ve been more careful what they said and
did. But for all that, war was close at hand, and two things helped to
bring it on.

There had been fighting in Kansas, one of the territories that was to be
made into a state, and among the fighters was an old man named John
Brown, who thought that God had called him to do all he could for the
freedom of the slaves.

Some people think that John Brown was not quite right in his brain. What
he did was to gather a body of men and to take possession of Harper's
Ferry, on the Potomac River, where there was a government army. He
thought that the slaves of Virginia would come to his aid in multitudes
and that he could start a slave war that would run all through the
South.

It was a wild project. Not a slave came. But some troops came under
Colonel Robert E. Lee, and Brown and his party were forced to surrender.
Some of them were killed and wounded and the others taken prisoners.
John Brown and six others were tried and hanged. But the half-insane old
man had done his work. That fight at Harper's Ferry helped greatly to
bring on the war.

I said there were two things. The other was the election of Abraham
Lincoln as President.

For a long time, as I have told you, the Abolitionists, or people
opposed to slavery, were few in number. When they grew more numerous
they formed a political party, known as the Anti-slavery Party. In 1856
a new party, called the Republican Party, was formed and took in all the
Abolitionists. It was so strong that in the election of that year eleven
states voted for its candidate, John C. Fremont, the man who had taken
California from Mexico.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln, a western orator of whom I shall soon tell you
more, was the candidate of the Republican Party, and in the election of
that year this new party was successful and Lincoln was elected
President of the United States.

CHAPTER XXI

HOW LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT

I SHOULD like to tell you all about one of the greatest and noblest men
who ever lived in our country, and give you his story from the time he
was born until the time he died. But that would be biography, and this
is a book of history. Biography is the story of a man; history is the
story of a nation. So I cannot give you the whole life of Abraham
Lincoln, but only that part of it which has to do with the history of
our country.

Nations, you should know, are divided into monarchies and republics. In
a monarchy the ruler