the wild terrors of war, was near at hand. But there were some
men in public life who early comprehended the destiny awaiting the
politically storm-racked Republic, and as it approached, boldly
gave the opinion that "_a little blood-letting would be good for
the body politic_."(131)

The story of the war which secession inaugurated remains to be in
part narrated in succeeding chapters, portraying the impetuous rush
to battle; the unparalleled heroism of the mighty hosts on either
side; the slaughter of men; the hell of suffering; the bitter tears;
the incalculable sorrow; the billions expended; the destruction of
property; the alternating defeats and triumphs; the final victory
of the Union arms; the overthrow of state-rights, nullification,
secession--disunion; the emancipation of four million human slaves,
and the annihilation in the United States of the institution of
slavery, including all its baleful doctrines, whether advanced by
partisan, pro-slavery statesmen, or advocated by learned politicians,
or upheld by church or clergy in the name of the prophets of Holy
Writ or of Christ and his Apostles, or expounded by a tribunal
clothed in the ermine, majesty, dignity, and power of the Supreme
Court of the United States of America.

Abraham Lincoln, whose beautiful character is illumined in the
intense light of a third of a century of heightened civilization,
will be immortalized through all time as God's chiefest instrument
in accomplishing the end.

In closing this chapter we desire again to remind the reader that
in 1861 the Congress of the United States, by a two thirds majority
in each branch, voted to so amend the Constitution as to make
forever unalterable its provisions for the recognition and perpetuation
of human bondage; that if the amendment thus submitted had been
ratified by three fourths of the States, this nation would have
been the first and only one in the history of the world wherein
the right to enslave human beings was fundamental and decreed to
be eternal.

This amendment, guaranteeing perpetual slavery, was the tender made
by Union men in 1861 to avert disunion and war. It was the
humiliating and unholy pledge offered to a slave-loving people to
induce them to remain true to the Constitution and the Union. In
the providence of God the amendment was not ratified, nor was a
willingness to accept it shown by the defiant South. On the
contrary, it was spurned by it with singular unanimit