own brethren!"

These Personal Liberty Bills were undoubtedly largely responsible for
some of the irritation on the Slavery question preceding open
hostilities between the Sections. But President Lincoln sounded the
real depths of the Rebellion when he declared it to be a War upon the
rights of the People. In his First Annual Message, December 3, 1861, he
said:

"It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not
exclusively, a War upon the first principle of popular government--the
rights of the People. Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most
grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the
general tone of the insurgents. In those documents we find the
abridgment of the existing right of suffrage, and the denial to the
People of all right to participate in the selection of public officers,
except the legislative, boldly advocated, with labored arguments to
prove that large control of the People in government is the source of
all political evil. Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a
possible refuge from the power of the People.

"In my present position, I could scarcely be justified were I to omit
raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.

"It is not needed, nor fitting here, that a general argument should be
made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its
connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask brief
attention. It is the effort to place Capital on an equal footing with,
if not above Labor, in the structure of the Government.