them to attempt the
realization of their long-cherished dream of a slave-holding
Confederacy, and because they saw that never again, in their time, would
another such opportunity be offered to effect a traitorous purpose. It
was clear to every mind that a year of quiet under the new
administration would dispel the delusion that the North was about to
overthrow the old polity; and therefore the violent men of the South
were determined that that administration never should have a fair trial.
Their action at Charleston, in 1860, by rendering the election of the
Republican candidate certain, shows that they wished an occasion for
revolt; and the course of President Buchanan, who refused to take the
commonest precautions for the public safety, gave them a vantage-ground
which they speedily occupied, and so made war inevitable.

That one of the most insignificant of their number should have murdered
the man whose election they declared to be cause for war is nothing
strange, being in perfect keeping with their whole course. The wretch
who shot the chief magistrate of the Republic is of hardly more account
than was the weapon which he used. The real murderers of Mr. Lincoln are
the men whose action brought about the civil war. Booth's deed was a
logical proceeding, following strictly from the principles avowed by the
Rebels, and in harmony with their course during the last five years. The
fall of a public man by the hand of an assassin always affects the mind
more strongly than it is affected by the fall of thousands of men in
battle; but in strictness, Booth, vile as his deed was, can be held to
have been no worse, morally, than was that old gentleman who insisted
upon being allowed the privilege of firing the first shot at Fort
Sumter. Ruffin's act is not so disgusting as Booth's; but of the two
men, Booth exhibited the greater courage,--courage of the basest kind,
indeed, but sure to be attended with the heaviest risks, as the hand of
every man would be directed against its exhibitor. Had the Rebels
succeeded, Ruffin would have been honored by his fellows; but even a
successful Southern Confederacy would have been too hot a country for
the abode of a wilful murderer. Such a man would have been no more
pleasantly situated even in South Carolina than was Benedict Arnold in
England. And as he chose to become an assassin after the event of the
war had been decided, and when his victim was bent upon sparing Southern
feeling so f