y
a million. Both Houses of Congress were against him at the time of his
election, and, but for the absence of southern members, they would, it
is likely, have continued so through his entire term. It was the South's
bad logic on these points which gave the war Democrats their excellent
plea for drawing sword on the northern side.

But even supposing secession technically justifiable, how strange that
it should have been judged rational, prudent, or in the long run best
for the South itself. Could aught but frenzy have so drowned in
Americans the memories of our great past; or launched them upon a course
that must have ended by Mexicanizing this nation, wresting from it the
lead in freedom's march, and crushing out, in the breast of struggling
patriotism the world over, all hope of government by and for the people!
The South ought at least to have spared itself. Either its alleged
horror at the advance of central-sovereignty sentiment at the North was
sheer pretence, or it should have been certain that this section would
not hesitate, as Buchanan so illogically did, to coerce "rebellious"
state-bodies. If the North believed the totality of the nation to be the
"paramount authority," Lincoln would surely imitate Jackson instead of
Buchanan, and in doing so he would not seek military support in vain.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
James Buchanan. From a photograph by Brady.

Quite as sure, too, must the final result have appeared from the census
of 1850, had people been calm enough to read this. By that census the
free States had a population fifty per cent. above the population of the
slave states, slaves included, and the disparity was rapidly increasing.
Their wealth was even more preponderant, being, slaves apart, nearly one
hundred per cent. the larger. Their merchant tonnage was five times the
greater--even young inland Ohio out-doing old South Carolina in this,
and the one district of New York City the whole South. The North had
three or four times the South's miles of railway, all the sinews of war
without importation, and mechanics unnumbered and of every sort. And
while champions of the Union would fight with all the prestige of law,
national history and the status quo on their side, Europe's aid to the
South, or even that of the border slave States, was more than
problematical, as was a successful career for the Confederacy in case
its independence should chance to be won. Events proved that the very
defence