only; and while on the other hand the spirit of freedom was existent in
each, free labor had rooted itself in Northern ground solely.

As the war of the Revolution was an uprising against arbitrary power,
and for the establishment of political liberty, it pushed easily into
the foreground the larger subject of human rights. Most of the leading
actors felt the inconsistency of keeping some men in bondage, when they
were fighting to rid themselves of a tyranny which, in comparison to the
other, was a state of honorable freedom. Their humanity condemned
African slavery, and they earnestly desired its extinction. The
Declaration of Independence proves to how high a level the tide of
freedom rose in the colonies. The grand truths by it proclaimed the
signers of that instrument did not restrict in their application to some
men to the exclusion of other men. They wrote "All men," and they meant
exactly what they wrote. Too simply honest and great they were to mean
less than their solemn and deliberate words.

On political as well as on moral grounds they desired emancipation. But
there was a difficulty which at the time proved insuperable. The
nation-making principle, the idea of country, was just emerging out of
the nebulous civil conditions and relations of the ante-Revolutionary
epoch. There was no existent central authority to reach the evil within
the States except the local governments of the States respectively. And
States in revolt against the central authority of the mother country
would hardly be disposed to divest themselves of any part of their newly
asserted right to govern themselves for the purpose of conferring the
same upon any other political body. To each State, then, the question
was necessarily left for settlement.

The war, during its continuance, absorbed the united resources and
energies of the people and their leaders. The anti-slavery movement made
accordingly but small progress. Reforms thrive only when they get a
hearing. Public attention is the food on which they thrive. But precious
little of this food was the Abolition cause able to snatch in those
bitter years. It could not grow. It remained in the gristle--hardly more
than a sentiment. But the sentiment was a seed, the promise and potency
of kindlier times. With the close of the long struggle other questions
arose; got the people's ears; fixed the attention of the leaders. Scant
notice could emancipation extort from men who had to repair the