DEFINITION OF THE WAR ISSUE.
INCREASE OF SLAVE POPULATION IN SLAVE-HOLDING STATES FROM
1850-1860.--PRODUCTS OF SLAVE LABOR.--BASIS OF SOUTHERN
REPRESENTATION.--SIX SECEDING STATES ORGANIZE A NEW
GOVERNMENT.--CONSTITUTION OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT.--SPEECH
BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.--MR. LINCOLN IN FAVOR OF GRADUAL
EMANCIPATION.--HE IS ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.--THE
ISSUE OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.
In 1860 there were, in the fifteen slave-holding States, 12,240,000
souls, of whom 8,039,000 were whites, 251,000 free persons of color,
and 3,950,000 were slaves. The gain of the entire population of the
slave-holding States, from 1850-1860, was 2,627,000, equal to 27.33
per cent. The slave population had increased 749,931, or 23.44 per
cent., not including the slaves in the District of Columbia, where
they had lost 502 slaves during the decade. The nineteen
non-slave-holding States and the seven territories, including the
District of Columbia, contained 19,203,008 souls, of whom 18,920,771
were whites, 237,283 free persons of color, and 41,725 civilized
Indians. The actual increase of this population was 5,624,101, or
41.24 per cent. During the same period--1850-1860--the total
population of free persons of color in the United States increased
from 434,449 to 487,970, or at the rate of 12.33 per cent., annual
increase of above 1 per cent. In 1850 the Mulattoes were 11.15 per
cent., regarding the United States as one aggregate, and in 1860 were
13.25 per cent., of the entire Colored population.
TOTAL COLORED POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES.
--------------+-----------------------+---------------
| Numbers. | Proportions.
+-----------+-----------+-------+-------
Colored. | 1850. | 1860. | 1850. | 1860.
--------------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------
Blacks | 3,233,057 | 3,853,478 | 88.85 | 86.75
Mulattoes | 405,751 | 588,352 | 11.15 | 13.25
--------------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------
Total Colored | 3,638,808 | 4,441,830 |100.00 |100.00
--------------+-----------+-----------+-------+-------
So, in ten years, from 1850-1860, the increase of blacks above the
current deaths was 620,421, or more than one half of a million, while
the corresponding increase of Mulattoes was 182,601. Estimating the
deaths to have been 22.4 per cent. during the same period, or one in
40 annually, the total births of Blacks in ten years was about
1,345,000, and the total births of Mulattoes about 273,000. Thus it
appears, in the prevailing order, that of every 100 births of Colored,
about 17 were Mulattoes, and 83 Blacks, indicating a ratio of nearly 1
to 5.
There were:
Deaf and dumb slaves 531
Blind 1,387
Insane 327
Idiotic 1,182
-----
Total 3,427
There were 400,000 slaves in the towns and cities of the South, and
2,804,313 in the country. The products of slave labor in 1850 were as
follows:
SLAVE LABOR PRODUCTS IN 1850.
Cotton $98,603,720
Tobacco 13,982,686
Cane sugar 12,378,850
Hemp 5,000,000
Rice 4,000,000
Molasses 2,540,179
------------
$136,505,435
There were 347,525 slave-holders against 5,873,893 non-slave-holders
in the slave States. The representation in Congress was as follows:
Northern representatives based on white population 142
Northern representatives based on Colored population 2
Southern representatives based on white population 68
Southern representatives based on free Colored population 2
Southern representatives based on slave population 20
Ratio of representation for 1853 93,420
The South owned 16,652 churches, valued at $22,142,085; the North
owned 21,357 churches, valued at $65,167,586. The South printed
annually 92,165,919 copies of papers and periodicals; the North
printed annually 334,146,081 copies of papers and periodicals. The
South owned, other than private, 722 libraries, containing 742,794
volumes; the North owned, other than private, 14,902 libraries,
containing 3,882,217 volumes.
In sentiment, motive, and civilization the two "Sections" were as far
apart as the poles. New England, Puritan, Roundhead civilization could
not fellowship the Cavaliers of the South. There were not only two
sections and two political parties in the United States;--there were
two antagonistic governmental ideas. John C. Calhoun and Alexander H.
