after ages.

On both sides of the Atlantic, in every civilized country, He it was, first of all, who wrung from the reluctant and proscriptive reviews of

his name had become familiar as a household word.

WASHINGTON IRVING.

England and Scotland an acknowledgment of the power and originality of Amercan genius. The literature of the New World was no longer a scoff and a by-word when Murray, the bookseller of London, was obliged to pay for the manuscript of "Bracebridge Hall" -which he had not yet seen the sum of a thousand guineas. Except Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron no other author of Irving's times received such a munifi

cent reward for his labor-no other was so much praised and loved. Whether as humorist or writer of prose fiction, historian or biographer, his name ranks among the noblest and brightest of the world. When the petty revolutions of society and the bloody conflicts of the battle field are forgotten, the monument which the affections of his countrymen have reared to the memory of the illustrious Irving shall stand unshaken and untarnished, transmitting to all after times the record of his virtues and achievements.

From the beginning the new administration had stormy times. The slavery question continued to vex the nation. The Dred Scott Decision, to which the President had looked as a measure calculated to allay the excitement, had only added fuel to the flame. In some of the Free States the opposition rose so high that PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS were passed, the object of which was to defeat the execution of the Fugitive Slave law. In the fall of 1859 the excitement was still further increased by the mad attempt of John Brown of Kansas to excite a general insurrection among the slaves. With a

party of twenty-one men as daring as himself, he made a sudden descent on the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, captured the place, and held his ground for nearly two days. The national troops and the militia of Virginia were called out in order to suppress the revolt. Thirteen of Brown's men were killed, two made their escape, and the rest were captured. The leader and his six companions were given over to the authorities of Virginia, tried, condemned and hanged. In Kansas the old controversy still continued, but the Free Soil party gained ground so rapidly as to make it certain that slavery would be interdicted from the State. All these facts and events tended to widen the breach between the people of the North and the South. Such was the alarming condition of affairs when the time arrived for holding the nineteenth presidential election.

The canvass was one of intense excitement. Four candidates were presented. The choice of the People's party-now called Republican-was Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The platform of principles adopted by this party again declared opposition to the extension of slavery to be the vital issue. In the month of April the Democratic convention assembled at Charleston. The delegates were divided on the question of slavery, and after much debating the party was disrupted. The Southern delegates, unable to obtain a distinct expression of their views in the platform of principles, and seeing that the Northern wing was determined to nominate Mr. Douglas-the great defender of popular sovereignty-withdrew from the convention. The rest continued in session, balloted for a while for a candidate, and on the 3d of May adjourned to Baltimore, where the delegates, reässembling on the 18th of June, chose Douglas as their standard-bearer in the approaching canvass. The seceding delegates adjourned first to Richmond, and afterwards to Baltimore, where they met on the 28th of June and nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The American party-now known as Constitutional Unionists-chose John Bell of Tennessee as their candidate. The contest resulted in the election of Mr. Lincoln. He received the electoral votes of all the Northern States except those of New Jersey, which were divided between himself and his two opponents. The support of the Southern States was for the most part given to Breckinridge. The States of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee cast their ballots, thirty-nine in number, for Mr. Bell. Mr. Douglas received a large popular but small electoral vote, his supporters being scattered through all the States without the concentration necessary to carry any. Thus after controlling the destinies of the Republic for sixty years, with only

the temporary overthrow of 1840, the Democratic party was broken into fragments and driven from the field.

The result of the election had been anticipated. The leaders of the South had openly declared that the choice of Lincoln would be regarded as a just cause for the dissolution of the Union. The Republicans of the populous North crowded to the polls, and their favorite was chosen. As to the government, it was under the control of the Douglas Democracy; but a majority of the cabinet and a large number of senators and representatives in Congress were supporters of Mr. Breckinridge and the advocates of disunion as a justifiable measure. It was now evident that with the incoming of the new administration all the departments of the government would pass under the control of the Republican party. The times were full of passion, animosity and rashness. It was seen that disunion was now possible, and that the possibility would shortly be removed. The attitude of the President favored the measure. He was not himself a disunionist. He denied the right of a State to secede; but at the same time he declared himself not armed with the constitutional power necessary to prevent secession by force. The interval, therefore, between the presidential election in November of 1860 and the inauguration of the following spring was seized by the leaders of the South as the opportune moment for dissolving the Union.

