608 Lhe Fall of the Confederacy. 
defence of empire, but in time made the war for the Union 
become also a war for negro emancipation. Yes, and so in 
all human probability gained the victory ; for if Abraham 
Lincoln had refused to decree emancipation the North 
would likely enough have been divided, and certainly 
there would have been great danger of foreign interven- 
tion. The South fought for independence, but would not 
emancipate the negroes, and therefore lost the chance of 
success. Ifthe North had not loved the Union secession 
would have been allowed, and negro slavery would still 
have been existent in America. If the South had not loved 
independence there would have been reunion in 1863, if 
not before, and negro slavery would not have been yet 
abolished. Because the North would on no terms consent 
to the disruption of the Union, and because the South 
would not give up the conflict for independence, the 
negroes were emancipated. Man proposed, and God dis- 
posed. 
Was there no plausible excuse for the blindness of the 
Confederate administration ? We unhesitatingly reply 
there was not a shadow of excuse. 
Anyone who had studied the subject must have concluded 
that negro slavery could not long endure. Its abolition was 
decreed nineteen centuries ago. When Christ proclaimed 
the equal rights of all men before God, and the brother- 
hood of all the families of the earth, the slavery of man by 
man was doomed. Hard has been the fight—very hard 
still is the fight. But there has been continuous, and in 
these latter days, rapid progress. The peoples of France, of 
Germany, of Italy, and of England, are free. Even in 
Russia serfdom has been formally abolished, and our chil- 
dren may live to see in that country a despotism replaced 
by constitutional government. How much of this is due 
to the example of America cannot be easily estimated. 
Without the revolt of the Thirteen Colonies, and the 
establishment of the United States, there might have been 
a French revolution, but it would have been a revolution 
of a different type. Well, it was the French revolution, the 
result of the American revolution, that gave such an impe- 
tus to the vindication of human rights, that the heretofore 
neglected negro became an object of solicitude. To those 
who fought the battle of emancipation it seemed long, but 
historically we are struck with the fact that in a generation . 
so great a work was completed. First came the abolition 
of the slave trade ; then, after an interval, ensued the eman- — 
