to those who had not been brought up in the slave States, that it deepened the antislavery feeling throughout the North.

181 John Brown's Raid. - Minnesota became a State in 1858, and Oregon in 1859. In this year John Brown collected a small body of men, white and black, in the mountains of Maryland. He made a sudden attack upon Harper's Ferry, where there was a United States arsenal, which he seized and held for a few hours. The attack

Oct. 16,

1859.

was a direct assault upon slavery. Brown had resolved to carry the war into what he regarded as the enemy's country, and he expected to see the slaves flock to his standard. There were few at the North who knew of his purpose; and the country, North and South, was amazed at the act. John Brown was wounded and taken prisoner; some of his associates were killed, and some were taken with him. He was tried by the State of Virginia, sentenced, and hanged. His action was generally condemned by the people, but many declared him a martyr to freedom, and accused slavery of provoking him to the deed. His act, moreover, deepened the

feeling of the South that the North was in a hostile attitude; and public opinion at the South held the North responsible for Brown's movement.

182. The Election of Lincoln. The Democratic national convention met at Charleston in April, 1860, but being unable to agree on a candidate, it adjourned to meet in Baltimore in June. When the convention reassembled, it was found that there were irreconcilable differences between the Northern and Southern wings of the party. As a result, the convention divided; the delegates from the Northern States nominated Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, and those from the South named John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Doubtless this rupture of the Democratic party exerted a potent influence throughout the country, and was largely responsible for the result of the approaching election. The Republican party held its convention in Chicago, and nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. A fourth party, calling itself the Constitutional-Union party, nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

Mr. Lincoln was in favor of prohibiting the extension of slavery by law, and Mr. Breckinridge favored its extension by law; the issue between these two candidates was clearly defined. Mr. Douglas, in harmony with his doctrine of "popular sovereignty," advocated non-interference, while Mr. Bell made the preservation of the Union the keynote of his campaign. An exciting and memorable canvass followed. The result showed that the Republican party had carried every free State except New Jersey; Abraham Lincoln was to be the next President, and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine Vice President.

QUESTIONS.

Name two incidents of Pierce's administration. What was the bill introduced by Douglas? Narrate what took place on the passage of the bill. How was the conflict in Kansas carried on at the polls? What were the rival governments in the territory? Who was John Brown? What contest arose in Congress? What filibustering expedition took place? Who were the candidates for the Presidency in 1856? Who was

elected?

What was the Dred Scott decision? Narrate John Brown's raid. Who were the candidates for the Presidency in 1860 ? What issues did they represent? Who was elected?

SEARCH QUESTIONS.

What was the Ostend Manifesto? Name some of the polar expeditions since that of Kane. What was the Emigrant Aid Society? Who was governor of Virginia when John Brown was tried? What saying by Judge Taney at the time of the Dred Scott decision stirred up great excitement? Name some famous poems directed against slavery.

SUGGESTIONS FOR LITERARY TREATMENT.

COMPOSITIONS:

An account of the attack on Lawrence.

An account of Walker's expedition.

Lincoln's boyhood.

The Underground Railroad.

An account of Nansen's search for the North Pole.

An account of the Lincoln-Douglas debate.

The story of Dred Scott.

DEBATES:

Resolved, That John Brown's raid was the act of a fanatic.

Resolved, That expeditions in search of the North Pole are of no benefit to mankind.

Resolved, That a citizen should stand by his State rather than by the Union.

CHAPTER XXI.

SECESSION.

Beauregard (bō're-gard).

terms agreed on; used of an army

Capit'ulate. To surrender upon or a garrison.

183. Southern Political Character. During the discussion which preceded the election, the people of the North heard repeated threats from the South that if the Republican party were successful, the slaveholding States would leave the Union. They refused to believe these threats. They thought them only the angry declamation of a few heated politicians. Yet the threats were sincere. The voters of the South had learned to look upon the North as thoroughly hostile to the South. They made little distinction between the Republican party and the abolitionists, and they felt instinctively that an administration elected in a spirit of opposition to slavery would find many ways to injure it.

The political habits and the ways of life in the South made it easier for Southern voters to believe in disunion as a cure for the evils which they were sure had come upon them. The doctrine of State Sovereignty had become familiar; it had been laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798, and had been upheld by Georgia in the difficulty with the Indians, and by South Carolina in its Nullification Act. The concentration of political power in a comparatively small number of persons in each State, who acted together, made it still easier for them to think of the State by itself rather than as a part of the Union.

In fact, the older Southern States kept the character which they had when they were colonies of Great Britain more distinctly than the older Northern States. They were still planting States; they still had their own social life; the same families lived upon the same estates. There was no such constant movement from one State to another as in the North, nor any such introduction of immigrants from Europe. They were Carolinians or Virginians rather than Americans.

Dec. 20,

1860.

184. The Secession Conventions. - South Carolina took the lead in fulfilling the promise of secession. As soon as it was known that Mr. Lincoln was to be the next President, the senators from South Carolina and all officeholders in the State under the Federal government resigned. The legislature called a State convention, and on the 20th of December the convention unanimously passed an ordinance of secession. The ordinance bore the title: "An Ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her in the compact entitled the Constitution of the United States." A copy of the ordinance was sent to each of the slave States, and commissioners were appointed to arrange with the Federal government the terms of dissolution.

January,

The example of South Carolina was followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, all of which passed ordinances of secession. The question 1861. was not submitted to the people; it was the action of the States in popular conventions, a political method universal at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and most familiar in Southern usage; the action of these conventions was unanimous only in the case of South Carolina, and afterward of North Carolina.

In February, 1861, a convention of delegates from the six States that had then seceded, met at Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a government under the name of the Confederate States of America. The constitution adopted was mainly that of the United States, except that it made careful provision for