ad to encounter. The American
Republic has not escaped the difficulties and problems which are
inevitable to the Secular State, when some of its citizens profess a
religion which brings them into conflict with the common system of
morals which the nation takes for granted; the case of the Mormons is a
typical example of such a problem. But there is some evidence that, as
the Americans have applied the doctrine far more logically than we, they
have also a keener perception of the logic of its limitations. At any
rate, it is notable that Congress has refused, in its Conscription Act,
to follow our amazing example and make the conscience of the criminal
the judge of the validity of legal proceedings against him.

Changes so momentous, made in so drastic and sweeping a fashion in the
middle of a life and death struggle for national existence, show how
vigorous and compelling was the popular impulse towards reform. Yet all
the great things that were done seem dwarfed by one enormous thing left
undone; the heroic tasks which the Americans accomplished are forgotten
in the thought of the task which stared them in the face, but from which
they, perhaps justifiably, shrank. All the injustices which were
abolished in that superb crusade against privilege only made plainer the
shape of the one huge privilege, the one typical injustice which still
stood--the blacker against such a dawn--Negro Slavery.

It has already been mentioned that Slavery was at one time universal in
the English colonies and was generally approved by American opinion,
North and South. Before the end of the War of Independence it was almost
as generally disapproved, and in all States north of the borders of
Maryland it soon ceased to exist.

This was not because democratic ideals were more devotedly cherished in
the North than in the South; on the whole the contrary was the case. But
the institution of Slavery was in no way necessary to the normal life
and industry of the North; its abrogation made little difference, and
the rising tide of the new ideas to which it was necessarily odious
easily swept it away. In their method of dealing with it the Northerners,
it must be owned, were kinder to themselves than to the Negroes. They
declared Slavery illegal within their own borders, but they generally
gave the slave-holder time to dispose of his human property by selling
it in the States where Slavery still existed. This fact is worth noting,
because it became a