were the Liberals of America, and to that party also belonged the Abolitionists, or Black Republicans. As long as territorial or geographical distinctions did not divide these parties, there was little prospect of secession. It had been threatened more than once, but a compromise was always effected.

When, however, the result of the election of Mr. Lincoln (the Republican candidate) was known, and it was perceived that the Republican party in the Northern States, notwithstanding the opposition of the entire South, had obtained the upper hand, advocating as they did, opinions hostile to the welfare of the South, some of the Southern States, seeing that their power in the government of the United States, after constantly diminishing, had departed, without even waiting for the accession to office of the obnoxious President, seceded from the Union. This course was much blamed by the Democratic party of the North, as they alleged, with some truth, that they were deserted by their allies in their utmost need. It was admitted that the Republican party had the majority in the House of Representatives. The President was now chosen from their ranks, and therefore it was clear that the only place where the battle could be fought was the Senate; but, owing to the secession of the Southern States, and the consequent withdrawal of their senators, the majority in that house would now be of the Republican party. The cause of the extreme hostility evinced by the Southern people against the Republican party, lay in the gradual extension of the principles of Abolition. The South, inheriting slavery from the first colonists, and being encumbered with a large negro population, nolens volens were forced to submit to what many, even in the slave-holding States, considered an evil. Mr. Lincoln himself, in a speech which he made when

canvassing for the Illinois senatorship three years before his presidential election, spoke in these terms: 'My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and to send them to Liberia to their own native land. This is impossible. What then, free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? It is quite certain that this betters their condition. I think I would not hold one

in slavery at any rate; yet, the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them and make them politically and socially our equals. My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people would not. Whether this accords with justice and sound judgment is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. An universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them our equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.'. . . . When, therefore, Southerners heard slavery denounced in the violent terms used by a portion of the Republican party, some of whom even sympathised with John Brown and his followers, who made a raid into Virginia in 1859, and when they perceived that that party had obtained the reins of power, they gradually became fearful that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution would be abrogated. In addition to these causes of dissension, there was still another which influenced more especially the cotton States-this was the tariff question.* In 1816 protective duties were imposed, under which the manufacturing interests of the Eastern States made great progress. These were

The American Union, Spence, p. 171.

successively augmented, until, in 1832, when the increased tariff of 1828 came under revision, the State of South Carolina called a convention of her people and passed an ordinance, declaring the tariff null and void. This was followed by measures tending to secession, and to prevent such a misfortune, a bill was hurried. through Congress, of which the purport was to effect a large, though gradual reduction of the duties on manufactures. However, owing to various causes, the reduction did not take effect, and from 1842 the fiscal system of the United States has been continuously protective. Gradually this question, also, has become sectional or rather geographical, and tended, together with that of slavery, to imbitter the feelings of the Southern against the Northern States. The causes of secession may be thus briefly summed up as follows: the gradual loss of power by the Southern States-a loss felt with great severity by a proud and aristocratic race; the knowledge that wealth, equally with power, was leaving the Southern cities, and that the protective tariffs were increasing the prosperity of Northern seaports at the expense of their own; the bitter feelings engendered by the abuse lavished on the South by the Abolition party-abuse attended with grievous danger, if the accusation was true that Northern emissaries had attempted to incite insurrection among the blacks; the whole culminating in the evidence afforded by the results of the canvass and election of Mr. Lincoln, that the Republican party were united and powerful, and being so were able to bring a majority into the field, which would for ever keep the South from power; in fact, that the division of parties had ceased to be only that of opinion, but had become also geographical.

American Union, Spence, p. 175.

CHAPTER II.

EVENTS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING HOSTILITIES.

THE great flood of desolation which, owing to the war, has spread over the once prosperous territories of the United States, may be likened to the devastation frequently caused by their own mighty rivers. The gradually accumulating materials of strife resemble the masses of trees, brush, and earth that often obstruct the stream at first apparently trivial in their effect, but which gradually becoming welded together, dam up the waters, until, breaking through a weak place in the embankment by which they have hitherto been confined, they rush over the fields, destroying crops, houses, and villages in their course, and (but seldom returning to the old channel) seeking some fresh outlet to the sea. Possibly even the river separates into many streams, and although losing its former grandeur, yet confers greater benefits to man so subdivided than when united. The results of a vast inundation are, indeed, difficult to calculate, how much more those arising from revolution and war?

Having traced out, however slightly, the causes which led to secession, the immediate events which preceded the actual commencement of hostilities claim our attention. On November 7, 1860, it was announced at New York that Mr. Lincoln had been

chosen for the presidency. It is true that his actual election would not take place before four months had passed; but owing to a flaw which had gradually made itself felt in the machinery of the government, it was known to have been secured. The framers of the Constitution had intended to guard against the direct influence of universal suffrage in the appointment of the chief magistrate of the State, by confining the selection to a body of electors chosen by the people. It was their duty to weigh the claims of each of the several candidates, and to choose from among them whoever was best fitted for the office. But an abuse had crept in which completely defeated this intention; the electors were, indeed, appointed by the people, but each man was pledged to vote for a particular candidate; therefore whilst in form the Constitution was adhered to, in reality its intents was disregarded. So it happened that the final result of the canvass for the presidency became known in November 1860. The news was received with the greatest excitement in the cotton States, and in South Carolina at once resulted in action; a mass meeting was held at Charleston, the Palmetto flag was raised, volunteers, termed minute men, were enrolled, all Northern periodicals and newspapers, containing any matter savouring of abolition, were returned, and the State House of Representatives passed a bill on November 9, without a dissentient voice, authorising a meeting of the State Convention. The excitement spread through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and before the end of the year 1860 it was evident that a crisis had arrived in the history of the American Republic. The border slave States were, indeed, more moderate in their tone, and averse to violent measures before some compro