EPOCH OF WAR AND GREATNESS.

CHAPTER XXV.

WE here approach the great tragedy of American history. We find ourselves in the dawn of that epoch which was des tined to bring insurrection, blood and devastation in its train. Let us, in the first place, note with clearness some of the antecedents and causes which led to the tremendous conflict now impending over the American Republic.

It was believed by the pro-slavery party and the Democratic administration, extending from 1856 to 1860, that the Dred Scott decision would allay the troubles, at least to some extent, and probably produce a calm, On the contrary, that judicial edict came as a torch among combustibles. Some of the Free States proceeded to pass what were called Personal Liberty Bills, the object of which was to thwart the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law. A deepseated and unquenchable animosity towards the slavery propagandists was kindled throughout the North, and many of the greatest and most enlightened Americans set themselves in relentless hostility, not only to the extension of slavery, but to the institution itself.

Next came the John Brown insurrection of 1859. Old John Brown, of Osawatomie, deliberately devised a scheme for a servile war and revolution throughout the South. He

had been one of the leaders of the Free-State militia in the border war in Kansas. He was an enthusiast, fearless, persistent, determined to do or to die, a religious fanatic who took no counsel of danger or defeat. With a party of twenty-one men like himself, but not his equals, he made a sudden descent out of Pennsylvania on the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, captured the place and held his ground for nearly two days. The militia of Virginia and then the national troops were called out to suppress the revolt. Thirteen of Brown's men were killed, two made their escape and the rest were captured. The leader and his six companions were given over to the authorities of Virginia, tried, condemned and hanged. The event was one which to the present day excites the keenest interest and liveliest controversy. By many people Brown is looked upon as a hero and martyr, the protagonist of a new era; by many others as a well-meaning fanatic, and even madman; and by many others as an anarchist of a most dangerous type, ready to commit any violence to carry his point.

Ever and anon the controversy in Kansas broke out with added heat. There the Free-Soil party gradually gained the upper hand. It became evident that slavery would be finally interdicted in the new State. But a question had now been opened between the North and the South which was not to close except by the workings of the greatest tragedy of modern times. Among the Northern people anti-slavery sentiments spread and became intense. It became a conviction that the institution of slavery must now be curbed with a strong hand. In the minds of the younger people that institution began to have the feature of a demon. In the South, on the other hand, the opposing conviction grew that it was the purpose and scheme of the Northern people, first to gain control of the national gov

ernment and then to attack them and their peculiar do mestic institutions.

Such was the fretful and alarming condition of affairs when the administration of Buchanan drew to a close. The nineteenth presidential election was at hand. The Free-Soil party had now become powerfully organic under the name Republican. A great convention of the delegates of that party was held in Chicago, and Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, was nominated for the Presidency. The platform of principles declared opposition to the extension of slavery as the one vital issue. In April of 1860 the Democratic convention assembled at Charleston, South Carolina, but no sooner had the body convened than its utter distraction of counsels was apparent. The delegates were divided on the slavery question, and after much debating and wrangling the party was disrupted. The delegates from the South, unable to obtain a distinct indorsement of their views in the platform of the party, and seeing that the Northern wing was determined to nominate Senator Douglas, withdrew from the convention. The remainder, including most of the delegates from the North, continued in session, balloted for a while for a candidate, and on the 3d of May adjourned to meet at a later date in Baltimore.

The second convention was held on the 18th of June, according to appointment. The Northern delegates reassembled and chose Stephen A. Douglas as their standardbearer. The seceding Southern delegates adjourned first to Richmond, and afterwards to Baltimore, where they met on the 28th of June and nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. The American, or Know-Nothing party, which had now lost much of its distinctive character, took the name of Constitutional Unionists, met in convention, and chose John Bell, of Tennessee, as its candidate for the Presidency. Thus were four political standards raised is

the field, and the excitement went through the country like a storm.

In the political conflict that ensued the Republicans gained much by their compactness and the distinctness of their utterances on the question of slavery. Most of the old Abolitionists cast in their fortunes with the Republican party and the support of Lincoln. The result was the triumphant election of that remarkable man by the votes of nearly all the Northern States. The votes of the Southern States were for the most part given to Breckinridge. The States of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee cast their thirty-nine ballots for Bell. Douglas received a large popular but small electoral support. His adherents were scattered through all the States, without concentration in any. Thus after controlling the destinies of the republic for sixty years, with only temporary breaks in 1840 and 1848, the Democratic party was overthrown and driven from the field.

But what was the result? The Southern leaders had declared already that the election of Lincoln by the votes of the Northern States would be just cause for a dissolution of the Union. Threats to secede had been freely indulged in the Southern States, but in the North such expressions were regarded as mere political bravado, made up of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It was believed that no actual purpose of secession existed among the people of the South. The threats that were indulged in rather instigated than deterred the Republicans of the populous North from voting according to their political convictions. They crowded to the polls and their favorite was elected by a plurality of the electoral votes.

For the time, however, the government remained under control of the Douglas Democracy. A majority of the members of the cabinet and a large number of Senators and Representatives belonged to the Breckinridge party. These

had imbibed from their education and training, and from their local attachments, the proclivities of the extreme South Such members of Congress then began openly to advocate in the Senate and House of Representatives the doctrine of secession as a legitimate remedy for the election of Lincoln. With the close of the current administration a climax

was reached. With the ensuing spring all the departments of the government were to pass into the hands of the Republican party. The times were full of passion, animosity and rashness.

At this juncture the Southern leaders perceived that as affairs then stood the dismemberment of the Union was possible, but that with the inauguration of Lincoln and the establishment of Republican rule such a movement would probably be thwarted and become an impossibility. Great was the embarrassment of the President. He was not himself a disunionist. In argument he denied the right of a State to secede; but at the same time he declared himself not armed with Constitutional power to prevent by force the secession of a sovereign State. His attitude thus favored the plans of the secession party. Buchanan's theory of government was sufficient of itself to paralyze the remaining energies of the executive and to make him helpless in the presence of the great emergency. It was with wisdom and craft, therefore, on the part of the Southern leaders that the interval between the November election of 1860 and the inauguration of Lincoln was seized as the opportune moment for the dissolution of the Union.

The event showed that the train had already been laid for the impending catastrophe. The actual work of seces. sion broke out in South Carolina. The disunion proclivities of that State, after a slumber of thirty years, burst suddenly forth in flame and fire. On the 17th of December, 1860, a convention of delegates chosen by the people of South