women as well as men who, while they accepted and tried to make the best
of the institution which had been handed down to them by their
ancestors, were at heart as eager Abolitionists as any of the North; but
they knew that such a radical change must be brought about by gradual
steps or it would open the way to yet greater evils, of which the sudden
impoverishment of the section was not the greatest. In the North were
men and women who held themselves aloof from the rabid fanaticism of
their day, and while they heartily desired the eradication of the taint
of slavery from the country which boasted of its freedom, yet were
willing to trust to time and the growth of principle for the result
which they desired. But on both sides these conservatives were
unfortunately in the minority and their influence was of no avail; on
both sides they were looked upon as traitors to the cause which they
loved best and most wisely of all.

There might have been hope of compromise; the fanatics were still in the
minority among the men who governed the destinies of the nation, and
while there was bitterness and even hatred rife among these men, there
was yet stronger dread of open separation, so that there might have been
reached some conclusion which would have been productive of results
satisfactory in the main to both sides, though not in full measure; but
the women would not have it so. They flung themselves into politics with
a fervor that was fatal to all the interests of peace; for those of the
North could not understand any toleration of "the accursed thing," while
they of the South demanded that their husbands and lovers should resent
the insult which had been imposed upon Southern womanhood in the vile
slanders which were freely circulated in Abolitionist circles. That
these slanders were the voice of fanaticism and not of mere hatred was
not understood; that they were reprobated by the better elements of the
North was not believed.

In both sections an appeal to arms was talked of if secession were
adopted and resisted. At first this was but idle menace; but it
gradually grew to the proportions of stern determination at least in one
of the sections, and by none was it so eagerly welcomed and fanned as by
the women. "The peace of them that make peace" was not for the American
woman of that time; all the natural militancy of the feminine nature was
aroused to its highest pitch, and it was more at the instigation of
hatred than as