This he did upon his own merit and without influence.
CONCLUSION.
The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status
will have to be attributed to slavery. For some years before the war
began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half
slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free,
or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of
the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole
question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.
Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its
security wherever it existed; and in a country like ours where the
larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and
well-to-do population, the people would naturally have but little
sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of
the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government
to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were
enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery
existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance
they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern
States.
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