreadful alliance into which we have entered in fact, if not in form,” and ordered the magistrates and citizens to be ready at a moment’s warning, armed and equipped, to suppress any kind of disorder. Under this excitement, the Federalists at Rockingham, August 5, talked of disunion, and the rabble of Plymouth mobbed Turner on the night of August 3. If the majority alone was to utter opinions, the Republican party north of Pennsylvania might yet be forced to practise the virtue of silence. Not all the political and military disasters of the year harmed the Government and the war more seriously than they were injured by the Baltimore mob. Under the influence of such passions the Presidential election approached. Except beyond the mountains the war party was everywhere a social minority, and perhaps such strength as Madison retained in the East consisted partly in the popular impression that he was not a favorite with the authors of the war. The true sentiment of the people, if capable of expression, was one of fretful discontent; and the sense of diffused popular restlessness alone explained the obstinacy of De Witt Clinton in refusing to desist from his candidacy, and still more the first prominent appearance of Martin Van Buren as manager of the intrigue for defeating Madison. De Witt Clinton was classed by most persons as a reckless political gambler, but Martin Van Buren when he intrigued commonly preferred to intrigue upon the strongest side. Yet one feeling was natural to every New York politician, whether a Clinton or a Livingston, Burrite, Federalist, or Republican,--all equally disliked Virginia; and this innate jealousy gave to the career of Martin Van Buren for forty years a bias which perplexed his contemporaries, and stood in singular contradiction to the soft and supple nature he seemed in all else to show.