short of the disintegration of the American Union. So the nation,
still sympathizing with slavery, still playing with a coal of fire,
grappled with the monster, feeling itself powerful to crush it in a
few short months.

It was not because the people of the nation hated slavery and
oppression that they rushed upon the field of battle; no such
righteousness moved them: it was because the slave-power, which had
for so long dictated legislation and the interpretation of the laws,
would tolerate no adverse criticism or legislation upon the foul
institution it championed, and appealed from the forum of reason to
the forum of treasonable rebellion to enforce the right so long and (I
blush to say it!) _constitutionally_ conceded to it.

I do not believe that, in 1860, a majority (or even a respectable
minority) of the American people desired the manumission of the slave;
it is evident, from the temper of the political discussions of that
time, that the combination of parties out of which, in 1856, the
Republican party was formed, desired to do no more than to confine the
institution of slavery within the territory then occupied. There was
certainly very little comfort for the black man in this position of
the "party of great moral ideas."

The overtures[2] made by President Lincoln to the slave-power during
the first year of the war were all made in the interest of the
perpetuation of the Union, and not in the interest of the slave.

His reply to Mr. Horace Greeley, who urged upon him the importance of
issuing an emancipation proclamation is conclusive that he was more
concerned about the Union than about the slave: