iring on Fort
Sumter, and Southern Senators advised their constituents to seize the
arsenals and ports of the nation. Rebellion was a fact.

CHAPTER VII.

Abraham Lincoln, the President-elect, was the legitimate outgrowth of
American institutions; in him was presented choice fruit, the product of
republican government. Born in a log cabin, of poor, uneducated parents,
his only aids untiring industry, determination, and lofty purpose.
Hewing out his steps on the rugged rocks of poverty, climbing the
mountains of difficulty, and attaining the highest honor within the gift
of the nation--"truly a self-made man, the Declaration of Independence,"
says a writer, "being his daily compendium of wisdom, the life of
Washington his daily study, with something of Jefferson, Madison, and
Clay." For the rest, from day to day, he lived the life of the American
people; "walked in its light; reasoned with its reason; thought with its
powers of thought, and felt the beatings of its mighty heart." In 1858
he came prominently forward as the rival of Stephen A. Douglass, and,
with wealth of argument, terseness of logic, and enunciation of just
principles, took front rank among sturdy Republicans, battling against
the extension of human slavery, declaring that "the nation could not
endure half free and half slave."

[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

The Emancipator.

The Embodiment of Patriotism and Justice. "I hope peace will come to
stay, and then there will be some colored men who can remember that they
helped mankind to this great consummation."]

On the 4th of March, 1861, he took the oath of office and commenced his
Administration. With confidence and doubt alternating, our interest as a
race became intensified. We knew the South had rebelled; we were
familiar with the pagan proverb "Those whom the gods would destroy they
first made mad." We had watched the steady growth of Republicanism, when
a tinge on the political horizon "no bigger than a man's hand," increase
in magnitude and power and place its standard-bearer in the White House.
But former Presidents had professed to hate slavery. President Fillmore
had, yet signed the fugitive slave law; Pierce and Buchanan had both
wielded the administrative arm in favor of slavery. We had seen Daniel
Webster, Massachusetts' ablest jurist, and the most learned
constitutional expounder--the man of whom it was said that "when he
speaks God's own thunder can be seen pent up in his