government had no power to keep the Southern States in the
Union if they did not want to stay, and that if allowed to go in peace
they would soon get tired of trying to manage their own affairs, and
drift back into the Union of their own free will. It was better that the
Union should be peacefully sundered than that there should be a war
about it. But another party said that such talk was treason; that the
Constitution was ordained to establish a "more perfect Union," which was
to be "perpetuated"; that no State, or combination of States, had any
right to try to break up the government because they could no longer run
things to suit themselves; and that there was not room enough for
another flag on this Continent. This was the good old Union party, and
fortunately it was resolute enough and strong enough to run the starry
banner up to the masthead and keep it there. This was what Marcy Gray, a
North Carolina boy, had done on this particular morning on the roof of
the Barrington Military Institute, and he had done it, too, in spite of
all the efforts his cousin, Rodney Gray, backed by nearly all the young
rebels in the school, had made to prevent it. Ever since the day on
which the news came that South Carolina had passed the ordinance of
secession, that flag, which up to this time had been raised and lowered
only at certain hours, had been a bone of contention. For long years it
had floated over the academy, and no one had ever had a word to say
against it; but the moment it became known that one of the Southern
States had decided that she would not stay in the Union if Mr. Lincoln
was to rule over it, there was a great change in the feelings of the
students regarding that piece of bunting. What an excitement there was
on the morning of the 21st of December, when Rodney Gray rushed into the
hall with his Charleston _Mercury_ in his hand!

"Hurrah for plucky little South Carolina!" he shouted, striking up a
war-dance and flourishing the paper over his head. "Listen to this,
fellows: 'The Union is dissolved. Passed at 1:15 P.M., December 20,
1860, an ordinance to dissolve the Union existing between the State of
South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact
entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."' There it
is in black and white. She's out, and of course all the other Cotton
States will go with her. The Stars and Stripes have been pulled down in
the city of Charleston, and the State f