of Italy Established_.]

Another change, immeasurably vast and still unmeasured in its
consequences, may be dated from 1859, when Charles Darwin gave to the
world his book, the _Origin of Species_. In this he proclaimed the
doctrine of the evolution of all the more complicated forms of life from
simpler forms. The idea, at first resolutely combated on religious
grounds, has gradually received more or less acceptance into the entire
religious fabric, even as were the discoveries of Galileo. [Footnote:
See _Darwin Publishes His Origin of Species_.]


DISUNION IN AMERICA

Yet each and all of these events, important as they were, grew little in
men's minds as the year 1860 drew to its close and revealed in America
the coming of a mightier quarrel. The slavery question, once supposed to
have been settled by the Missouri Compromise, had proved itself
incapable of such settlement. The forward march of democracy had in fact
made slavery an anachronism, outgrown and impossible. Even the Emperor
of Russia saw that, and in 1861 liberated all the serfs within his
territories. [Footnote: See _Emancipation of Russian Serfs_.] In the
United States alone among the great Powers of the world, did slavery
persist.

In 1854 a new political party, calling itself the Republican, was
formed, having for its main principle opposition to the extension of
slavery into the Territories. [Footnote: See _The Rise of the Republican
Party_.] Other issues might and did complicate the central question, but
it was the slavery issue that inflamed men's minds, made Kansas a