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It was welcomed by the extremists of both sections, a very godsend to the beaten politicians led by Mr. Seward. Rampant sectionalism was at first kept a little in the background. There were on either side concealments and reserves. Many patriotic men put the Union above slavery or antislavery.
When slavery drives this country to sectional issues; when it corrupts the federal power; when it serves the ambition of those who would drag us into foreign broils; when patriotic men, North and South, ceased to come forward for the safety of a confederation, then will sectionalism wage its angry wars against a noble edifice, whose foundation history tells us must totter under the siege of strife.
The signers of this address, forgetting their own constant accusation of "sectionalism" against the Republicans, pretended to see no impropriety in proposing this purely selfish and sectional alliance. If it succeeded, their triumph in the Union was irresistible and permanent; if it failed, it served to unite the South for secession and a slave confederacy.
Have we so degenerated, that we can no longer emulate their virtues? Have the purposes for which our Union was formed, lost their value? Has patriotism ceased to be a virtue, and is narrow sectionalism no longer to be counted a crime?
He is fighting a giant; then there are ugly faces in the audience, men in drink, slave owners from Missouri, Democrats who hate sectionalism and loathe the rise of the Republican party. Whispers are near me: "He amounts to nothing. Douglas has laid him out. He is scared. The Little Giant has choked him." But Lincoln goes on. His earnestness deepens, his seriousness becomes more impressive.
And when failing in the forum, Sectionalism took the field, Yankee ideas conquered again in that historic meeting when Lee gave up his sword to Grant. And when, in the disturbance of credit and industry which followed, the twin heresies Expansion and Repudiation stalked abroad, Yankee ideas conquered again in the policy of our distinguished guest, the Secretary of the Treasury.
Douglas wishes without ostentation to make himself clear in his friendship and support of Lincoln. No envy, no pique, no chagrin. He has often prophesied this war. For years he has warned the country against sectionalism. He does not now say, I told you so. The war has come. He is for the North, as he told the South he would be if elected himself. He is against disunion with all his heart.
The South, which assumed to be the exclusive seat of American nationality, while the North was declared given up to sectionalism, with no other lights on its path than "blue lights," became the South so devoted to slavery that it could see nothing else in the country.
In Congress the battle was assuming an intensely bitter character. Here the South was the agitator. Here she kept the political waters in a state of violent ebullition. As the discord grew, sectionalism threw darkening and portentous shadows over the face of the Union.
One of the great questions which Christian education must face in the South is the proper adjustment of the new relations of the two races. It is a question which must be faced calmly, quietly, dispassionately; and the time has now come to rise above party, above race, above colour, above sectionalism, into the region of duty of man to man, of American to American, of Christian to Christian.
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