the vote for Douglas, Bell, and Breckinridge meant a
decided opposition to the Republicans and their policies.

=Efforts at Compromise.=--Republican leaders, on reviewing the same
facts, were themselves uncertain as to the outcome of a civil war and
made many efforts to avoid a crisis. Thurlow Weed, an Albany journalist
and politician who had done much to carry New York for Lincoln, proposed
a plan for extending the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific.
Jefferson Davis, warning his followers that a war if it came would be
terrible, was prepared to accept the offer; but Lincoln, remembering his
campaign pledges, stood firm as a rock against it. His followers in
Congress took the same position with regard to a similar settlement
suggested by Senator Crittenden of Kentucky.

Though unwilling to surrender his solemn promises respecting slavery in
the territories, Lincoln was prepared to give to Southern leaders a
strong guarantee that his administration would not interfere directly or
indirectly with slavery in the states. Anxious to reassure the South on
this point, the Republicans in Congress proposed to write into the
Constitution a declaration that no amendment should ever be made
authorizing the abolition of or interference with slavery in any state.
The resolution, duly passed, was sent forth on March 4, 1861, with the
approval of Lincoln; it was actually ratified by three states before the
storm of war destroyed it. By the irony of fate the thirteenth amendment
was to abolish, not guarantee, slavery.

THE WAR MEASURES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

=Raising the Armies.=--The crisis at Fort Sumter, on April 12-14, 1861,
forced the President and Congress to turn from negotiations to problems
of warfare. Little did they realize the magnitude of the task before
them. Lincoln's first call for volunteers, issued on April 15, 1861,
limited the number to 75,000, put their term of service at three months,
and prescribed their duty as the enforcement of the law against
combinations too powerful to be overcome by ordinary judicial process.
Disillusionment swiftly followed. The terrible defeat of the Federals at
Bull Run on July 21 revealed the serious character of the task before
them; and by a series of measures Congress put the entire man power of
the country at the President's command. Under these acts, he issued new
calls for volunteers. Early in August, 1862, he ordered a draft of
militiamen numbering 300,000 for nine