for us to yield
without total submission, the war would have been, for the present,
staved off. We turned to bay only when driven back to the vital
principle of our polity and the vital facts of our socialization.

Politically, what was the immediate grievance of the South? Simply that
Northern freemen went to the polls as freemen; simply that they there
expressed, under constitutional forms, their lawful preference. How
can we compromise here, even to the breadth of a hair? How compromise
without stipulating that all Northern electors shall henceforth go to
the polls in charge of an armed police, and there deposit such ballot as
the slave-masters of the Secession States shall direct?

Again, in our social state what is it that gives umbrage to our
antagonists? They have answered the question for us; they have stated it
repeatedly in the plainest English. It is simply the fact that we _are_
free States; that we have, and honor, free labor; that we have schools
for the people; that we teach the duty of each to all and of all to
each; that we respect the human principle, the spiritual possibility,
in man; in fine, that ours is a human socialization, whose fundamental
principles are the venerableness of man's nature and the superiority
of reason and right to any individual will. So far as we are base
bargainers and unbelievers, they can tolerate us, even though they
despise; just where our praise begins, begin their detestation and
animosity.

It is, by the pointed confession of Southern spokesmen, what we are,
rather than what we have done, which makes them Secessionists; and any
man of sense might, indeed must, see this fact, were the confession
withheld. In action we have conformed to Southern wishes, as if
conformity could not be in excess. We have conformed to an extent
that--to mention nothing of more importance--had nearly ruined us in the
estimation of mankind. One chief reason, indeed, why the sympathy of
Europe did not immediately go with us was that a disgust toward us had
been created by the football passivity, as it seemed abroad, with which
we had submitted to be kicked to and fro. The rebellion was deemed to be
on our side, not on theirs. We, born servitors and underlings, it was
thought, had forgotten our proper places,--nay, had presumed to strike
back, when our masters chastised us. Of course, we should soon be
whipped to our knees again. And when we were again submissive and
abject, Europe must so ha