ther the South possessed a dubious right of
secession, because that dispute, in case it came to a head, could only
be settled by war; but whether a democratic nation could on democratic
principles continue to shirk the problem of slavery by shifting the
responsibility for it to individuals and localities. As soon as Lincoln
made it plain that a democratic nation could not make local and
individual rights an excuse for national irresponsibility, then the
Unionist party could count upon the support of the American conscience.
The former followers of Douglas finally rallied to the man and to the
party which stood for a nationalized rather than a merely localized
democracy; and the triumph of the North in the war, not only put an end
to the legal right of secession, but it began to emancipate the American
national idea from an obscurantist individualism and provincialism. Our
current interpretation of democracy still contains much dubious matter
derived from the Jacksonian epoch; but no American statesmen can
hereafter follow Douglas in making the democratic principle equivalent
to utter national incoherence and irresponsibility.

Mr. Theodore Roosevelt in his addresses to the veterans of the Civil War
has been heard to assert that the crisis teaches us a much-needed lesson
as to the supreme value of moral energy. It would have been much
pleasanter and cheaper to let the South secede, but the people of the
North preferred to pay the cost of justifiable coercion in blood and
treasure than to submit to the danger and humiliation of peaceable
rebellion. Doubtless the foregoing is sometimes a wholesome lesson on
which to insist, but it is by no means the only lesson suggested by the
event. The Abolitionists had not shirked their duty as they understood
it. They had given their property and their lives to the anti-slavery
agitation. But they were as willing as the worst Copperheads to permit
the secession of the South, because of the erroneous and limited
character of their political ideas. While the crisis had undoubtedly
been, in a large measure, brought about by moral lethargy, and it could
only be properly faced by a great expenditure of moral energy, it had
also been brought about quite as much by political unintelligence; and
the salvation of the Union depended primarily and emphatically upon a
better understanding on the part of Northern public opinion of the
issues involved. Confused as was the counsel offered to them, an