e effects, by negotiation.
Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than
let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let
it perish. And the war came.

"One-eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, not
distributed generally over the Union, but localised in the Southern
part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest.
All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To
strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for
which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the
Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial
enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or
the duration which it has already attained. Neither expected that the
cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict
itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result
less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to
the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem
strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in
wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us
judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be
answered--that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has
His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must
needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense
cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those
offenses, which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which,
having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove,
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe
due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any
departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living
God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we
pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if
God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's
two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until
every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.'

"With malice toward none; with c