172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



eyes of Pontoppidan. To believe . that the leaders in 

 the Southern treason feared any danger from Abolition- 

 ism, would be to deny them ordinary intelligence, though 

 there can be little doubt that they made use of it to 

 stir the passions and excite the fears of their deluded 

 accomplices. They rebelled, not because they thought 

 slavery weak, but because they believed it strong 

 enough, not to overthrow the government, but to get 

 possession of it ; for it becomes daily clearer that they 

 used rebellion only as a means of revolution, and if they 

 got revolution, though not in the shape they looked for, 

 is the American people to save them from its conse- 

 quences at the cost of its own existence 1 The election 

 of Mr. Lincoln, which it was clearly in their power to 

 prevent had they wished, was the occasion merely, and 

 not the cause, of their revolt. Abolitionism, till within 

 a year or two, was the despised heresy of a few earnest 

 persons, without political weight enough to cany the 

 election of a parish constable ; and their cardinal prin- 

 ciple was disunion, because they were convinced that 

 within the Union the position of slaveiy was impregna- 

 ble. In spite of the proverb, great effects do not 

 follow from small causes, — that is, disproportionately 

 small, — but from adequate causes acting under certain 

 required conditions. To contrast the size of the oak 

 with that of the parent acorn, as if the poor seed had 

 paid all costs fi-om its slender strong-box, may serve for 

 a child's wonder ; but the real miracle lies in that divine 

 league which bound all the forces of nature to the ser- 

 vice of the tiny germ in fulfilling its destiny. Every- 

 thing has been at work for the past ten years in the 

 cause of antislavery, but Garrison and Phillips have been 

 far less successful propagandists than the slaveholders 

 themselves, with the constantly-growing arrogance of 

 their pretensions and encroachments. They have forced 



