downfall of the foulest institution
which has sapped the vitality of any modern government, and that
aroused the people to a sorrowful realization that the power which
defied them was strong enough and desperate enough to stop at nothing
short of the disintegration of the American Union. So the nation,
still sympathizing with slavery, still playing with a coal of fire,
grappled with the monster, feeling itself powerful to crush it in a
few short months.

It was not because the people of the nation hated slavery and
oppression that they rushed upon the field of battle; no such
righteousness moved them: it was because the slave-power, which had
for so long dictated legislation and the interpretation of the laws,
would tolerate no adverse criticism or legislation upon the foul
institution it championed, and appealed from the forum of reason to
the forum of treasonable rebellion to enforce the right so long and (I
blush to say it!) _constitutionally_ conceded to it.

I do not believe that, in 1860, a majority (or even a respectable
minority) of the American people desired the manumission of the slave;
it is evident, from the temper of the political discussions of that
time, that the combination of parties out of which, in 1856, the
Republican party was formed, desired to do no more than to confine the
institution of slavery within the territory then occupied. There was
certainly very little comfort for the black man in this position of
the "party of great moral ideas."

The overtures[2] made by President Lincoln to the slave-power during
the first year of the war were all made in the interest of the
perpetuation of the Union, and not in the interest of the slave.

His reply to Mr. Horace Greeley, who urged upon him the importance of
issuing an emancipation proclamation is conclusive that he was more
concerned about the Union than about the slave:

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
_August 22, 1862_

HON. HORACE GREELEY:--Dear Sir: I have just read yours of
the 19th, addressed to myself through the _New York
Tribune_. If there be in it any statements or assumptions of
facts which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and
here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences
which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and
here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an
imperious and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to
an old fri