to the South,
which before had seemed to it like "Birnam Wood" moving toward "high
Dunsinane." But lo, a miracle had been performed, the unexpected had
suddenly happened. The insurgent moral sense of a mudsill and shopkeeping
North had at last found voice and vent. With what awakening terror must
the South have listened to this formidable prophecy of Sumner: "The
movement against slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Even now it is
gathering its forces to be confessed everywhere. It may not yet be felt in
the high places of office and power; but all who can put their ears humbly
to the ground will hear and comprehend its incessant and advancing tread."

This awakening terror of the South was not allayed by the admission of
California and the mutinous execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. The
temper of that section the while grew in consequence more unreasonable and
arrogant. Worsted as the South clearly was in the contest with her rival
for political supremacy, she refused nevertheless to modify her
pretentions to political supremacy. And as she had no longer anything to
lose by giving loose reins to her arrogance and pretentions, her words and
actions took on thenceforth an ominously defiant and reckless character.
If finally driven to the wall there lay within easy reach, she calculated,
secession and a southern confederacy.

The national situation was still further complicated by the disintegration
and chaos into which the two old parties were then tumbling, and by the
fierce rivalries and jealousies within them of party leaders at the North.
All the conditions seemed to favor southern aggression--the commission of
some monstrous crime against liberty. Webster had gone to his long
account, dishonored and broken-hearted. The last of the three supreme
voices of the early senatorial splendor of the republic was now hushed in
the grave. As those master lights, Calhoun, Webster and Clay, vanished one
after another into the void, darkness and uproar increased apace.

About this time the most striking and sinister figure in American Party
history loomed into greatness. Stephen A. Douglas was a curious and grim
example of the survival of viking instincts in the modern office seeker.
On the sea of politics he was a veritable water-dog, daring, unscrupulous,
lawless, transcendently able, and transcendently heartless. The sight of
the presidency moved him in much the same way as did the sight of the
effete and wealthy lands of L