Union, and that its permanent
success would lead to the destruction of the government. It was
not unnatural that with these extreme views he should be carried
beyond the bounds of prudence, and that, in his headlong desire to
rebuke the Republican party as enemies of the Union, he should aid
in precipitating a dissolution of the government before the
Republicans could enter upon its administration. He thus became
in large degree responsible for the unsound position and the
dangerous teachings of Mr. Buchanan. In truth some of the worst
doctrines embodied in the President's evil message came directly
from an opinion given by Judge Black as Attorney-General, and, made
by Mr. Buchanan still more odious and more dangerous by the quotation
of a part and not the whole.

It was soon manifest however to Judge Black, that he was playing
with fire, and that, while he was himself desirous only of arousing
the country to the dangers of anti-slavery agitation, Mr. Buchanan's
administration was every day effectually aiding the Southern
conspiracy for the destruction of the Union. This light dawned on
Judge Black suddenly and irresistibly. He was personally intimate
with General Cass, and when that venerable statesman retired from
the Cabinet to preserve his record of loyalty to the Union, Judge
Black realized that he was himself confronted by an issue which
threatened his political destruction. Could he afford, as Secretary
of State, to follow a policy which General Cass believed would
destroy his own fame? General Cass was nearly fourscore years of
age, with his public career ended, his work done. Judge Black was
but fifty, and he had before him possibly the most valuable and
most ambitious period of his life. He saw at a glance that if
General Cass could not be sustained in the North-West, he could
not be sustained in Pennsylvania. He possessed the moral courage
to stand firm to the end, in defiance of opposition and regardless
of obloquy, if he could be sure he was right. But he had begun to
doubt, and doubt led him to review with care the position of Mr.
Buchanan, and to examine its inevitable tendencies. He did it with
conscience and courage. He had none of that subserviency to Southern
men which had injured so many Northern Democrats. Until he entered
the Cabinet in 1857, he had never come into personal association
with men from the slave-holding States, and his keen observation
could not fail to discern the inf