Stephens, of the South, represented the idea of the separate and
individual sovereignty of each of the States; while William H. Seward
and Abraham Lincoln, of the North, represented the idea of the
centralization of governmental authority, so far as it was necessary
to secure uniformity of the laws, and the supremacy of the Federal
Constitution. On the 25th of October, 1858, in a speech delivered in
Rochester, N. Y., William H. Seward said:
"Our country is a theatre which exhibits, in full operation, two
radically different political systems: the one resting on the
basis of servile or slave labor; the other on the basis of
voluntary labor of freemen.
* * * * *
"The two systems are at once perceived to be incongruous. They
never have permanently existed together in one country, and they
never can.
... "These antagonistic systems are continually coming in closer
contact, and collision ensues.
"Shall I tell you what this collision means? It is an
irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and
it means that the United States must, and will, sooner or later,
become entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free labor
nation. Either the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina, and
the sugar plantations of Louisiana, will ultimately be tilled by
free-labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for
legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye fields and wheat
fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by
their farmers to the slave culture and to the production of
slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for
trade in the bodies and souls of men."
Upon the eve of the great Rebellion, Mr. Seward said in the United
States Senate:
"A free Republican government like this, notwithstanding all its
constitutional checks, cannot long resist and counteract the
progress of society.
"Free labor has at last apprehended its rights and its destiny,
and is organizing itself to assume the government of the
Republic. It will henceforth meet you boldly and resolutely here
(Washington); it will meet you everywhere, in the territories and
out of them, where-ever you may go to extend slavery. It has
driven you back in California and in Kansas; it will invade you
soon in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, and Texas. It
will meet you in Arizona, in Central America, and even in Cuba.
* * * * *
"You may, indeed, get a start under or near the tropics, and seem
safe for a time, but it will be only a short time. Even there you
will found States only for free labor, or to maintain and occupy.
The interest of the whole race demands the ultimate emancipation
of all men. Whether that consummation shall be allowed to take
effect, with needful and wise precautions against sudden change
and disaster, or be hurried on by violence, is all that remains
for you to decide. The white man needs this continent to labor
upon. His head is clear, his arm is strong, and his necessities
are fixed.
* * * * *
"It is for yourselves, and not for us, to decide how long and
through what further mortifications and disasters the contest
shall be protracted before Freedom shall enjoy her already
assured triumph.
"You may refuse to yield it now, and for a short period, but your
refusal will only animate the friends of freedom with the courage
and the resolution, and produce the union among them, which alone
is necessary on their part to attain the position itself,
simultaneously with the impending overthrow of the existing
Federal Administration and the constitution of a new and more
independent Congress."
Mr. Lincoln said during a discussion of the impending crisis:
"I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave
and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do
not expect the house to fall, but I do expect that it will cease
to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of
it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates
will push it forward until it shall become alike lawful in all
the States, old as well as new, North as well as South.
"I have always hated slavery as much as any Abolitionist. I have
always been an old-line Whig. I have always hated it, and I
always believed it in a course of ultimate extinction. If I were
in Congress, and a vote should come up on a question whether
slavery should be prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the
Dred Scott decision I would vote that it should."
Notwithstanding the confident tone of Mr. Lincoln's statement that he
did "not expect the house to fall," it _did_ fall, and great was the
fall thereof!
On Saturday, 9th of February, 1861, six seceding States met at
Montgomery, Alabama, and organized an independent government. The
ordinances of secession were passed by the States as follows:
STATE. DATE. YEAS. NAYS.
South Carolina Dec. 20, 1860 169 ----
Mississippi Jan. 9, 1861 84 15
Alabama Jan. 11, 1861 61 39
Florida Jan. 11, 1861 62 7
Georgia Jan. 19, 1861 228 89
Louisiana Jan. 25, 1861 113 17
The following delegates presented their credentials and were admitted
and represented their respective States:
ALABAMA.--R. W. Walker, R. H. Smith, J. L. M. Curry, W. P.
Chilton, S. F. Hale Colon, J. McRae, John Gill Shorter, David P.
Lewis, Thomas Fearn.
FLORIDA.--James B. Owens, J. Patten Anderson, Jackson Morton (not
present).
GEORGIA.--Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, F. S. Bartow, M. J.
Crawford, E. A. Nisbet, B. H. Hill, A. R. Wright, Thomas R. Cobb,
A. H. Kenan, A. H. Stephens.
LOUISIANA.--John Perkins, Jr., A. Declonet, Charles M. Conrad, D.
F. Kenner, G. E. Sparrow, Henry Marshall.
MISSISSIPPI.--W. P. Harris, Walter Brooke, N. S. Wilson, A. M.
