With high hope for
the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts
were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded
it--all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being
delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union
without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy
it without war--seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects,
by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would
make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would
accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not
distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern
part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful
interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of
the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was
the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by
war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to
restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected
for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already
attained.
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