point there is happily no doubt. The most that can be said is, that it was a false sagacity; a mistaken prudence, that provided for the protection and culture of an apple of Sodom which might have been then and there "nipped in the bud." They did not sanction slavery, although they permitted it, in the mistaken expectation that it would end in selfdestruction.

How the wholesome first anti-slavery movement came to be checked, it is not necessary to consider further than to allude in general to the political aspects which slavery assumed, and especially its increased commercial importance consequent upon the introduction of the cotton-gin, resulting in improved methods of cotton culture. Thus suddenly identified with controlling interests of politics, industry, and commerce, slavery came to be a system, a state of society, a form of civilization " plainly sanctioned by Heaven," but to be blushed at and apologized for by man. Thus it was vindicated, asserted, and defended. This point reached, there could be no stand-still. If right, and to be defended, it must be strengthened. In order to be secure in its present possessions, it must acquire new ones. Hence and herein arose the "irrepressible conflict." For if slavery, in order to exist at all, must expand, it was revolting to every sentiment of self-consistency, of humanity, of morality in the free North, that it must henceforth, through all the nation's life, move with equal step and handin-hand with liberty; that the growing effect of every negotiation, of every concession, of every com

promise between North and South, was the recognition and sanction of slavery. This was to give it the precedence in our political affairs, and to plead in its behalf in the ears of men of other nations. For foreigners estimate a country as a unit, and regard the whole responsible for the worst that any part presents. In the natural and just judgment of the Christian world, a nation which accommodated the laws of its free States to the selfish needs and demands of slave communities, was a slaveholding nation, pure and simple.

But the issue was not to be decided by moral considerations alone. Providentially, there arose at length a disturbing element no less powerful than slavery in its political and commercial aspects had become. That was the emigration movements to the West. The multiplication of thoroughfares, by the opening of natural ones, and the construction of artificial ones made practical through improved agencies of steam, hastened the peopling of the North-western region as rapidly as the new demands of Europe's surplus population could necessitate. This was still further hastened by the discovery of gold on the Pacific slope. Emigration to these vast regions, as fast as over-crowded Europe and the dense population of the Eastern and Middle States could supply, soon told the story. It was clear to Southern statesmen that either free States must cease multiplying, or slavery must go to the wall, in spite of inviting Cuba, Central America, and Mexico.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was

secured, but only to open once more the source of all our political wars, and to hasten the result which it aimed to prevent. The question came to an issue, and was decisively settled in a small field-that of Kansas. Little by little, amid contests long, fierce, and now sanguinary, the old parties had become "demoralized." The animating principles of the Whig party were either set aside or obsolete, and the leaders sought, in the increasing anti-slavery sentiment of the North, a new party basis. In the new movement it soon lost its name; and so there was nothing to prevent any Democrat more truly democratic than the partisan standard of his class, from identifying himself with a movement alike grateful to humane and Christian sentiments, and in harmony with the party's original ideas. The new organization, thus composed of the advanced minds of the old parties, failed of success in the campaign of 1856; but Providence permitted the elevation to power of an Executive in the person of James Buchanan, under whose administration abuses already grievous should become simply intolerable. The South was even then, under thirty years of training, undoubtedly prepared to have made the election of Fremont (Buchanan's opponent) a pretext for secession; but matters were not yet ripe for combinations sufficiently powerful to secure the election of a freesoil candidate. The next four years were so diligently improved by the new party, as to convince the Southern members of the Democratic National Convention, which sat at Charleston, that Mr. Douglas

was the only man who could certainly succeed against Mr. Lincoln. And although party success was sure under Senator Douglas, yet the South renounced it by divisions in the Convention, which should secure the nomination of at least two anti-Republican candidates. In Republican success would be found an excuse for the revolution so long preparing.

Mr. Lincoln was thus elected through the direct agency of the slaveholding South, and of course no words or assurances of his could convince the Southern States that he did not intend to interfere with their domestic concerns. The Slave States, contrary to the expectation of government, seceded; and their secession was facilitated by the fact that the loyal majority of the nation neglected all precautions and safeguards, in the confident belief that no serious revolt was contemplated.

CHAPTER III.

PROSECUTION OF THE WAR.

North and South-Defence of War- Echoes of Lincoln's VoiceFort Sumter - Its Siege—Its Fall — Diplomacy Ended — War Inaugurated Uprising of the North-First Sunday in Chicago · Ready Volunteers-New York-Voice of Each State - On to Richmond - England Recognizes the Rebels-Southern Expedition General Sherman- General Grant's First Battle-His Soldierly Qualities Grand Review of 100,000 Men in Virginia - McClellan's "Short, Sharp, Decisive War."

THE circumstances attending the election of Mr. Lincoln, and the events that followed it during the closing acts of Mr. Buchanan's administration, need not be dwelt upon here; the secession of South Carolina in December; the departure of Southern members from Congress in January; the almost fatal divisions of sentiment in the North, finding their counterpart in the dissensions that rent the Southern States; the passing of ordinances of secession by North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and the formation, before the end of February, of a Southern Confederacy, with a provisional government under the rule of Davis, at Montgomery. Congress now exhibited "confusion worse confounded;" rebel members hurled their passionate harangues into the excited throng, and melo-dramatically bade their mock adieus to a Congress that