the Border states, a matter for which he was more scandalously derided than any other. Had Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland followed the other states out of the Union-had the loyal Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri troops, instead of "keeping step to the music of the Union," have marched under the shadow of the rattlesnake flag, how different the result! Dr. Furness' cute remark, while enfolding a sarcasm, equally contained a truth, for both premises were true: Lincoln must have Kentucky: it was the pivot.

Our fate as a nation frequently depended upon the issue of a single battle; as Shiloh, Stone River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Gettysburgh.

In our war, unlike most of wars, the moral consequence of a battle was oftimes of greater magnitude than the material consequences.

Mr. Lincoln was obliged to consult, and be guided by, the popular opinion cf his own constituency, and likewise the opinion of foreign nations. Even now, we can hardly appreciate the delicacy of his task. He must have the support of Charles Sumner and Frank Blair, of Owen Lovejoy and Edward Stanley; of the New England abolitionist-the Illinois Whig-the Missouri slaveholder. He must cajole, intimidate or court the ultra-Democrat of New York; the Vallandigham man of Ohio, and the Son of Liberty of Indiana; and his success is one of the most wonderful of moral achievements.

Slavery is now but an ugly reminiscence; but it was the most powerful institution in the nation from 1830 to 1860, or for thirty years. It elected every President of the United States, except four, until the new era. It completely dominated the United States Senate and the Supreme court, and nearly every Congress, prior to 1861. West Point was ancillary to it both the army and the navy were its auxil. iaries. The social life at Washington obeyed its behests; and it even tinctured the social life at Newport, Saratoga, and

Niagara Falls. Statesmanship was its servitor; and diplomacy its handmaid. Exponents of the effete Southern aristocracy swarmed in the departments at the capitol; and the court language, in essence, had a smack both of the racetrack and bar-room-in articulation, of the emigrant from Congo, and the denizen of the Ockmulgee river combined.

Notwithstanding that slavery was interdicted in the entire northwestern territory by the ordinance of 1787, it continued to exist in the Territory of Illinois during its whole territorial condition, and even after it became a state. But a brave and patriotic governor, Edward Coles, in a speech in the legisla ture, in 1822, drew the attention of the legislature to the fact, and asked them to make some proper provision to extirpate slavery from their midst.

This induced the legislature to adopt a joint resolution calling for a state convention to revise the Constitution, the intention being to legalize the institution of slavery in Illinois. It is singular to reflect that this could be possible in a state from which slavery had been expressly excluded, on motion of Thomas Jefferson, in the first act for its government; and it is a matter of heart-felt gratification that it failed of endorsement before the people.

The vote on calling the convention was had on the first Monday in August, 1824, and was defeated by a majority of 1,872, out of a vote of 11,772; and inasmuch as the immigration thereafter preponderated in a large degree from the free states, there was no further danger that Illinois would ever so far thereafter retrograde from a career of political morality as to adopt slavery. But the contest which raged for eighteen months was the most violent and bitter ever known in the history of the state, before or since. Newspapers, hand-bills and pamphlets were scattered broadcast.

These missive weapons of a fiery contest were scattered everywhere, and everywhere they scorched and scattered as they flew. Almost every stump in every county had its bellowing, indignant orator on one side or the other; and the

whole people, for the space of months, did scarcely anything but read newspapers, hand-bills and pamphlets; quarrel, maybe, and argue with each other whenever they met together to hear the violent harangues of their orators. Men, women and children entered the arena of party warfare and strife; and the families and neighborhoods were so divided and furious and bitter against one another, that it seemed a regular civil war might be the result. Many personal combats were indulged in, on the question, and the whole country seemed, at times, to be ready and willing to resort to physical force to decide the contest. All the means known to man to convey ideas to one another were resorted to, and practiced with energy. The press teemed with publications on the subject. The stump orators were invoked and the pulpit thundered anathemas against the introduction of slavery. The religious community coupled Christianity and freedom together, which was one of the most powerful levers used in the contest. At one meeting of the friends of freedom in St. Clair county more than thirty preachers of the Gospel attended, and opposed the introduction of slavery into the state.

