"Sir," spoke he to the committee, "we loudly boast of our free country, and of the union of these States, yet I have no country! As a New Englander and as an Abolitionist I am excluded by a bloody proscription from one-half of the national territory, and so is every man who is known to regard slavery with abhorrence. Where is our Union? ... The right of free and safe locomotion from one part of the land to the other is denied to us, except on peril of our lives.... Therefore it is, I assert, that the Union is now virtually dissolved.... Look at McDuffie's sanguinary message! Read Calhoun's Report to the U.S. Senate, authorizing every postmaster in the South to plunder the mail of such Northern letters or newspapers as he may choose to think incendiary! Sir, the alternative presented to the people of New England is this: they must either submit to be gagged and fettered by Southern taskmasters, or labor unceasingly for the removal of slavery from our country." This was a capital stroke, a bold and brilliant adaptation of the history of the times to the advancement of the anti-slavery movement in New England. Missing Garrison, the anger of the chairman fell upon Goodell and Prof. Follen, like a tiger's whelp. Follen was remarking upon the Faneuil Hall meeting, how it had rendered the Abolitionists odious in Boston, and how, in consequence, the mob had followed the meeting. "Now, gentlemen," the great scholar continued, "may we most reasonably anticipate that similar consequences would follow the expression by the legislature of a similar condemnation? Would not the mob again undertake to execute the informal sentence of the General Court? Would it not let loose again its bloodhounds upon us?" At this point Mr. Lunt peremptorily stopped the speaker, exclaiming: "Stop, sir! You may not pursue this course of remark. It is insulting to this committee and the legislature which they represent." The Abolitionists, after this insult, determined to withdraw from the hearing, and appeal to the legislature to be heard, not as a favor but of right. A new hearing was, therefore, ordered, and the reformers appeared a second time before the committee. But the scenes of the first were repeated at the second hearing. The chairman was intolerably insolent to the speakers. His violent behavior to William Goodell, who was paying his respects to the Southern documents lying on the table of the committee, terminated the second hearing. These documents Mr. Goodell described as fetters for Northern freemen, and boldly interrogated the chairman in respect of them thus: