itutions
sprung from the people, and peculiarly adapted to their genius; a
nation not sluggish, but active, used to excitement, practiced in
political wisdom, and accustomed to self-government, and all its
vast outlying parts held together by the Federal government, mild in
temper, gentle in administration, and beneficent in results, seemed
to have been formed for peace. All at once, in this hemisphere of
happiness and hope, there came trooping clouds with fiery bolts,
full of death and desolation. At a cannon shot upon this fort, all
the nation, as if it had been a trained army lying on its arms,
awaiting a signal, rose up and began a war which, for awfulness,
rises into the front rank of bad eminence. The front of the battle,
going with the sun, was twelve hundred miles long; and the depth,
measured along a meridian, was a thousand miles. In this vast area
more than two million men, first and last, for four years, have, in
skirmish, fight, and battle, met in more than a thousand conflicts;
while a coast and river line, not less than four thousand miles in
length, has swarmed with fleets freighted with artillery. The very
industry of the country seemed to have been touched by some infernal
wand, and, with sudden wheel, changed its front from peace to war.
The anvils of the land beat like drums. As out of the ooze emerge
monsters, so from our mines and foundries uprose new and strange
machines of war, ironclad. And so, in a nation of peaceful habits,
without external provocation, there arose such a storm of war as
blackened the whole horizon and hemisphere. What wonder that
foreign observers stood amazed at this fanatical fury, that seemed
without Divine guidance, but inspired wholly with infernal frenzy.
The explosion was sudden, but the train had long been laid. We must
consider the condition of Southern society, if we would understand
the mystery of this iniquity. Society in the South resolves itself
into three divisions, more sharply distinguished than in any other
part of the nation. At the base is the laboring class, made up of
slaves. Next is the middle class, made up of traders, small
farmers, and poor men. The lower edge of this class touches the
slave, and the upper edge reaches up to the third and ruling class.
This class was a small minority in numbers, but in practical ability
they had centred in their hands the whole government of the South,
and had mainly governed the country. Upon this poli