in the premises. In pursuance of this cunningly devised
scheme the Supreme Court delivered itself of an opinion in the famous
"Dred Scott Case." So abhorrent it was to the intelligence and moral
sense of the free States, that it produced results altogether opposed to
those designed by the men who invoked it. Instead of checking, the
execrated judgment augmented enormously the existing excitement.
Garrison's bitter taunt that "the Union is but another name for the iron
reign of the slave-power," was driven home to the North, by the Dred
Scott decision, with the logic of another unanswerable fact. Confidence
in the independence and impartiality of the Supreme Court was seriously
shaken, and widespread suspicion struck root at the North touching the
subserviency of that tribunal to the interests and designs of the
slave-power.

The popular agitation at this fresh and alarming evidence of the purpose
and power of the South upset the machinations of the schemers, swelled
the numerical strength of the new Northern party opposed to the
Territorial aggressions and pretensions of the slave section. So rapid
was the growth of the Republican party that the slave leaders
anticipated its accession to power at the then next Presidential
election. So certain were they in their forebodings of defeat that they
set about in dead earnest to put their side of the divided house in
order for the impending struggle for Southern independence. Military
preparations went forward with a vengeance, arms and munitions of war
which were the property of the General Government began to move
southward, to Southern military depots and posts for the defence of the
United States South, when at last the word "DISUNION" should be
pronounced over the Republic. The Lincoln-Douglass debate augmented
everywhere the excitement, fed the already mighty numbers of the new
party. More and more the public consciousness and conviction were
squaring with Mr. Lincoln's oracular words in respect that the Union
could not "endure permanently half slave and half free."

The darkness and tumult of the rising tempest were advancing apace, when
suddenly there burst from the national firmament the first warning peal
of thunder, and over Virginia there sped the first bolt of the storm.
John Brown with his brave little band, at Harper's Ferry, had struck for
the freedom of the slave. Tired of words, the believer in blood and iron
as a deliverer, had crossed from Pennsylvania int