he voice of a million, he instantly called a meeting of Congress,
and summoned the people to come up and repossess the forts, places, and
property which had been seized from the Union. The men of the north
were trained in schools; industrious and frugal; many of them
delicately bred, their minds teeming with ideas and fertile in plans of
enterprise; given to the culture of the arts; eager in the pursuit of
wealth, yet employing wealth less for ostentation than for developing
the resources of their country; seeking happiness in the calm of
domestic life; and such lovers of peace, that for generations they had
been reputed unwarlike. Now, at the cry of their country in its
distress, they rose up with unappeasable patriotism; not hirelings--the
purest and of the best blood in the land. Sons of a pious ancestry,
with a clear perception of duty, unclouded faith and fixed resolve to
succeed, they thronged around the President, to support the wronged,
the beautiful flag of the nation. The halls of theological seminaries
sent forth their young men, whose lips were touched with eloquence,
whose hearts kindled with devotion, to serve in the ranks, and make
their way to command only as they learned the art of war. Striplings in
the colleges, as well the most gentle and the most studious, those of
sweetest temper and loveliest character and brightest genius, passed
from their classes to the camp. The lumbermen from the forests, the
mechanics from their benches, where they had been trained, by the
exercise of political rights, to share the life and hope of the
republic, to feel their responsibility to their forefathers, their
posterity and mankind, went to the front, resolved that their dignity,
as a constituent part of this republic, should not be impaired. Farmers
and sons of farmers left the land but half ploughed, the grain but half
planted, and, taking up the musket, learned to face without fear the
presence of peril and the corning of death in the shocks of war, while
their hearts were still attracted to their herds and fields, and all
the tender affections of home. Whatever there was of truth and faith
and public love in the common heart, broke out with one expression. The
mighty winds blew from every quarter, to fan the flame of the sacred
and unquenchable fire.

For a time the war was thought to be confined to our own domestic
affairs, but it was soon seen that it involved the destinies of
mankind; its principles and causes