rritation on the Slavery question preceding open
hostilities between the Sections. But President Lincoln sounded the
real depths of the Rebellion when he declared it to be a War upon the
rights of the People. In his First Annual Message, December 3, 1861, he
said:

"It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not
exclusively, a War upon the first principle of popular government--the
rights of the People. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most
grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the
general tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the
abridgment of the existing right of suffrage, and the denial to the
People of all right to participate in the selection of public officers,
except the legislative, boldly advocated, with labored arguments to
prove that large control of the People in government is the source of
all political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a
possible refuge from the power of the People.

"In my present position, I could scarcely be justified were I to omit
raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.

"It is not needed, nor fitting here, that a general argument should be
made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its
connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask brief
attention. It is the effort to place Capital on an equal footing with,
if not above Labor, in the structure of the Government.

"It is assumed that Labor is available only in connection with Capital;
that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning Capital, somehow by the
use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered
whether it is best that Capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce
them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it
without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally
concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers, or what we call
Slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer
is fixed in that condition for life.

"Now, there is no such relation between Capital and Labor as assumed;
nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life, in the
condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all
inferences from them are groundless.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of Capital. Capital is only the
fruit of Labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not