The newcomers were skilled men in their departments of civilized
activities--far above the average of the Americans. They were good
physicians, fine musicians, finished painters, excellent actors and
skillful mechanics, and each began the intelligent exercise of his
vocation, to the great advantage of the community, which was, however,
shocked at many of the ways of the newcomers, particularly their
devoting Sunday to all manner of merrymaking. Still more shocking was
their attitude toward the Slavery question. Even those Americans who
were opposed to Slavery had a respect approaching awe of the "Sacred
Institution." It had always been in the country; it was protected by a
network of laws, and so feared that it could only be discussed with
the greatest formality and circumspection. The radical Germans had
absolutely none of this feeling. In their scheme of humanity all
Slavery was so horrible that there could be no reason for its longer
continuance, and it ought to be put to an end in the most summary
manner. The epithet "Abolitionists," from which most Americans shrank
as from an insult, had no terrors for them. It frankly described their
mental attitude, and they gloried in it as they did in being Free
Thinkers. They had not rebelled against timeworn traditions and
superstitions in Germany to become slaves to something worse in this.

Vigorous growths as they were, they readily took root in the new soil,
became naturalized as fast as they could, and entered into the life
of the country which they had elected for their homes. They joined the
Republican Party from admiration of its Free Soil principles, and in the
election of 1860 cast 17,028 votes for Abraham Lincoln.

18

Such were the strangely differing elements which were fermenting
together in the formation of the great Commonwealth during those
turbulent days from 1850 to 1860, and which were to be fused into
unexpected combinations in the fierce heat of civil war. The same
fermentation--minus the modifying influences of the radical Germans--was
going on in all the States of the South except South Carolina, where the
Middle Class hardly existed. Everywhere the Middle Class was strongly
attached to the Union, and averse to Secession. Everywhere the
Slaveowners, a small minority, but of extraordinary ability and
influence, were actively preaching dissatisfaction with the Union,
bitterly complaining of wrongs suffered at the hands of the North, and
untiring