f the Treasury. Cannon and muskets and military stores were sent in
numbers where they could most surely fall into the hands of the coming
rebellion; troops of the United States were placed under disloyal
officers and put out of the way; the navy was scattered abroad. And
then, that nothing might be wanting to increase the agony of the
country, an attempt to force the institution of Slavery on the people of
Kansas, that refused it, received the encouragement and aid of the
President. The conspirators resolved at the next Presidential election
to compel the choice of a candidate of their own, or of one against whom
they could unite the South; and all the influence of the Administration,
through its patronage, was used to confine the election to that issue.

Virginia statesmen, more than ninety years ago, had foretold that each
State Constitution must work itself clear of the evil of slavery by its
own innate vigor, or await the doom of impartial Providence. Judgment
slumbered no longer,--though wise men after the flesh were not chosen as
its messengers and avengers.

The position of Abraham Lincoln, on the day of his inauguration, was
apparently one of helpless debility. A bark canoe in a tempest on
mid-ocean seemed hardly less safe. The vital tradition of the country on
Slavery no longer had its adequate expression in either of the two great
political parties, and the Supreme Court had uprooted the old landmarks
and guides. The men who had chosen him President did not constitute a
consolidated party, and did not profess to represent either of the
historic parties which had been engaged in the struggles of three
quarters of a century. They were a heterogeneous body of men, of the
most various political attachments in former years, and on many
questions of economy of the most discordant opinions. Scarcely knowing
each other, they did not form a numerical majority of the whole country,
were in a minority in each branch of Congress except from the wilful
absence of members, and they could not be sure of their own continuance
as an organized body. They did not know their own position, and were
startled by the consequences of their success. The new President himself
was, according to his own description, a man of defective education, a
lawyer by profession, knowing nothing of administration beyond having
been master of a very small post-office, knowing nothing of war but as
a captain of volunteers in a raid against an Indian