“Nevertheless, I am a non-resistant,” said he, speaking to that solitary confession of non-resistance principles, “and I not only desire, but have labored unremittingly to effect the peaceful abolition of slavery, by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the slaveholder; yet, as a peace man, an ultra peace man, I am prepared to say:  Success to every slave insurrection at the South, and in every slave country.  And I do not see how I compromise or stain my peace profession in making that declaration.  Whenever there is a contest between the oppressed and the oppressor, the weapons being equal between the parties, God knows that my heart must be with the oppressed, and always against the oppressor.  Therefore, whenever commenced, I cannot but wish success to all slave insurrections....  Rather than see men wearing their chains, in a cowardly and servile spirit, I would as an advocate of peace, much rather see them breaking the head of the tyrant with their chains.  Give me, as a non-resistant, Bunker Hill, and Lexington, and Concord, rather than the cowardice and servility of a Southern slave plantation.”

The unmistakable signs of disintegration, the swift action of the national tragedy, the Charleston Convention, the disruption of the Democratic party, the last bond between the North and the South, filled the heart of the pioneer with solemn joy.  “Only think of it!” he exulted at the anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York, May 8, 1860; “only think of it! the party which has for so many years cried out, ‘There must be no agitation on this subject’ is now the most agitated of all the parties in the country.  The party which declares that there ought not to be any sectionalism as against slavery, has now been sundered geographically, and on this very question!  The party which had said, ‘Let discussions cease forever,’ is busily engaged in the discussion, so that, possibly, the American Anti-Slavery Society might adjourn sine die, after we get through with our present meetings, and leave its work to be carried on in the other direction!” This was all true enough.  The sections were at last sundered, and a day of wrath was rising dark and dreadful over “States dissevered, discordant, belligerent.”

CHAPTER XX.

THE DEATH-GRAPPLE.

The triumph of the Republican party at the polls was the signal for the work of dissolution to begin.  Webster’s terrific vision of “a land rent with civil feuds” became reality in the short space of six weeks after Lincoln’s election, by the secession of South Carolina from the Union.  Quickly other Southern States followed, until a United States South was organized, the chief stone in the corner of the new political edifice being Negro slavery.  It was not six weeks after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, when the roar of cannon in Charleston Harbor announced to the startled country that war between the States had begun.  The first call of the new President for troops to put down the rebellion and to save the Union, and the patriotic uprising which it evoked made it plain that the struggle thus opened was to be nothing less than a death-grapple between the two sections.