tion of the Constitution, taking the government out of the hands of Governor Morton, and giving it to the Knights of the Golden Circle. The State had in its possession eighteen thousand muskets. One branch of the legislature voted for the bill, whereupon Governor Morton, at midnight, wrote this to General Carrington: "All arms and equipments belonging to the United States in the arsenal in this city are hereby turned over to your possession and control." When morning came, the men who were gleefully looking forward to the moment when they would see

the arms in the hands of the Knights of the Golden Circle were confounded when they learned that the State had no arms in its possession, and that the arsenal was guarded by a strong force of United States troops. The revolutionary bill did not become a law, for whenever the Peace Democrats attempted to pass it, the members sustaining the Government went out of the hall, leaving the House without a quorum for the lawful transaction of business.

Very noble and patriotic were the closing words of President Lincoln's

message to Congress when it assembled on the first Monday in December —words to be read through all time.

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disinthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we know how to save it. We-even we here-hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just-a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."

One week after the delivery of this message came the battle of Fredericksburg ("Drum-beat of the Nation," chap. xvi.), with its terrible slaughter and defeat of the Union army. The idea was abroad that there had been intermeddling with General Burnside's plans by members of the Cabinet. A caucus was held by some of the Senators, who adopted a resolution of want of confidence in Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, and asked the President to remove him; which was finally amended, not mentioning Mr. Seward's name, but asking for "a reconstruction of the Cabinet," whereupon Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, and Mr. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, placed their resignations in the hands of President Lincoln, who informed them that the public interest would not permit him to accept their resignations. It was an unwarranted attempt on the part of the Senators to dictate to the President their own line of policy; but as a brave-hearted sailor amid the darkness, the storm, and tempest, with a firm hand upon the helm, guides the ship, so this clearsighted, great-hearted man of the people, with faith in them, in himself, and in God, guided the nation in this dark hour of its history.

With dissensions in the party which had elected President Lincoln, with the people of six States turning against him, his own State of Illinois among them, with Peace Democrats demanding "peace at any price," enlistments at an end, patriotic ardor gone, the ranks of the army thinned by battle and disease, more defeats than victories, a Congress opposed to the

prosecution of the war elected, the loss of life at Fredericksburg appalling the country, the year went out in gloom to hearts that loved the old flag.

In the peals of the church-bells tolling out the old year and ringing in the new there was confident expectation of final triumph to Jefferson Davis in Richmond, gloom and foreboding in the Northern States to those sustaining Abraham Lincoln, requiems for the fallen at Shiloh, Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and for the dying and the dead in the still undecided battle of Stone River; but to four million of slaves never such celestial music-Freedom and Citizenship-and to the poor and lowly of every land a brighter future, a nobler life.

"EN

CHAPTER II.

OTHER COUNTRIES.

NGLAND will aid us," were the words of Jefferson Davis at Montgomery, Alabama, the evening after his inauguration as Provisional President of the Confederacy, in February, 1862. Three days after the

firing on Fort Sumter, William L. Yancy, P. S. Rost, and Dudley A. Mann, Commissioners of the Confederate Government to England and France, started upon their missions. They arrived in London April 29th, and

had an interview with Lord John Russell, Minister of Foreign Affairs, two days later. They informed him that they represented States which had thrown off their connection with the United States, and had put in operation a government of their own without shedding a drop of blood; that it was to rid themselves of the oppressive tariff which the North had imposed upon the country; that the object of the war on the part of Abraham Lincoln and those who supported him was not to abolish slavery, but to control slave labor by Congressional action. (') They set forth, in a long and elaborate document, the position of the Southern States and what they had to offer England-cotton.

Lord John Russell said in reply that he was pleased to meet them as gentlemen, but "in the present state of affairs he must decline to enter into any official communication with them."()

President Lincoln had appointed Charles Francis Adams Minister to Great Britain. Lord John Russell knew that he was on his way across the ocean, but the day preceding his arrival announced to the world that