The Alabamian’s friends seemed to be jubilant over the victory they claimed to have won in the wordy encounter. The other party were less demonstrative but more determined than before, and were moved to various degrees of wrath by the disunion sentiments to which they had listened. Some, while stirred to indignation by the sentiments, which they considered atrocious, and at the speaker’s audacity in uttering them, had yet a feeling of regret that their own champions were put on the platform at disadvantage; had been subjected in turn to questioning by their adversary, as witnesses might be in court by an adroit attorney; and were compelled to relative silence, while he, on the point at issue, fully delivered his mind with an air of triumph to the exhilaration of his friends. When the result of the Presidential election was known, the political excitement greatly increased. There had been no electoral ticket in Tennessee for the Republican candidates: and had any citizen of the State openly advocated Mr. Lincoln’s election, he would have had to suffer indignity and injury, or to flee from his home. The general public sentiment was hostile to the Republican party and at the same time friendly to the continuance of slavery where it existed, without interference from abroad. As between secession and the preservation of the Union, opinions differed both in kind and degree of strength. A single incident will illustrate the situation: A citizen of Ohio, selling fruit-tree scions arrived at Knoxville from Asheville, North Carolina. He was closely followed by the newspaper of that village, fixing strong suspicion upon him from slight evidence, as a peregrinating Abolitionist with a sinister purpose. Meanwhile he with his chattels personal, had found temporary lodgment on the Deaf and Dumb Asylum grounds. Some medical students at Philadelphia from Mississippi and Alabama, influenced by political fervor, when the work of secession began, incontinently abandoned their professional studies, and departed homewards. Arriving at Knoxville on their way, and hearing of the alleged anti-slavery Ohioan, they went without delay and demanded his expulsion from the community. But because of the Asylum’s Principal, they failed in their errand, and as rumor told, were humorously rebuked by him for their impertinent wrath and intolerance.