extra and cross'd to the Metropolitan hotel (Niblo's) where the great
lamps were still brightly blazing, and, with a crowd of others, who
gather'd impromptu, read the news, which was evidently authentic. For
the benefit of some who had no papers, one of us read the telegram
aloud, while all listen'd silently and attentively. No remark was made
by any of the crowd, which had increas'd to thirty or forty, but all
stood a minute or two, I remember, before they dispers'd. I can almost
see them there now, under the lamps at midnight again.


NATIONAL UPRISING AND VOLUNTEERING

I have said somewhere that the three Presidentiads preceding 1861
show'd how the weakness and wickedness of rulers are just as eligible
here in America under republican, as in Europe under dynastic
influences. But what can I say of that prompt and splendid wrestling
with secession slavery, the arch-enemy personified, the instant he
unmistakably show'd his face? The volcanic upheaval of the nation,
after that firing on the flag at Charleston, proved for certain
something which had been previously in great doubt, and at once
substantially settled the question of disunion. In my judgment it will
remain as the grandest and most encouraging spectacle yet vouchsafed
in any age, old or new, to political progress and democracy. It
was not for what came to the surface merely--though that was
important--but what it indicated below, which was of eternal
importance. Down in the abysms of New World humanity there had form'd
and harden'd a primal hardpan of national Union will, determin'd and
in the majority, refusing to be tamper'd with or argued against,
confronting all emergencies, and capable at any time of bursting all
surface bonds, and breaking out like an earthquake. It is, indeed,