The Fall of the Confederacy. 615 
Was the four years’ war in vain? Did so many thousands 
die in vain? Was the heroism of the North and of the 
South in vain? God forbid that we should think so. God 
forbid that we should suppose that He does not make all 
things to work together for good. It is, we trust, not pre- 
sumptuous, and it cannot be irreverent, if we try to explain 
the means by the end. Unless we do so we are confronted 
by an inscrutable problem that shakes our reliance in all 
human judgment, and pours contempt upon our faith ina 
Divine Providence. 
The North emancipated the negroes, and was victorious; 
the Confederacy was unsuccessful, and might have been 
successful if it had emancipated the negroes. However, 
the war ended, the one predestined result was negro eman- 
cipation. Mark how the means were adapted to this end. 
In 1861 the’ North was not ripe for emancipation. Two 
years later Abraham Lincoln had to proclaim it cautiously, 
and under the guise of military expediency. If, in 1861, 
the South had protested and agitated instead of seceding, 
the Abolition party would have been confronted by a for- 
midable opposition, and a compromise wou!d have been 
effected which would have postponed negro emancipation 
for an indefinite period. If the revolution had not been 
untimely there could not have been a revolution. In 
1861 there was a large majority in the North who would 
have consented to almost any conditions respecting negro 
slavery in the South rather than run therisk of breaking up 
the Union. Consequently, if the ordinary preparations for 
_ revolution by protest, by agitation, and by organization 
had been made, secession would have been arrested by 
concession, and the negroes would be yet in bondage. 
Therefore, if negro emancipation was to ensue, a revolution 
was indispensable, and a hurried untimely revolution was 
alone possible. 
Then came the precipitate and impolitic war. If the 
Union had been preserved by negotiation the institution 
of negro slavery would have been continued and strength- 
ened by renewed guarantees. If the Confederacy had 
been recognised on any conditions negro slavery would 
have been let alone. We may be astonished at the im- 
policy of the Confederate administration in beginning a war, 
but war was manifestly a necessity, if the revolution was 
to result in negro emancipation. The bombardment of Fort 
Sumter not only saved the Union from destruction, without 
a struggle to maintain it, but it also prevented the per- 
