"We will go

might have an excuse for leaving the Union. off by ourselves," said one of the Southern leaders," and build up a government of our own; and we will have slavery for its very corner stone." They were very angry, these Southern slave-holders; for one reason, because they were now made by the United States Government to pay such high prices for slaves. One slave-dealer said, he wasn't going to pay a thousand dollars for a slave in Virginia, when he could go to Africa and buy better ones for fifty dollars a head! What do you think of a business that employed agents to catch colored men and women as you would catch animals, bring them into market, and sell them at a price, according to their size, or weight, or age, or strength for work!

We ought all to be glad that the United States Government at last came to its senses, and made all the States give up this wicked traffic.

Lincoln was in due time elected President, and the Southern States, as they had threatened, declared themselves no longer members of the Union. They made for themselves a new government, put Jefferson Davis at its head as President, and called themselves" The Confederate States of America."

These Southerners believed that, although the States had all at one time banded together under one government, still each State had a right to step out and set up a government

of its own if it chose. This is what John C. Calhoun said in his speeches before Congress, and without doubt he believed what he said was true. This

was the same old question of "State rights" of which you heard away back as far as when Washington was President. Don't you remember how jealous of each other the political parties were even in those early times? How afraid one party was that too much power would be given to the central government, that is, to the President and Congress? And how equally afraid the other party was that the power would be too much scattered around among the different States? And do you remember in Jackson's administration, that some of these same Southern States declared the central government "null and void," and said they had a right to leave the Union if they wanted to? They even went so far as to form a league, and would really have made trouble enough had not Jackson rushed down upon them before they had time to d any mischief.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

Here was this same old question up again, in a new dress to be sure, but it was the same old question.

The Northern people had no idea how much this matter

meant to the Southern people. Even when South Carolina really seceded" from the Union-even then the Northerners thought it was only a threat.

But lest we should be too severe in our judgment on these Southerners, let us stop and see why it was they cared so little about that "Union," which, to a Northerner, is so dear. This is the reason: the Southerner had been brought up from his babyhood to love his State, his State flag, his State Government. To him, his State was everything. He had been brought up to say, "I am a Virginian!" or "I am a South Carolinian ! It was his State flag that he had seen raised on festal days; it was the State flag that waved over the public buildings, and over their forts. Everything to him was State! State! State! He loved his State, he was proud of her, and he was ready to die for her. Now let us see how the Northerner had been brought up. He, I am inclined to think, hardly knew what his State flag he never heard anything about it, never saw it. It was always the "Stars and Stripes" that floated before him in these Northern States. The Star Spangled Banner," "My Country, 'tis of Thee," "God Bless Our Union," were the songs he had always sung. He never said, 66 'I a New Yorker!" or "I am a Rhode Islander!" but always, "I am an American!" Everything to him was Union! Union! Union! He loved the Union, he was proud of her, he was ready to die for her. So you see, these two parties

was

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could not understand each other. The Northerner could not believe that the Southerner would do such an awful thing as to break up the sacred Union, and the Southerner, on the other side, could not see that there was anything awful at all in breaking up the Union, which to him was not sacred at all.

LINCOLN IS MADE PRESIDENT.

While this quarrel was boiling and bubbling, the day was drawing near when Lincoln was to take his place at the head of the nation.

He started from his simple home full of hope for his country, even in so threatening a time as this; full of honest intention to serve her faithfully, and with no wish to wage war upon any State or States. Innocent in his own heart, free from all malice, he could not believe it when he was told that a plot had been laid to murder him as he passed through the city of Baltimore. It was too true, however; and the friends of the new President found it necessary to have him pass through this city at night, under the cover of darkness.

On reaching the capital, he made his inaugural address, as all the Presidents have done since the time when Washington made his from the balcony to the people on the green

below.

This address was honest and manly, as everything that Lincoln said was sure to be. He told the South that he had no wish to make any trouble for those States, no wish to interfere with their rights; he only desired that they should abide by the laws of the country. He said, however, that they had no right to withdraw from the Union, no right to take into their own hands the forts or any other property belonging to the Union; if they did these things, it was his duty, as the chief officer of the Government, to demand that they return to the Union, and give up any property they had taken.

Now, as both these things had already been done in the South, that party at once said, "Lincoln has no right to say we shall stay in the Union; we will not give up the forts that are on our own coasts; we will fight for them; we will not be ruled by any Union Government." And now the war was close at hand.