a problem involving
such tremendous consequences.

A party, however, conspicuous both in New England and the West, had
taken abolition for its watchword. Small in numbers, but vehement in
denunciation, its voice was heard throughout the Union. Zeal for
universal liberty rose superior to the Constitution. That instrument
was repudiated as an iniquitous document. The sovereign rights of the
individual States were indignantly denied. Slavery was denounced as
the sum of all villainies, the slave-holder as the worst of tyrants;
and no concealment was made of the intention, should political power
be secured, of compelling the South to set the negroes free. In the
autumn of 1860 came the Presidential election. Hitherto, of the two
great political parties, the Democrats had long ruled the councils of
the nation, and nearly the whole South was Democratic. The South, as
regards population, was numerically inferior to the North; but the
Democratic party had more than held its own at the ballot-boxes, for
the reason that it had many adherents in the North. So long as the
Southern and Northern Democrats held together, they far outnumbered
the Republicans. In 1860, however, the two sections of the Democratic
party split asunder. The Republicans, favoured by the schism, carried
their own candidate, and Abraham Lincoln became President. South
Carolina at once seceded and the Confederacy was soon afterwards
established.

It is not at first sight apparent why a change of government should
have caused so sudden a disruption of the Union. The Republican
party, however, embraced sections of various shades of thought. One
of these, rising every day to greater prominence, was that which
advocated immediate abolition; and to this section, designated by the
South as "Black Republicans," the new President was believed to
belong. It is possible that, on his advent to office, the political
leaders of the South, despite the safeguards of the Constitution, saw
in the near future the unconditional emancipation of the slaves; and
not only this, but that the emancipated slaves would receive the
right of suffrage, and be placed on a footing of complete equality
with their former masters.* (* Grant's Memoirs volume 1 page 214.) As
in many districts the whites were far outnumbered by the negroes,
this was tantamount to transferring all local government into the
hands of the latter, and surrendering the planters to the mercies of
their former bondsmen.