metaphor, will rarely have been done[61]."

Fortunate would it have been for the Northern cause, if British opinion
generally sympathetic at first on anti-slavery grounds, had not soon
found cause to doubt the just basis of its sympathy, from the trend of
events in America. Lincoln had been elected on a platform opposing the
further territorial expansion of slavery. On that point the North was
fairly well united. But the great majority of those who voted for
Lincoln would have indignantly repudiated any purpose to take active
steps toward the extinction of slavery where it already existed. Lincoln
understood this perfectly, and whatever his opinion about the ultimate
fate of slavery if prohibited expansion, he from the first took the
ground that the terms of his election constituted a mandate limiting his
action. As secession developed he rightly centred his thought and effort
on the preservation of the Union, a duty imposed by his election to the
Presidency.

Naturally, as the crisis developed, there were many efforts at still
another great compromise. Among the friends of the outgoing President,
Buchanan, whose term of office would not expire until March 4, 1861,
there were still some Southern leaders, like Jefferson Davis, seeking
either a complete surrender to Southern will, or advantages for Southern
security in case secession was accomplished. Buchanan appealed
hysterically to the old-time love of the Union and to the spirit of
compromise. Great congressional committees of both Senate and House of
Representatives were formed seeking a solution. Crittenden for the
border states between North and South, where, more than anywhere else,
there was division of opinion, proposed pledges to be given to the
South. Seward, long-time champion of the anti-slavery North, was active
in the Senate in suggestion and intrigue seemingly intended to