lip
of Spain, and, having no fortresses, lifted up their hands and
exclaimed, "These are our bayonets and walls of defense!" Big with
destiny also for this republic was that critical hour when Lincoln, in
his first inaugural, pleaded with the South not to destroy the Union,
nor to turn their cannon against the free institutions that seemed "the
last, best hope of men." But the eyes of the men of the South were
holden, and they were drunk with passion. They lighted the torch that
kindled a conflagration making the Southern city a waste and the rich
cotton-field a desolation.

At the very beginning, the founders and fathers of the nation were under
the delusion that it was possible to unite in one land two antagonistic
principles,--liberty and slavery. It has been said that the Republic,
founded in New England, was nothing but an attempt to translate into
terms of prose the dreams that haunted the soul of John Milton his long
life through. The founders believed that every man must give an account
of himself to God, and because his responsibility was so great, they
felt that he must be absolutely free. Since no king, no priest, and no
master could give an account for him, he must be self-governing in
politics, self-controlling in industry, and free to go immediately into
the presence of God with his penitence and his prayer. The fathers
sought religious and political freedom,--not money or lands. But the new
temple of liberty was to be for the white race alone, and these builders
of the new commonwealth never thought of the black man, save as a
servant in the house. For more than two centuries, therefore, the wheat
and the tares grew together in the soil. When the tares began to choke
out the wheat, the uprooting of the foul growth became inevitable.
Perhaps the Civil War was a necessity,--for this reason, the disease of
slavery had struck in upon the vitals of the nation and the only cure
was the surgeon's knife. Therefore God raised up soldiers, and anointed
them as surgeons, with "the ointment of war, black and sulphurous."

By a remarkable coincidence, the year that brought a slave ship to
Jamestown, Virginia, brought the _Mayflower_ and the Pilgrim fathers to
Plymouth Rock. It is a singular fact that the star of hope and the orb
of night rose at one and the same hour upon the horizon. At first the
rich men of London counted the Virginia tobacco a luxury, but the weed
soon became a necessity, and the captain of the Af