ry south of that line was held by feeble States which it would
be easy to conquer, no Northern or Western statesman could vote for such
a measure without proving himself a rogue or a simpleton. Hence all
measures of "compromise" necessarily failed during the last days of the
administration of James Buchanan.

It is plain, that, when Mr. Lincoln--after having escaped assassination
from the "Chivalry" of Maryland, and after having been subjected to a
virulence of invective such as no other President had incurred--arrived
at Washington, his mind was utterly unaffected by the illusions of
passion. His Inaugural Message was eminently moderate. The Slave
Power, having failed to delude or bully Congress, or to intimidate the
people,--having failed to murder the elected President on his way to
the capital,--was at wits' end. It thought it could still rely on its
Northern supporters, as James II. of England thought he could rely
on the Church of England. While the nation, therefore, was busy in
expedients to call back the seceded States to their allegiance, the
latter suddenly bombarded Fort Sumter, trampled on the American flag,
threatened to wave the rattlesnake rag over Faneuil Hall, and to make
the Yankees "smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel." All this
was done with the idea that the Northern "Democracy" would rally to the
support of their "Southern brethren." The result proved that the South
was, in the words of Mr. Davis's last and most melancholy Message, the
victim of "misplaced confidence" in its Northern "associates." The
moment a gun was fired, the honest Democratic voters of the North were
even more furious than the Republican voters; the leaders, including
those who had been the obedient servants of Slavery, were ravenous for
commands in the great army which was to "coerce" and "subjugate" the
South; and the whole organization of the "Democratic party" of the North
melted away at once in the fierce fires of a reawakened patriotism. The
slaveholders ventured everything on their last stake, and lost. A North,
for the first time, sprang into being; and it issued, like Minerva from
the brain of Jove, full-armed. The much-vaunted engineer, Beauregard,
was "hoist with his own petard."

Now that the slaveholders have been so foolish as to appeal to physical
force, abandoning their vantage-ground of political influence, they must
be not only politically overthrown, but physically humiliated. Their
arrogant sense