was the noblest literary monument of the triumph of
Union and freedom.

Longfellow's main vocation was away from the turmoils of the hour. He
interpreted to America the art, the culture, the legends of Europe and
the Middle Ages; he found the poetry in the early soil of America, as in
"Hiawatha" and "Evangeline." He was not deaf to the wrongs of the slave,
and gave to them some touching poems. But his finest contribution to the
national idea was the apostrophe to the Union which crowns "The Building
of the Ship." It was written in 1849, in the stress of the struggle over
California, and it may well last as long as the nation lasts. The poem
is an idyl of the ship-building folk and the sea; the consummation is
the bridal of the captain and the builder's daughter, and the launching
of the ship, christened "The Union"--emblem of the wife's and husband's
voyage begun together on the sea of life; then,--

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what forge and what a heat
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
'Tis of the wave and not the rock;
'Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale!
In spite of rock and tempest's roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,--are all with thee!

CHAPTER XVII

DRED SCOTT AND LECOMPTON

Under Buchanan's administration, 1857-61, three events befell which were
like wedges riving farther and farther apart the national unity. They
were the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, the Lecompton
constitution in Kansas, and John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry.

President Buchanan declared in his inaugural that the people of a
Territory had a right to shape their institutions in their own way, but
as to how far that right extended before they organized as a State, the
United States Supreme Court was the proper arbiter. Two days after the
inaugural, the Supreme Court announced its decision, in a case made up
ex