Maybe the feeling in the debates on the Anglo-Irish Treaty was the same. Participants who had come together through a period in which intense suffering was both endured and inflicted were now approaching a fork in the road.
The sense in the Royal Dublin Society premises in Dublin was that most of the Northern delegates would follow the current leadership. These are the leaders who took guerrilla tactics as far as they could possibly go, over the longest possible period. Who was there, waiting in the wings, who would dare more and push the limits of conflict with a massive military and police machine farther than they had?
There was a different tone emanating from the Southern delegates. Perhaps to ward off the sneer that they were "armchair generals", one speaker pointed to the part that activists from south of the Border had played a part in the IRA campaign of the past 30 years.
There is a real difficulty for Sinn Fein in the South when it comes to voting Yes in the forthcoming referendum. But there is little sentiment in the North for the retention of Articles 2 and 3. As one delegate put it: "I wouldn't give you tuppence for the entire '37 Constitution."
In the first part of the debate on what delegates called "The Good Friday Agreement", speaker after speaker came to the podium to express abhorrence at the notion that the claim to the "Six Counties", even in a Fianna Fail constitution, might be abandoned.
By yesterday the balance was being restored. The more pragmatic view, epitomised by the party president, Gerry Adams, got a better airing. Senior figures hinted at a somewhat Jesuitical approach, which might involve a Yes vote in the North and a No in the South.
This could cause problems for Sinn Fein internationally. The mixed signal might be hard for observers abroad to understand. Was Sinn Fein accepting the document or not? The word "cop-out" might be heard from across the Atlantic.
The one point all speakers were agreed on, at least publicly, was that the current leadership was the best ever, had put a huge effort into the negotiations and could not be criticised for anything.
The document was another matter. Nobody was ecstatic about it, but some saw it as a basis for advance, whereas others would not touch it with a barge-pole. The question which those who damned the document failed to answer was how such an excellent leadership could have a hand in producing such an inferior agreement.
Over the years, the republican movement has been suspicious of politics. The gun and bomb were the only truth: politics led to compromise and eventually betrayal. The problem for the current Sinn Fein leadership, if it can be called a problem, is that they have been far too successful in the political arena. Two MPs, a TD and the third-highest vote in Northern Ireland constitute a significant achievement.
There is the further glittering and tantalising possibility of overtaking the SDLP in the Assembly election, not to mention winning extra seats in the Dail and perhaps even holding the balance of power there at some future date.
The debate at the weekend was inconclusive. It is expected to resume in a fortnight. By then we will presumably hear the final word on Sinn Fein's approach to the referendum. The tone of Mr Adams's closing remarks yesterday did not suggest someone who was pulling back from a process which was, in many ways, a product of his partnership with the SDLP leader, John Hume.
Already some republicans have dismissed Mr Adams and his colleagues as sell-outs who have been absorbed by the system. The challenge he faces is to hold the vast majority of his members while making the most subtle manoeuvre of his political career.
Subtlety is not the most plentiful commodity at party conferences. Mr Adams himself made the point that "The Irish are great rebels but very poor revolutionaries." But once the Southern delegates had been allowed to let off steam, it became clear that he and Martin McGuinness would still be leaders of the vast bulk of the present Sinn Fein party in a month's time.
There will no doubt be some erosion, but the circumstances do not exist for a massive split. There is a war-weariness in the air, and several speakers from the North, older and more experienced than most of the Southern contributors, voiced the desire that their children and their children's children would not have to go through what they had suffered.
The growing political and social power of the nationalist population in the North, and the prospect that Sinn Fein could find itself at the head of that population, are tempting arguments in support of the leadership. In a television interview yesterday David Trimble again called on Sinn Fein to declare that "the war is over".
When this document is accepted in two weeks' time, with whatever reservations about amending Articles 2 and 3, and when, as expected, Sinn Fein enters the new Assembly not as a servant but as one of the masters of the banquet, then it can indeed be said that the war, if not over, has at least lost most of its soldiers.