ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 171 



"that slavery is right in principle, and has nothing to 

 do with difference of complexion," has been represented 

 as a legitimate and gallant attempt to maintain the true 

 principles of democracy. The rightful endeavor of an 

 established government, the least onerous that ever 

 existed, to defend itself against a treacherous attack on 

 its very existence, has been cunningly made to seem the 

 wicked effort of a fanatical clique to force its doctrines 

 on an oppressed population. 



Even so long ago as when Mr. Lincoln, not yet con- 

 vinced of the danger and magnitude of the crisis, was 

 endeavoring to persuade himself of Union majorities at 

 the South, and to carry on a war that was half peace in 

 the hope of a peace that would have been all war, 

 while he was still enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, 

 under some theory that Secession, however it might 

 absolve States from their obligations, could not escheat 

 them of their claims under the Constitution, and that 

 slaveholders in rebellion had alone among mortals the 

 privilege of having their cake and eating it at the same 

 time, the enemies of free government were striving 

 to persuade the people that the war was an Abolition 

 crusade. To rebel without reason was proclaimed as 

 one of the rights of man, while it was carefully kept 

 out of sight that to suppress rebellion is the first duty 

 of government. All the evils that have come upon the 

 country have been attributed to the Abolitionists, though 

 it is hard to see how any party can become permanently 

 powerful except in one of two ways, either by the 

 greater truth of its principles, or the extravagance of 

 the party opposed to it. To fancy the ship of state, 

 riding safe at her constitutional moorings, suddenly 

 engulfed by a huge kraken of Abolitionism, rising from 

 unknown depths and grasping it with slimy tentacles, is 

 to look at the natural history of the matter with the 



