HIS LIFE AND WORK 



frenzy, he opposed it, put his newspaper 

 squarely in its path, and held it there until the 

 feet of the crowd had trampled it into an im- 

 possible wreck. 



He was so strong, so indomitable, this heir of 

 the Covenanters, that when the war had openly 

 begun, he strode between the North and South 

 and labored like a Titan to bring them to a 

 reconciliation. He actually believed that he 

 could establish peace. He proposed a plan. 

 Horace Greeley indorsed it, and the two men, 

 who were throughout life the closest of comrades, 

 undertook to bring the severed nation back to 

 union and the paths of law. 



The "McCormick Plan," in a word was to 

 call immediately two conventions one to rep- 

 resent the Democrats of the North and the 

 other the Democrats of the South. These con- 

 ventions would elect delegates to a board of 

 arbitration, which would consider the various 

 causes of the war and arrange a just basis upon 

 which both sides could agree to disband their 

 armies and reestablish peace. 



After the war, too, almost before the nation 



