istence in any of the United States. The question of the maintenance
or extinction of the system of negro servitude, already existing in any
State, was one exclusively belonging to such State. It is obvious,
therefore, that no subsequent question, legitimately arising in Federal
legislation, could properly have any reference to the merits or the
policy of the institution itself. A few zealots in the North afterward
created much agitation by demands for the abolition of slavery within
the States by Federal intervention, and by their activity and
perseverance finally became a recognized party, which, holding the
balance of power between the two contending organizations in that
section, gradually obtained the control of one, and to no small degree
corrupted the other. The dominant idea, however, at least of the
absorbed party, was sectional aggrandizement, looking to absolute
control, and theirs is the responsibility for the war that resulted.

No moral nor sentimental considerations were really involved in either
the earlier or later controversies which so long agitated and finally
ruptured the Union. They were simply struggles between different
sections, with diverse institutions and interests.

It is absolutely requisite, in order to a right understanding of the
history of the country, to bear these truths clearly in mind. The
phraseology of the period referred to will otherwise be essentially
deceptive. The antithetical employment of such terms as _freedom_ and
_slavery_, or "anti-slavery" and "pro-slavery," with reference to the
principles and purposes of contending parties or rival sections, has had
immense influence in misleading the opinions and sympathies of the
world. The idea of freedom is captivating, that of slavery repellent to
the moral sense of mankind in general. It is easy, therefore, to
understand the effect of applying the one set of terms to one party, the
other to another, in a contest which had no just application whatever to
the essential merits of freedom or slavery. Southern statesmen may
perhaps have been too indifferent to this consideration--in their ardent
pursuit of principles, overlooking the effects of phrases.

This is especially true with regard to that familiar but most fallacious
expression, "the extension of slavery." To the reader unfamiliar with
the subject, or viewing it only on the surface, it would perhaps never
occur that, as used in the great controversies respecting the
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