Mr. Wm. H. Brown, formerly of Chicago, where he died some twenty years since, gives the following account of this exciting contest: "Into this canvass was infused a bitterness and malignity which the agitation of the slavery question only engenders. Why it always produces this result is worthy of the investigation of the moralist and philosopher. Other great evils, political and moral, are discussed with freedom, and measures for their amelioration or prevention meet with no outward opposition; but call in question the right of one man to enslave another, or even make an effort to confine this gigantic sin to the territory in which it exists, and the fiercest passions are aroused in the hearts of its advocates, and the lack of power alone saves their opponents from utter destruction.

In this spirit, the contest of 1823-24 was waged. Old friendships were sundered, families divided, and neighbor

hoods arrayed in opposition to each other. Threats of personal violence were frequent, and personal collisions, a common occurrence. As in times of warfare, every man expected an attack, and was prepared to meet it. Pistols and dirks were in great demand, and formed a part of the personal habiliments of those conspicuous for their opposition to the convention measure. Even the gentler sex came within the vortex of this whirlwind of passion; and many were the angry disputations of those whose cares and interests were usually confined to their household duties."

Two members of the legislature who voted against holding the convention, were burned in effigy, at their own homes.

At this time there was but little settlement in the northern half of the state. The largest was at the Fevre river lead mines, in what has since been Galena. There was no Chicago then, and the Indians had almost undisputed sway from the Indiana line-I might say from the Western Reserve to the Pacific ocean.

Abraham Lincoln was then a callow youth in Spencer County, Indiana, having no idea of the struggle going on just west of his home, and of its significance to him and to the nation. No reasonable conjecture is possible of what Illinois would have been, had this nefarious and infamous scheme-worthy only of the Dark Ages-have carried. Chicago has now one and a quarter millions of people; as a slave city, how many would it have had? How would it have compared with the free city of Milwaukee, or Michigan City? For in the dire contingency named, one of those places would have been the Chicago of history.

And it seems to be the concurrent idea of all observers that to one man-Edward Coles-a Virginian, is it due that the unholy scheme of foisting slavery on the state of Illinois, four years after the adoption of the Missouri Compromise,

and thirty-seven years after it was consecrated forever to freedom, was foiled.

Had this been otherwise, there would have been no President Lincoln- -no historical "Honest Old Abe." He equally would have failed of his high destiny, had he succeeded in his senatorial aspirations in 1854 or 1858; he probably would have failed also had he not have got into the "joint debate" in 1858; he probably would have failed likewise had he not made his "house-divided-against-itself" speech; and also had not the convention sat in Chicago; and he certainly would also have failed, if the Charleston convention had been harmonious. Seward had a large political capital; he could spare much and yet win; the breeze that wafted Lincoln into the Executive mansion was so light that he had to set every square inch of canvass to succeed.

It was a monsoon in 1864,-it was the quietest of zephyrs in 1861.

"It is not fortune, however, which rules the world; there are general causes, whether moral or physical, which act in every nation-raising, maintaining, or overthrowing it; all accidents are subject to these causes, and if the fortune of a battle that is to say, a particular cause-has ruined a nation, there was a general cause which made it necessary that nation should perish through a single battle; in a word, the principal cause drags with it all the particular accidents."

Or, as otherwise stated, "a great effect is always due to a great cause, never to a small one; in other words, an accident, insignificant in appearance never leads to important results without a pre-existing cause which has permitted this slight accident to produce a great effect. The spark only lights up a vast conflagration when it falls upon combustible matters, previously collected." (Napoleon III.)

A geographical half of the nation disputed the proposition that there was any government of the United States: that section maintained that our highest and supreme forms of government were of Virginia, or Louisiana, etc.: the United