the first
Presidential battle was lost. November confirmed that verdict. New
England, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and the Northwest, had been
outweighed by the South and its allies, and Buchanan was the next
President. But never was defeat met with better courage or higher hopes
for the next encounter. Some unknown poet gave the battle-song:

Beneath thy skies, November,
Thy skies of cloud and rain,
Around our blazing camp-fires
We close our ranks again.
Then sound again the bugle!
Call the battle roll anew!
If months have well nigh won the field
What may not four years do?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: A word should be said as to the frequency with which the
_Springfield Republican_ is quoted in this work. The author wrote an
earlier book, _The Life and Times of Samuel Bowles_, (Century Co.)--the
founder of the Republican. As the background of his life, a careful
study was made of the political events during his years of editorial
activity, 1844-77. The original matter for this was largely drawn from
the files of the _Republican_. In studying the whole ground afresh for
the present history, advantage was taken of this material, and further
citations were drawn from the same paper. The interpretation of current
events by an independent and sagacious newspaper yields invaluable
material for the historian; and my study of the _Republican_, from the
repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854 to the present, has heightened
my respect for the breadth, sobriety, and moral insight with which it
judged the questions of the day.]

CHAPTER XV

THREE TYPICAL SOUTHERNERS

In the group of leaders of public sentiment in the '30s and '40s, as
sketched in Chapter V, some of the foremost--Clay, Webster, and
Birney--were influential in both sections of the country. But in the
next decade the division is clear between the leaders of the South and
of the North. Let us glance at two separate groups.

Jefferson Davis was in many ways a typical Southerner. He was a sincere,
able, and high-minded man. The guiding aim of his public life was to
serve the community as he understood its interests. Personal ambition
seemingly influenced him no more than is to be expected in any strong
man; and, whatever his faults of judgment or temper, it does not appear
that he ever knowingly sacrificed the public good to his own profit or
aggrandizement. But he was devoted to a social system and a political
theory which boun