he students of
law and medicine and theology closed their books, the farmer left his
plow in the furrow, the woodsman dropped his ax, the carpenter his
hammer, and the young men of twenty-three States sprang to arms. What
astonished the South most of all was the attitude of Douglas, and the
Northern Democrats, who had been confidently counted upon to stand by
secession. One Southern fire-eater had said that "Douglas and the
Democrats will fight Lincoln and the Republicans, and it will be another
case of the Kilkenny cats, leaving the South in peace to build up a
great empire." But the first thing that Stephen A. Douglas did was to go
to the White House and pledge his support to Lincoln, as did the leading
Democrats of the North. "The attack upon Sumter," said Douglas, "leaves
us but two parties--patriots and traitors." And now the war was
on,--the one side fighting for the Federal Union and liberty for all
men, and the other side fighting for State sovereignty and slavery.

These great events bring us front to front with the question as to how
Southern men justified their firing upon the old flag and attacking the
Union. Let us confess that men do not make martyrs of themselves unless
they have a cause that commands the intellect and conquers the will.

Skeptics used to say that the apostles invented the character of Jesus.
As if men first of all invent a lie and inflate a bubble myth, and then
go out in support of it to get themselves mobbed, kicked through the
streets, thrown from windows, tortured on the rack, crucified and burned
alive after incredible heroism for thirty years! To say that the
disciples invented the story of Jesus and then martyred themselves for
their falsehood is as intellectually stupid and silly as it is morally
monstrous! Not otherwise these leading men of the South were men of the
loftiest character, of great personal worth, patriotic, high-minded, and
they did not devastate their land and martyr themselves for idle
abstractions. Here is John C. Calhoun, ranked by all as one of the
triumvirate--Webster, Calhoun and Clay. Here is Gen. Robert E. Lee, of
whom Lord Wolsey said that for one State to have given birth to two such
men as Washington and Lee was to have lent it immortal renown. Lincoln
and Grant and our Northern generals understood the Southern men,
sympathized with them, and therefore because the intellect grasped their
position, Grant's heart forgave Lee, and made the two friends. To