, the promise of a new era of
unbroken peace and prosperity was not to be sullied by cold
precautions against civil dissensions and conflicting interests. The
new order, under which every man was his own sovereign, would surely
strengthen the links of kindly sympathy, and by those links alone it
was believed that the Union would be held together. Such was the
dream of the unselfish patriots who ruled the destinies of the infant
Republic. Such were the ideas that so far influenced their
deliberations that, with all their wisdom, they left a legacy to
their posterity which deluged the land in blood.

Mr. Lincoln's predecessor in the presidential chair had publicly
proclaimed that coercion was both illegal and inexpedient; and for
the three months which intervened between the secession of South
Carolina and the inauguration of the Republican President, the
Government made not the slightest attempt to interfere with the
peaceable establishment of the new Confederacy. Not a single soldier
reinforced the garrisons of the military posts in the South. Not a
single regiment was recalled from the western frontiers; and the
seceded States, without a word of protest, were permitted to take
possession, with few exceptions, of the forts, arsenals, navy yards
and custom houses which stood on their own territory. It seemed that
the Federal Government was only waiting until an amicable arrangement
might be arrived at as to the terms of separation.

If, in addition to the words in which she had assented to the
Constitution, further justification were needed for the belief of
Virginia in the right of secession, it was assuredly to be found in
the apparent want of unanimity on so grave a question even in the
Republican party, and in the acquiescent attitude of the Federal
Government.

The people of Virginia, however, saw in the election of a Republican
President no immediate danger of the Constitution being "perverted to
their injury and oppression." The North, generally speaking, regarded
the action of the secessionists with that strange and good-humoured
tolerance with which the American citizen too often regards internal
politics. The common sense of the nation asserted itself in all its
strength. A Union which could only be maintained by force was a
strange and obnoxious idea to the majority. Amid the storm of abuse
and insult in which the two extreme parties indulged, the
abolitionists on the one side, the politicians on the othe