s had their
counterpart in increasing lawlessness and violence throughout the
South. This was illustrated in such facts as the expulsion of
members of the Methodist Church North from Texas, the imprisonment
of Rev. Daniel Worth, in North Carolina, for circulating Helper's
"Impending Crisis"; the exile from Kentucky of the Rev. John G.
Fee and his colony of peaceable and law-abiding people, on account
of their anti-slavery opinions; and the espionage of the mails by
every Southern postmaster, who under local laws had the power to
condemn and "burn publicly" whatever he deemed unfit for circulation,
which laws had been pronounced constitutional by Caleb Cushing,
while Attorney General of the United States under Mr. Pierce, and
were "cheerfully acquiesced in" by Judge Holt, Postmaster General
under Buchanan. In Virginia the spirit of lawlessness became such
a rage that one of her leading newspapers offered a reward of fifty
thousand dollars for the head of Wm. H. Seward, while another paper
offered ten thousand dollars for the kidnapping and delivery in
Richmond of Joshua R. Giddings, or five thousand dollars for his
head. In short, the reign of barbarism was at last fully ushered
in, and the whole nation was beginning to realize the truth of Mr.
Lincoln's declaration, which he borrowed from St. Mark, that "a
house divided against itself can not stand." The people of the
free States were at school, with the slaveholders as their masters;
and the dullest scholars were now beginning to get their lessons.
Even the Know-Nothings and Silver-Grey Whigs were coming up to the
anxious seat, under the enlightening influence and saving-grace of
slaveholding madness and crime. The hour was ripe for action, and
the dawn of freedom in the South was seen in the coming emancipation
of the North.

The Presidential Campaign of 1860 was a very singular commentary
on the Compromise measures of 1850 and the "finality" platforms of
1852. The sectional agitation which now stirred the country
outstripped all precedent, and completely demonstrated the folly
of all schemes of compromise. The Democratic National Convention
met in the city of Charleston on the twenty-third day of May. Its
action now seems astounding, although it was the inevitable result
of antecedent facts. The Democratic party had the control of every
department of the Government, and a formidable popular majority
behind it. It had the complete command of its own fortun