s. There was always some negro ready to tell
his master's family when the abolition agents made their appearance.
Still the people resented to the utmost the spirit that moved certain
so-called philanthropists of the North to endeavor to secure the freedom
of the negroes by means of the torch and midnight murder.

Consequently in 1859, when Joe Brown was nominated for governor the
second time, the people were greatly stirred. Sectional feeling ran
high. In that year began the active movement that led to secession and
the civil war. If all our statesmen had been as wise as Mr. Stephens
and Mr. Hill, war would have been averted. Slavery itself, in the very
nature of things, was doomed. It had accomplished its providential
mission. It had civilized and christianized millions of savages who had
been redeemed from slavery in their own land. It had justified its own
ends, and would have passed away in good time, no matter what compromise
may have been made.

Mr. Stephens and Mr. Hill were opposed to secession. They were for
fighting, if there must be a fight, in the Union, and this was the true
policy. For a while the people of Georgia were earnestly in favor
of this; but the efforts of the abolitionists to stir the negroes to
insurrection, and the inflammatory appeals of some of the leading
men, led them to oppose a policy which was at once just, wise, and
considerate. Even Joseph E. Brown, cool, calculating, placid, and not
easily-swayed by emotion, became a disunionist, demonstrating once again
that beneath the somber and calm exterior of the Puritan is to be
found a nature as combative and as unyielding as that which marks the
Cavalier.

Joe Brown was reelected in 1859, and did everything in his power as
governor to hasten the event of secession. The National Democratic
Convention met in Charleston, and the meeting showed that the
differences between the Democrats could not be settled; and it so
happened, that, while the South was opposed by the solid and rapidly
growing Republican party, the people of the South were divided among
themselves. What is most remarkable, the people of the South, after
making the election of the Republican candidate certain by dividing
among themselves, seemed to be amazed at the result. In some instances
county meetings were held in Georgia, and resolutions sent to the
Legislature declaring the election of Lincoln and Hamlin "a violation of
national comity." Nothing could show more clearly