hat such action would have been
deemed a base surrender to the dictation of the enemy; but they
trusted to time, to the spread of education, and to a feeling in
favour of emancipation which was gradually pervading the whole
country.* (* There is no doubt that a feeling of aversion to slavery
was fast spreading among a numerous and powerful class in the South.
In Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri the number of slaves was
decreasing, and in Delaware the institution had almost disappeared.)

The opinions of this party, with which, it may be said, the bulk of
the Northern people was in close sympathy,* (* Grant's Memoirs page
214.) are perhaps best expressed in a letter written by Colonel
Robert Lee, the head of one of the oldest families in Virginia, a
large landed proprietor and slave-holder, and the same officer who
had won such well-deserved renown in Mexico. "In this enlightened
age," wrote the future general-in-chief of the Confederate army,
"there are few, I believe, but will acknowledge that slavery as an
institution is a moral and political evil. It is useless to expatiate
on its disadvantages. I think it a greater evil to the white than to
the coloured race, and while my feelings are strongly interested in
the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The
blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa--morally,
socially, and physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing
is necessary for their instruction as a race, and, I hope, will
prepare them for better things. How long their subjection may be
necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their
emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influence
of Christianity than from the storms and contests of fiery
controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and
miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to
convert but a small part of the human race, and even among Christian
nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the
final abolition of slavery is still onward, and we give it the aid of
our prayers and all justifiable means in our power, we must leave the
progress as well as the result in His hands, who sees the end and who
chooses to work by slow things, and with whom a thousand years are
but as a single day. The abolitionist must know this, and must see
that he has neither the right nor the power of operating except by
moral means and suasio