REBELLION OF THE NORTH. 381 



similar purpose, and hundreds of squatters, dressed in 

 flannel shirts, and huge boots up to their knees, and 

 skin caps on their heads, bristling with revolvers and 

 bowie knives, stepped across the Border. For the 

 first time the people of the North and South met face 

 to face. A guerilla warfare soon broke out ; the New 

 Englanders were robbed and driven back ; they were 

 murdered, and their scalps paraded by Border ruffians 

 upon poles. The whole country fell into a distracted 

 state. The Southerners pursued their slaves into 

 Boston itself, and dragged them back, according to 

 the law. A mad abolitionist invaded Virginia with a 

 handful of men, shot a few peaceful citizens, and was 

 hanged. A time of terror fell upon the South ; there 

 was neither liberty of print nor liberty of speech ; the 

 majority reigned ; and the man who spoke against it 

 was lynched upon the spot. A Southerner assaulted 

 and battered a Northerner on the floor of the Senate. 

 The North at last was thoroughly aroused. The people 

 itself began to stir ; a calm, patient, law-abiding race, 

 slow to be moved, but when once moved, swerving 

 never till the thing was done. A presidential election 

 was at hand, and a Northerner was placed upon the 

 throne. The South understood that this was not a 

 casual reverse, which might be redeemed when the 

 four years had passed away. It was to them a sign 

 that the days of their power had for ever passed. The 

 temper of the North was not to be mistaken. It had 

 at last rebelled ; it would suffer tyranny no more. Mr 

 Lincoln's terms were conciliatory in the extreme. Had 

 the South been moderate in its demands, he would 

 have been classed with those statesmen who added 

 compromise to compromise, and so postponed the evil 

 but inevitable day. He was not an abolitionist. He 



