ion
without war, insurgent agents were in the city, seeking to destroy
it with war,--seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide the 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 colored slaves, not distributed
generally over the Union, but localized 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 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 anticipated that the cause
of the conflict might cease when, 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
prayer 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 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 to