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men, thirteen were killed in the encounter with the militia sent to protect the public property, and the others were captured, imprisoned, and soon executed. Brown was a descendant of Peter Brown, who came from England in the Mayflower. He was a man of

pronounced views, and had, as we have learned, been engaged in the struggle in Kansas. In 1859 he had left Kansas, and he had, on May 8, 1858, held a secret convention at Chatham, Ontario, where he had adopted a provisional constitution for "the people of the United States," under which officers were chosen. Afterward he went to Harper's Ferry, near which place he rented a house and remained. consummating his plans until the attack was made on the town.

The affair at Harper's Ferry created a great excitement both North and South. The North had already been stirred by the assault made by a representative of South Carolina, upon Senator Sumner of Massachusetts, on the twenty-second of May, 1856, and had begun to feel that an appeal to force was to be made by the supporters of slavery. The assault occurred during the debate upon the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. On the nineteenth and twentieth of May, Mr. Sumner had delivered a speech, in the course of which he had spoken with force and plainness about "the crime against Kansas," as he termed the steps taken in the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and he had been met with vituperative abuse by various Senators, who disagreed with him. In replying to this abuse, Mr. Sumner used language too much like that of his antagonists, and a reference to Senator Butler of South Carolina was made by Mr. Brooks the basis of the assault. After the Senate had adjourned, he entered the chamber where Mr. Sumner sat at his desk writing, and, saying that the speech of Mr. Sumner was a "libel upon South Carolina and Mr. Butler," who was his relative, Mr. Brooks suddenly struck Mr. Sumner on the head with a stout stick until he fell bleeding and unconscious to the floor. For the attack, Mr. Butler was censured by the House of Representatives and fined by a Washington court, but, as he was sustained, and even praised, by many prominent persons in the South, it was felt at the North that the South was in earnest in wishing to decide the differences between the sections by other than peaceful means.

On the other hand, the South accepted the act of John Brown as that of the entire North, and believed

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that there was a settled determination there to proceed to liberate the slaves by force and to plunge that section in the horrors of a servile war. As long ago as 1850, Daniel Webster said that one cause of sectional jealousy consisted "in imputing to a whole portion of the country the extravagances of individuals.”

While the country was in this disturbed condition, the time for nominating President for the following term arrived. The first convention to be held was that of the Democrats, at Charelston, S. C., April 23, but after a stormy session of ten days, it broke up without having made a nomination. On the ninth of May the relics of the Whig and "Know-nothing" party met at Baltimore, and nominated, as representing the "Constitutional Union" party, John Bell of Tennessee, for President, and Edward Everett* of Massachusetts for Vice-President. One week later, the Republican party met at Chicago and nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, and adopted a platform.

* John Bell was born in 1797, near Nashville, Tenn., and died in 1869. He first became a member of Congress in 1827, and was six times re-elected before 1841. He opposed Nullification, supported Jackson as President, but protested against his removal of the bank deposits. He separated from the Democratic party, and became Secretary of War under Harrison. In 1847 he was sent to Washington as Senator, and again in 1843. He favored Mr. Clay's compromise measures, and opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

Edward Everett, a native of Boston, was born in 1794 and died in 1865. He graduated at Harvard College, in 1811, with the highest honors of his class, and entered the ministry; but after preaching a year, went abroad to study at the University of Göttingen, and returned to take the chair of Greek at Cambridge. In 1825, he entered Congress, and occupied public posts of great importance until 1854. He had been Minister to England, Secretary of State, Senator at Washington, Governor of Massachusetts and President of Harvard College. He was judicial and conservative in his habits of mind, and of almost universal culture.