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a half of Southern votes. His antagonist has that of the Northern majority of two thousand. These two thousand, however, have the nomination of the nominating delegates of the North as completely as their rivals' unanimity has that of the South.

I said, now comes the tug of war; but, in fact, there is no tug. It is evident enough what will happen. The North has a preponderance in the number of States in the proportion of six to five. In population the difference is greater still. And the result is, that the North has 183 votes to 120 of the South. This is of course unavoidable, and, if there were no opposing interests to divide the two sections, would have signified as little as the fact that there are more English than Scotch members of the House of Commons. If there are opposing interests, it bodes terrible evil. But if those interests, and the factiousness which gathers round them, are constituted into the form of parties, it is something approaching to civil war.

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We will give the South every advantage. spite of the strong sectional feeling that has carried the day in almost all the Northern States, one Northern State the peaceful, money-getting Quaker community of Pennsylvania-gives a majority to the party of quiet and Conservatism; and her twentyseven deputies are to a man Democrats. She also

supplies the candidate of that party. The Republican, of course, comes from aggressively godly Massachusetts. The former is a Northerner, and a Protectionist. If anything his views are rather Free-soil. But he is a keen anti-Abolitionist, and is, above all things, anxious to maintain the status quo. So that, in spite of the unfairness and unpopularity of some of his opinions, the South gives him its hearty support. His antagonist is a furious antiSouthern stump-orator, pledged to carry out the most violent doctrines of his party.

The electors meet. If they were real electors there would be a hope that the decision might be in favour of peace; for there would be room for the argument that the Pennsylvanian would give the North all that she had a right to expect; that he would strive to maintain, if he could not increase, the tariffs; and that his sympathies were not Southern. But they are only delegates, sent for no purpose but to put their man in the White House. The only thing they have to do is to go through the form of voting. It is simple enough, and hardly necessary. Pennsylvania's twenty-seven votes have to be deducted from one side and handed bodily to the other; but it is not enough to turn the scale in favour of peace. The Republican, though really in a minority of two millions and a quarter, is carried

by a majority of nine; and thus, by strictly constitutional means, a declared enemy of one-third part of the Federation over which he is called to rule, and the representative of enemies more malevolent and unscrupulous than himself, is placed in the chair once occupied by Washington.

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CHAPTER VII.

SECESSION-SOUTH CAROLINA AND VIRGINIA.

I SHALL be thought to have given a very exaggerated and inaccurate account of the balance of parties at President Lincoln's election; and that is exactly the case. I did not mean to do so. I had not come down so far as his time, and I had something to say about Buchanan. It seemed, however, a good opportunity of putting what might happen as the result of the formation of an avowed anti-Southern party; and I find that in doing so I have given a rough description of something not unlike what did take place. Lincoln's minority, it is true, was not quite so pronounced as I have made that of my imaginary President to be. It was not much over one million. But the upshot was what I described, namely, that the Democrats or Conservatives or States-rights party or Union party having, on the whole, an immense preponderance of votes, the opposite party, the Republicans or Anti-slavery men

or sectional Northern party, did nevertheless set its candidate in the Presidential chair.

Everybody knows the result. In spite of the great abilities of her leaders, in spite of the numerous eminent servants with which she had supplied the Republic, in spite of the great social pre-eminence of her sons and daughters, in spite of the support afforded to her by the Northern Democrats, the South had indeed a heavy burden to bear. Even in 1828 the strain had been terribly complained of. Even in 1832 a fresh turn of the screw had been too much for the patience of South Carolina; and since that time the evil had been growing worse. The odious protective duties, which the resolute attitude of South Carolina and the prudent counsels of Clay had caused to be removed, were reimposed ten years later; and the Northern grasp has never since been relaxed. As if this was not enough, the victorious party had goaded its struggling antagonist in other ways. The Northerners had endeavoured to exclude the South from the territories which belonged to both sections in common. They had forced her to consent to give up her rights over half the space in question. They had induced her to let the line of demarcation be drawn in a way which would have been scandalously unjust, even if it had been just that there should have been a line of

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