To this predaceous system what do we oppose?  We oppose a socialization that has features,—­I will say no more,—­has features of generous breadth and promise, that are the best fruition of many countries and centuries.  Faults and drawbacks it has enough and to spare; conspicuous among which may be named the vulgar and disgusting “negrophobia,”—­a mark of under-breeding which one hopes may not disgrace us always.  But let us be carried away by no mania for self-criticism.  Two claims for ourselves may be made.  First, a higher grade of laws nowhere exists with a less amount of coercive application,—­exists, that is, by the rational and constant choice of the whole people.  Secondly, it may be questioned whether anywhere in the world the development of intelligence and moral force in the whole people is to a greater extent a national aim.  But abandoning all comparison with other peoples, this we may say with no doubtful voice:  We stand for the best ideas of the Old World in the New; we stand for orderly-freedom and true socialization in America; we stand for these, and with us these must here stand or fall.

Now, of course, we are not about to become the offscouring of the earth by yielding these up to destruction.  Of course, we shall not convert ourselves into a nation of Iscariots, and give over civilization to the bowie-knife, with the mere hope of so making money out of Southern trade,—­which we should not do,—­and with the certainty of a gibbet in history, to mention no greater penalty.

But refusing this perfidy, could we have avoided this war?  No; for it was simply our refusal of such perfidy which, so far as we are concerned, brought the war on.  The South, having ever since the Mexican War stood with its sword half out of the scabbard, perpetually threatening to give its edge,—­having made it the chief problem of our politics, by what gift or concession to purchase exemption from that dreaded blade,—­at last reached its ultimate demand.  “Will you,” it said to the North, “abdicate the privileges of equal citizenship?  Will you give up this continent, territory, Free States and all, to our predaceous, blood-eating system?  Will you sell into slavery the elective franchise itself?  Will you sell the elective franchise itself into slavery, and take for pay barely the poltroon’s price, that of being scornfully spared by the sword we stand ready to draw?” The North excused itself politely.  In the softest voice, but with a soft-voicedness that did not wholly conceal an iron thread of resolution, it declined to comply with that most modest demand.  Then the sword came out and struck at our life.  “Was it matter of choice with us whether we would fight?  Not unless it were also matter of choice whether we would become the very sweepings and blemish of creation.