t of the United States.

The people of the South were in a terrible state of mind when they found
that a Republican, a man opposed to slavery, was elected President. They
could not tell what would take place. The Abolitionists who were against
slavery were in power and might pass laws that would rob them of all
their slaves. For years they had been fighting the North in
Congress--fighting by words, I mean. Now they determined to leave the
Union, and to fight with swords and guns if the North would not let them
go in peace. One by one the Southern States passed resolutions to go out
of the Union. And on all sides they collected powder and balls and other
implements of war, for their leaders felt sure they would have to fight.
But Lincoln hoped the states would not quarrel. He begged them not to.
But if they did it was his duty to do what the people had put him there
for. He had been elected President of the United States, and he must do
all he could to keep these states united.

It was on the 4th of March, 1861, that Abraham Lincoln became President.
By the middle of April the North and South were at war. Both sides had
their soldiers in the field and fighting had begun. The South wanted to
take Washington, and the North to keep it, and soon a fierce battle was
fought at a place called Bull Run, a few miles south of Washington.

The Southern States formed a Union of their own, which was called the
Southern Confederacy. They chose Richmond, the capital of Virginia, for
the capital of the Confederacy, and chose Jefferson Davis for their
President. Davis had fought bravely as a soldier at the battle of Buena
Vista, in Mexico. And he had been long in Congress, where he showed
himself an able lawmaker. So the South chose him as their best man for
President.

The war was half over before President Lincoln did anything about
slavery. He was there to save the Union, not to free the slaves. But the
time came when he found that freeing the slaves would help him in saving
the Union. When this time came--it was on the 1st of January, 1863--he
declared that all the slaves should be free. It was a great thing for
this country, for it was clear that there could be no peace while
slavery remained.

But the war went on more fiercely than ever, and it was not until April,
1865, that it came to an end. The South was not able to fight any longer
and had to give up, and the Union was saved. It was saved without
slavery, which was a very