"battle-ground" between settlers from North and South, and sent John
Brown upon his reckless raid. Watching the increasing success of the
Republicans, Southern leaders began to reassert the doctrine of the
right of secession. They said openly that if a Republican president were
elected they would leave the Union.

And in 1860 a Republican president was elected. Was the long-predicted,
and to most of Europe eagerly desired, disruption of the United States
at hand? Was the break to be accomplished peacefully or in flame and
wrath? The fading year of 1860 left the advancing world of democracy in
panic over the danger to what had been its most successful stronghold.


[For the next section of this general survey, see volume XVIII.]




(1844) INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH, Alonzo B. Cornell


After the experiments of Franklin that did so much to advance the study
of electrical phenomena, and to suggest practical applications of
electricity, physicists in all countries occupied themselves with
investigations along lines marked out by the American philosopher. In
1749 Franklin devised the lightning-rod. But notwithstanding the labors
of many investigators, it was more than fifty years before any other
practical discovery or invention in electricity was brought into general
use. The first great achievement of the kind was Morse's improvement of
the electric telegraph. That Morse's fellow-countryman, Joseph Henry,