The actual work of secession began in South Carolina. On the 17th of December, 1860, a convention assembled at Charleston, and after three days of deliberation passed a resolution that the union hitherto existing between South Carolina and the other States, under the name of the United States of America, was dissolved. It was a step of fearful importance. The action was contagious. The sentiment of disunion spread with great rapidity. The cotton-growing States were almost unanimous in support of the measure. By the 1st of February, 1861, six other States-Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas-had passed ordinances of secession and withdrawn from the Union. Nearly all of the senators and representatives of those States, following the action of their constituents, resigned their seats in Congress and gave themselves to the disunion cause.

In the secession conventions there was but little opposition to the movement. In some instances a considerable minority vote was cast. A few of the speakers boldly denounced disunion as bad in principle and ruinous in its results. The course of Alexander H. Stephens, afterward Vice-President of the Confederate States, was peculiar. In the convention of Georgia he undertook the task of preventing the secession of his State. He delivered a long and powerful oration in which he de

fended the theory of secession, advocated the doctrine of State sovereignty, declared his intention of abiding by the decision of the convention, but at the same

time spoke against secession, on the ground that the measure was impolitic, unwise, disastrous. Not a few prominent men at the South held similar views; but the opposite opinion prevailed, and secession was accomplished.

On the 4th of February, 1861, delegates from six of the seceded States assembled at Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a new government, under the name of THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. On the 8th of the month the government

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

was organized by the election of Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as provisional President, and Alexander H. Stephens as Vice-President. On the same day of the meeting of the Confederate Congress, at Montgomery, a peace conference assembled at Washington. Delegates from twenty-one States were present; certain amendments to the Constitution were proposed and laid before Congress for adoption, but that body gave little heed to the measures suggested, and the conference adjourned without practical results.

The country seemed on the verge of ruin. The national government was for the time being paralyzed. The army was stationed in detachments on remote frontiers. The fleet was scattered in distant seas. The President was distracted with hesitancy and the adverse counsels of his friends. With the exception of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in Charleston Harbor, Fort Pickens near Pensacola, and Fortress Monroe in the Chesapeake, all the important posts in the seceded States had been

seized by the Confederate authorities, even before the organization of their government. All this while the local warfare in Kansas had continued; but the Free State party had at last gained the ascendency, and the early admission of the new commonwealth, with two additional Republican senators, was foreseen. Early in January the President made a feeble attempt to reinforce and provision the garrison of Fort Sumter. The steamer Star of the West was sent with men and supplies, but in approaching the harbor of Charleston was fired on by a Confederate battery and compelled to return. Thus in gloom and grief, and the upheavals of revolution, the administration of Buchanan drew to a close. Such was the dreadful condition of affairs that it was deemed prudent for the new President to approach the capital without recognition. For the first time in the history of the nation the chief magistrate of the republic slipped into Washington city by night.

CHAPTER LXI.

LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION, AND THE CIVIL WAR, 1861-1865.

ABRAHAM

BRAHAM LINCOLN, sixteenth President of the United States, was a native of Kentucky, born in the county of Larue, on the 12th of February, 1809. His ancestors had emigrated thither from Rockingham County, Virginia: both father and mother were Virginians by birth. The childhood of the future President was passed in utter obscurity. In 1816 his father removed to Spencer County, Indiana-just then admitted into the Union-and built a cabin in the woods near the present village of Gentryville. Here was the scene of Lincoln's boyhood—a constant struggle with poverty, hardship, and toil. At the age of sixteen we find him managing a ferry across the Ohio, at the mouth of Anderson Creek-a service for which he was paid six dollars per month. In his youth he received in the aggregate about one year of schooling, which was all he ever had in the way of education. In the year of his majority he removed with his father's family to the north fork of the Sangamon, ten miles west of Decatur, Illinois. Here another log-house was built and a small farm cleared