on of Mr. Lincoln's arrival he,
"as mayor of the city, accompanied by the police commissioners and
supported by a strong force of police, was at the Calvert Street station
on Saturday morning, February 23, at 11.30 o'clock ... ready to receive
with due respect the incoming President. An open carriage was in
waiting, in which I was to have the honor of escorting Mr. Lincoln
through the city to the Washington station, and of sharing in any danger
which he might encounter. It is hardly necessary to say that I
apprehended none." To the "great astonishment" of Mr. Brown, however,
the train brought only "Mrs. Lincoln and her three sons," and "it was
then announced that he had passed through the city _incognito_ in the
night train." This is a small bit of evidence to set against the
elaborate stories of the believers in the plot, yet to some it will seem
like the little obstruction which suffices to throw a whole railway
train from the track. I would rather let any reader, who is sufficiently
interested to examine the matter, reach his own conclusion, than
endeavor to furnish one for him; for I think that a dispute more
difficult of really conclusive settlement will not easily be found.

[127] Some of the Southern members of Congress collected and recited
sundry noteworthy utterances of Republicans concerning slavery, and
certainly there was little in them to induce a sense of security on the
part of slaveholders. Wilson, _Rise and Fall of Slave Power_, iii. 97,
154.

[128] Toombs declared, as Lincoln had said, that what was wanted was
that the North should _call slavery right_. Wilson, _Rise and Fall of
Slave Power_, iii. 76. Stephens declared the "corner-stone" of the new
government to be "the great truth that the negro is not equal to the
white man; that slavery ... is his natural and normal condition;" and
said that it was the first government "in the history of the world based
upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." N. and H.
iii. 203; and see his letter to Lincoln, _ibid._ 272, 273. Mississippi,
in declaring the causes of her secession, said: "Our position is
thoroughly identical with the institution of slavery,--the greatest
material interest in the world." N. and H. iii. 201. Senator Mason of
Virginia said: "It is a war of sentiment, of opinion; a war of one form
of society against another form of society." Wilson, _Rise and Fall of
Slave Power_, iii. 26. Green of Missouri ascribed the trouble to th