Clayton, W. S. Barry, J. T. Harrison.
SOUTH CAROLINA.--R. B. Rhett, R. W. Barnwell, L. M. Keitt, James
Chestnut, Jr., C. G. Memminger, W. Porcher Miles, Thomas J.
Withers, W. W. Boyce.
A president and vice-president were chosen by unanimous vote.
President--Honorable Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi.
Vice-President--Honorable Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia. The
following gentlemen composed the Cabinet:
Secretary of State, Robert Toombs; Secretary of Treasury, C. G.
Memminger; Secretary of Interior (Vacancy); Secretary of War, L. P.
Walker; Secretary of Navy, John Perkins, Jr.; Postmaster-General, H.
T. Ebett; Attorney-General, J. P. Benjamin.
The Constitution of the Confederate Government did not differ so very
radically from the Federal Constitution. The following were the chief
points:
"1. The importation of African negroes from any foreign country
other than the slave-holding States of the Confederate States is
hereby forbidden, and Congress is required to pass such laws as
shall effectually prevent the same.
"2. Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction
of slaves from any State not a member of this Confederacy.
"The Congress shall have power:
"1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, for
revenue necessary to pay the debts and carry on the government of
the Confederacy, and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be
uniform throughout the Confederacy.
"A slave in one State escaping to another shall be delivered,
upon the claim of the party to whom said slave may belong, by the
Executive authority of the State in which such slave may be
found; and in any case of abduction or forcible rescue, full
compensation, including the value of slave, and all costs and
expense, shall be made to the party by the State in which such
abduction or rescue shall take place.
"2. The government hereby instituted shall take immediate step's
for the settlement of all matters between the States forming it
and their late confederates of the United States in relation to
the public property and public debt at the time of their
withdrawal from them; these States hereby declaring it to be
their wish and earnest desire to adjust everything pertaining to
the common property, common liabilities, and common obligations
of that Union, upon principles of right, justice, equity, and
good faith."
At first blush it would appear that the new government had not been
erected upon the slave question; that it had gone as far as the
Federal Government to suppress the foreign slave-trade; and that
nobler and sublimer ideas and motives had inspired and animated the
Southern people in their movement for a new government. But the men
who wrote the Confederate platform knew what they were about. They
knew that to avoid the charge that would certainly be made against
them, of having seceded in order to make slavery a national
institution, they must be careful not to exhibit such intentions in
their Constitution. But that the South seceded on account of the
slavery question, there can be no historical doubt whatever. Jefferson
Davis, President, so-called, of the Confederate Government, said in
his Message, April 29, 1861:
"When the several States delegated certain powers to the United
States Congress, a large portion of the laboring population
consisted of African slaves, imported into the colonies by the
mother-country. In twelve out of the thirteen States, negro
slavery existed; and the right of property in slaves was
protected by law. This property was recognized in the
Constitution; and provision was made against its loss by the
escape of the slave.
"The increase in the number of slaves by further importation from
Africa was also secured by a clause forbidding Congress to
prohibit the slave-trade anterior to a certain date; and in no
clause can there be found any delegation of power to the
Congress, authorizing it in any manner to legislate to the
prejudice, detriment, or discouragement of the owners of that
species of property, or excluding it from the protection of the
Government.
"The climate and soil of the Northern States soon proved
unpropitious to the continuance of slave labor; whilst the
converse was the case at the South. Under the unrestricted free
intercourse between the two sections, the Northern States
consulted their own interest, by selling their slaves to the
South, and prohibiting slavery within their limits. The South
were willing purchasers of a property suitable to their wants,
and paid the price of the acquisition without harboring a
suspicion that their quiet possession was to be disturbed by
those who were inhibited not only by want of constitutional
authority, but by good faith as vendors, from disquieting a title
emanating from themselves.
"As soon, however, as the Northern States that prohibited
African slavery within their limits had reached a number
sufficient to give their representation a controlling voice in
the Congress, a persistent and organized system of hostile
measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the
Southern States was inaugurated, and gradually extended. A
continuous series of measures was devised and prosecuted for the
purpose of rendering insecure the tenure of property in slaves.
