Sedition
: the crime of saying, writing, or doing something that encourages people to disobey their government
: incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sedition
Page 307 paragraph 1
“Nothing since was as stimulating as the old days of letters, petitions, meeting, debates, recruitment, quarrels, rescue and down-right sedition”
The narrator is saying that nothing since then was as stimulating as the quarrels and crimes of the old days, the crime to disobey the government. They used all these in order to try and abolish slavery.
