San Francisco Daily Alta California, January 6, 1860

The news by the Overland Mail, which left St. Louis on the 15th ult., will be found in our columns this morning. The bitter sectional animosities which have characterized so much of the present session of Congress, bid fair to culminate at any moment in a disgraceful, if not a tragic, scene within the walls of the Capitol. The organization of the House had not been effected although Sherman, Republican, had received enough, within four votes, to elect him—Haskin, Hickman, and Schwartz, Anti-Lecompton Democrats, having voted for him. As a matter of course, under the present mixed condition of affairs, speculation as to the probable result is idle.

Union meetings are being held throughout the North—the people of that section of the Union manifesting a determination to publicly avow their loyalty to the Constitution, leaving it to the South to assume the whole onus of disunion threats, and mayhap, an attempt at secession.

The last act in the Harper's Ferry rebellion has been performed, and ere this, it is to be hoped that peace and order once more rule in Virginia, and military surveillance is at an end. The insurrectionists and murderers have met with a just doom, and fairly earned the just penalty which they paid. It will suffice to teach a wholesome lesson to plotters against the perpetuity of the Union, and fanatical instigators of rebellion, and, let us hope, result eventually, in lasting good to both sections of the Union.