Note 33 — Chapter II · NEW PARTY ALIGNMENTS 1861
Reading edition
"From what lodge in some vast wilderness, from what lone mountain in the desert, the convention obtained its Rip Van Winkle president, we are at a loss to conceive. He evidently has never heard of the Wilmot Proviso struggle of 1848, the compromise contest of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the Lecompton constitution of 1858, nor the presidential election of 1860. It is plain that he has never even dreamed of the secession ordinances and of the fall of Sumter."—New York Tribune, September 6, 1861.
"The speech of Mr. Redfield is universally laughed at. He has completely proven that he does not belong to the present century, or, at least, that he has been asleep for the last twenty years. Barnum should deposit it among the curiosities of his shop."—New York Herald, September 5, 1861.