uncertainty, so doubtful seemed the loyalty of the Democratic
party as represented by its spokesmen at the North, so irresolute was
the tone of many Republican leaders and journals, that a powerful and
wealthy community of twenty millions of people gave a sigh of relief
when they had been permitted to install the Chief Magistrate of their
choice in their own National Capital. Even after the inauguration of
Mr. Lincoln, it was confidently announced that Jefferson Davis, the
Burr of the Southern conspiracy, would be in Washington before the
month was out; and so great was the Northern despondency that the
chances of such an event were seriously discussed. While the nation was
falling to pieces, there were newspapers and "distinguished statesmen"
of the party so lately and so long in power base enough to be willing
to make political capital out of the common danger, and to lose their
country, if they could only find their profit. There was even one man
found in Massachusetts, who, measuring the moral standard of his party
by his own, had the unhappy audacity to declare publicly that there
were friends enough of the South in his native State to prevent the
march of any troops thence to sustain that Constitution to which he had
sworn fealty in Heaven knows how many offices, the rewards of almost as
many turnings of his political coat. There was one journal in New York
which had the insolence to speak of _President_ Davis and _Mister_
Lincoln in the same paragraph. No wonder the "dirt-eaters" of the
Carolinas could be taught to despise a race among whom creatures might
be found to do that by choice which they themselves were driven to do
by misery.

Thus far the Secessionists had the game all their own way, for their
dice were loaded with Northern lead. They framed their sham
constitution, appointed themselves to their sham offices, issued their
sham commissions, endeavored to bribe England with a sham offer of low
duties and Virginia with a sham prohibition of the slave-trade,
advertised their proposals for a sham loan which was to be taken up
under intimidation, and levied real taxes on the people in the name of
the people whom they had never allowed to vote directly on their
enormous swindle. With money stolen from the Government, they raised
troops whom they equipped with stolen arms, and beleaguered national
fortresses with cannon stolen from national arsenals. They sent out
secret agents to Europe, they had their secre