ces of a civil war.

One State after another seceded; the United States' arms and arsenals
were seized; on January 9, the _Star of the West_, carrying supplies
to Fort Sumter, was fired upon and driven off. South Carolina,
Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas went
out. The Confederate States of America were organized in the capital
of Alabama on the fourth of February, and Jefferson Davis was
elected President.

We watched with great interest the famous Peace Conference which
met in Washington and over which John Tyler, ex-President of the
United States, presided. It sat during the month of February,
preceding Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, and recommended the adoption
of seven additional articles to the Constitution, which were
afterwards rejected by the Senate of the United States.

But the fourth of March finally came, and new life was infused into
the national councils.

Mr. Lincoln's speeches on his way East were a disappointment, in
that they failed in the least to abate the rising Southern storm;
the calmly firm tone of his inaugural address impressed the North,
but his appeals to the South were in vain. Said he:

"I declare that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it
exists. . . . The Union of these States is perpetual. It is safe
to assert that no Government proper ever had a provision in its
organic law for its own termination. The power confided to me will
be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places
belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts."

It was a notable appeal that he made, in closing, to the
Southerners:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine,
is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail
you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the
aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the
Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve,
protect, and defend it.'

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break
our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching
from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better
angels