* * * * *
"With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperilled, the
people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the
North to the adoption of some course of action to avoid the
danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view, the
Legislatures of the several States invited the people to select
delegates to conventions to be held for the purpose of
determining for themselves what measures were best adapted to
meet so alarming a crisis in their history."[72]
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President, as he was called, said, in a
speech delivered at Savannah, Georgia, 21st of March, 1861:
"The new Constitution has put at rest _forever_ all the agitating
questions relating to our peculiar institution,--African slavery
as it exists amongst us, the proper status of the negro in our
form of civilization. _This was the immediate cause of the late
rupture and present revolution._ JEFFERSON, in his forecast, had
anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would
split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him is now a
realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth
upon which that great rock _stood_ and _stands_, may be doubted.
_The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading
statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution,
were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the
laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially,
morally, and politically._ It was an evil they knew not well how
to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was,
that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the
institution would be evanescent, and pass away. This idea, though
not incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at
the time. The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential
guarantee to the institution while it should last; and hence no
argument can be justly used against the constitutional guarantees
thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. _Those
ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the
assumption of the equality of races. This was an error._ It was a
sandy foundation; and the idea of a government built upon
it,--when the 'storm came and the wind blew, it _fell_.'
"_Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas.
Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great
truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that
slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and
normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the
history of the world, based upon this great physical,
philosophical, and moral truth._ This truth has been slow in the
process of its development, like all other truths in the various
departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who
hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not
generally admitted, even within their day."[73]
Now, then, what was the real issue between the Confederate States and
the United States? Why, it was extension of slavery by the former, and
the restriction of slavery by the latter. To put the issue as it was
understood by Northern men--in poetic language, it was "_The Union as
it is_." While the South, at length, through its leaders, acknowledged
that slavery was their issue, the North, standing upon the last
analysis of the Free-Soil idea of resistance to the further
inoculation of free territory with the virus of slavery, refused to
recognize slavery as an issue. But what did the battle cry of the
loyal North, "_The Union as it is_," mean? A Union half free and half
slave; a dual government, if not in fact, certainly in the brains and
hearts of the people; two civilizations at eternal and inevitable war
with each other; a Union with the canker-worm of slavery in it,
impairing its strength every year and threatening its life; a Union in
which two hostile ideas of political economy were at work, and where
unpaid slave labor was inimical to the interests of the free
workingmen. And it should not be forgotten that the Republican party
acknowledged the right of Southerns to hunt slaves in the free States,
and to return such slaves, under the fugitive-slave law, to their
masters. Mr. Lincoln was not an Abolitionist, as many people think.
His position on the question was clearly stated in the answers he gave
to a number of questions put to him by Judge Douglass in the latter
part of the summer of 1858. Mr. Lincoln said:
"Having said this much, I will take up the judge's
interrogatories as I find them printed in the Chicago 'Times,'
and answer them _seriatim_. In order that there may be no mistake
about it, I have copied the interrogatories in writing, and also
my answers to them. The first one of these interrogatories is in
these words:
"Question 1. 'I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as
he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the
Fugitive-Slave Law?'
"Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the
unconditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law.
"Q. 2. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day,
as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave States
into the Union, even if the people want them?'
"A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the
admission of any more slave States into the Union.
"Q. 3. 'I want to know whether he stands pledged against the
admission of a new State into the Union with such a constitution
as the people of that State may see fit to make.'
"Q. 4. 'I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia?'
"A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia.
"Q. 5. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to the
prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States?'
"A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the slave-trade
between the different States.
"Q. 6. 'I desire to know whether he stands pledged to prohibit
slavery in all the territories of the United States, north as
well as south of the Missouri Compromise line?'
"A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the
_right_ and _duty_ of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the
United States territories. [Great applause.]
"Q. 7. 'I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the
acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is first
prohibited therein?'
"A. I am not generally opposed to honest acquisition of
territory; and, in any given case, I would or would not oppose
such acquisition, accordingly as I might think such acquisition
would or would not agitate the slavery question among ourselves.
"Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of
these questions and answers, that so far I have only answered
that I was not _pledged_ to this, that, or the other. The judge
has not framed his interrogatories to ask me any thing more than
this, and I have answered in strict accordance with the
interrogatories, and have answered truly that I am not _pledged_
at all upon any of the points to which I have answered. But I am
not disposed to hang upon the exact form of his interrogatories.
I am rather disposed to take up at least some of these questions,
and state what I really think upon them.
"As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive-Slave Law, I have
never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I
think, under the Constitution of the United States, the people of
the Southern States are entitled to a congressional slave law.
Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the
existing Fugitive-Slave Law, further than that I think it should
have been framed so as to be free from some of the objections
that pertain to it, without lessening its efficiency. And
inasmuch as we are not now in an agitation in regard to an
alteration or modification of that law, I would not be the man to
introduce it as a new subject of agitation upon the general
question of slavery.
"In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the
admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you
very frankly that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in
a position of having to pass upon that question. I should be
exceedingly glad to know that there would never be another slave
State admitted into the Union; but I must add, that if slavery
shall be kept out of the territories during the territorial
existence of any one given territory, and then the people shall,
having a fair chance and a clear field, when they come to adopt
the constitution, do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a
slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual presence of the
institution among them, I see no alternative, if we own the
country, but to admit them into the Union. [Applause.]
"The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second,
it being, as I conceive, the same as the second.
"The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. In relation to that I have my mind very
distinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery
abolished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress
possesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a
member of Congress, I should not, with my present views, be in
favor of _endeavoring_ to abolish slavery in the District of
Columbia, unless it would be upon these conditions: _First_, that
the abolition should be gradual; _second_, that it should be on a
vote of the majority of qualified voters in the district; and,
_third_, that compensation should be made to unwilling owners.
With these three conditions I confess I would be exceedingly glad
to see Congress abolish slavery in the District of Columbia; and,
in the language of Henry Clay, 'sweep from our capital that foul
blot upon our nation.'
"In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here that, as
to the question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the
different States, I can truly answer, as I have, that I am
_pledged_ to nothing about it. It is a subject to which I have
not given that mature consideration that would make me feel
authorized to state a position so as to hold myself entirely
bound by it. In other words, that question has never been
prominently enough before me to induce me to investigate whether
we really have the constitutional power to do it. I could
investigate it, if I had sufficient time, to bring myself to a
conclusion upon that subject; but I have not done so, and I say
so frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglass. I must say,
however, that if I should be of opinion that Congress does
possess the constitutional power to abolish slave-trading among
the different States, I should still not be in favor of the
exercise of that power unless upon some conservative principle as
I conceive it, akin to what I have said in relation to the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.
"My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be
prohibited in all territories of the United States, is full and
explicit within itself, and cannot be made clearer by any
comments of mine. So, I suppose, in regard to the question
whether I am opposed to the acquisition of any more territory
unless slavery is first prohibited therein, my answer is such
that I could add nothing by way of illustration, or making myself
better understood, than the answer which I have placed in
writing.
"Now, in all this the judge has me, and he has me on the record.
I suppose he had flattered himself that I was really entertaining
one set of opinions for one place, and another set for another
place--that I was afraid to say at one place what I uttered at
another. What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience
as strongly tending to abolitionism as any audience in the State
of Illinois, and I believe I am saying that which, if it would be
offensive to any persons and render them enemies to myself, would
be offensive to persons in this audience."[74]
Here, then, is the position of Mr. Lincoln set forth with deliberation
and care. He was opposed to any coercive measures in settling the
slavery question; he was for gradual emancipation; and for admitting
States into the Union with a slave constitution. Within twenty-four
months, without a change of views, he was nominated for and elected to
the Presidency of the United States.
With no disposition to interfere with the institution of slavery, Mr.
Lincoln found himself chief magistrate of a great _nation_ in the
midst of a great rebellion. And in his inaugural address on the 4th of
March, 1861, he referred to the question of slavery again in a manner
too clear to admit of misconception, affirming his previous views:
"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives
from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly
written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
"'No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor,
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor may be due.'
"It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by
those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive
slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law.
"All members of Congress swear their support to the whole
Constitution--to this provision as well as any other. To the
proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms
of this clause 'shall be delivered up,' their oaths are
unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper,
could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law
by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?
"There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should
be enforced by National or by State authority; but surely that
difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be
surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to
others by which authority it is done; and should any one, in any
case, be content that this oath shall go unkept on a merely
unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?"
So the issues were joined in war. The South aggressively, offensively
sought the extension and perpetuation of slavery. The North passively,
defensively stood ready to protect her free territory, but not to
interfere with slavery. And there was no day during the first two
years of the war when the North would not have cheerfully granted the
slave institution an indefinite lease of _legal_ existence upon the
condition that the war should cease.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] National Intelligencer, Tuesday, May 7, 1861.
[73] National Intelligencer, Tuesday, April, 2, 1861.
[74] Barrett, pp. 177-180.