characteristic of the earlier politics of the colonists than their jealous isolation, for fear that even contact would contaminate. Two or three efforts were made within the first twenty or twenty-five years of their existence to bring them together in union. Delegates met and parted, met again and parted. Indian wars drove them together. It became, by external dangers, necessary that there should be a union of those early colonies, but there was a fear that in going into union they would lose something of the sovereignty that belonged to them as colonial states. The first real union that took place was that of 1643, between the colonists of what is now New England. It was not till 1777, a year and a half after the Declaration of Independence, and while the colonies were at full war with the mother country, that what are called the Articles of Federation were adopted. But about ten years after these articles were framed they were found to be utterly inadequate for the exigencies of the times; and in 1787 the present Constitution of the United States was adopted by convention, and, at different dates thereafter, ratified by the thirteen states that first constituted the present Union.

Now during all this period there is one thing to be remarked, and that is, the jealousy of state independence. The states were feeling their way toward nationality; and the rule and measure of the wisdom of every step was, how to maintain individuality with nationality. That was their problem. How can there be absolute independence in local government with perfect nationality? Slavery was only incidental during all this long period; but in reading from contemporaneous documents and debates that took place in conventions both for confederation and for final union, it is remarkable that the difficulties which arose were difficulties of representation, difficulties of taxation, difficulties of tariff and revenue; and, so far as we can find, neither North nor South anticipated in the future any of those dangers which have overspread the continent from the black cloud of slavery. The dangers they most feared, they have suffered least from; the dangers they have suffered from, they did not at all anticipate, or but little.

But the Union was formed. The Constitution, defining the national power conferred by the states on the federal government, was adopted. Thenceforward, for fifty years. and more, the country developed itself in wealth and political power, until, from a condition of feeble states exhausted by war, it rose to the dignity of a first-class nation.

We now turn our attention to the gradual and unconscious development within this American nation of two systems of policy, antagonistic and irreconcilable. Let us look at the South first. She was undergoing unconscious transmutation. She did not know it. She did not know what ailed her. She felt ill, put her hand on her heart sometimes; on her head sometimes; but had no doctor to tell her what it was, until too late; and when told she would not believe. For it is a fact that when the colonies combined in their final union, slavery was waning not only in the Middle and Northern states but also in the South itself. When therefore they went into this union, slavery was perishing, partly by climate in the North, and still more by the convictions of the people, and by the unproductive character of farm slavery. The first period of the South was the wane and weakness of slavery. The second period is the increase of slavery, and its apologetic defense; for with the invention of the cotton gin an extraordinary demand for cotton sprang up. Slave labor began to be more and more in demand, and the price of slaves rose. Then came the next period, one of revolution of opinion as to the inferior races of the South, a total and entire change in the doctrines of the South on the question of human rights and human nature. It dates from Mr. Calhoun. From the hour that Mr. Calhoun began to teach, there commenced a silent process of moral deterioration. I call it a retrogression in morals—an apostasy. Men no longer apologized for slavery; they learned to defend it, to teach that it was the normal condition of an inferior race; that the seeds and history of it were in the Word of God; that the only condition in which a republic can be prosperous is where an aristocracy owns the labor of the community. That was the doctrine of the South,

and with that doctrine there began to be ambitious designs not only for the maintenance but the propagation of slavery. This era of propagation and aggression constitutes the fourth and last period of the revolution of the South. They had passed through a whole cycle of changes. These changes followed certain great laws. No sooner was the new philosophy set on foot than the South recognized its legitimacy and accepted it with all its inferences and inevitable tendencies. They gave up wavering and misgivings, adopted the institution-praised it, loved it, defended it, sought to maintain it, burned to spread it. During the last fifteen years I believe you cannot find a voice, printed or uttered, in the cotton states of the South, which deplored slavery. All believed in and praised it, and found authority for it in God's Word. Politicians admired it, merchants appreciated it, the whole South sang pæans to the new-found truth, that man was born to be owned by man. This change of doctrine made it certain that the South would be annoyed and irritated by a Constitution which, with all its faults, still carried the Godgiven principle of human rights, which were not to be taken by man except in punishment for crime. That Constitution, and the policy which went with it at first, began to gnaw at, and irritate, and fret the South, after they had adopted slavery as a doctrine.

The great cause of the conflict-the center of necessity, round which the cannons roar and the bayonets gleam-is the preservation of slavery. Beyond slavery there is no difference between North and South. Their interests are identical, with the exception of work. The North is for free work the South is for slave work; and the whole war in the South, though it is for independence, is, nevertheless, expressly in order to have slavery more firmly established by that independence. On the other hand, the whole policy of the North as well as the whole work of the North, rejoicing at length to be set free from antagonism, bribes, and intimidations, is for liberty-liberty for every man in the world.

There never was so united a purpose as there is to-day

to crush the rebellion. We have had nearly three years of turmoil and disturbance, which not only has not taken away that determination, but has increased it. The loss of our sons in battle has been grievous, but we accept it as God's will, and we are determined that every martyred son shall have a representative in one hundred liberated slaves.

6. Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was a native of Pennsylvania. He travelled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Africa and wrote several volumes descriptive of his travels. At the time of his death he was Minister to Germany. He was a poet as well as a prose-writer and achieved fame as a translator of Goethe's Faust.

A GLIMPSE OF MENDELSSOHN

(From Views A-Foot, Chapter XVI)

Mendelssohn, one of the greatest living composers, has been spending the winter here, and I have been fortunate enough to see him twice. One sunny day, three weeks ago, when all the population of Frankfort turned out upon the budding promenades and the broad quays along the Main, to enjoy the first spring weather, I went on my usual afternoon stroll, with my friend Willis, whose glowing talk concerning his art is quite as refreshing to me after the day's study in the gloomy Markt-platz, as are the blue hills of Spessart, which we see from the bridge over the river. As we were threading the crowd of boatmen, Tyrolese, Suabians, and Bohemians, on the quay, my eye was caught by a man who came towards us, and whose face and air were in such striking contrast to those about him, that my whole attention was at once fixed upon him. He was simply and rather negligently dressed in dark cloth, with a cravat tied loosely about his neck. His beard had evidently not been touched for two or three days, and his black hair was long and frowzed by the wind. His eyes, which were large, dark, and kindling, were directed forward and lifted in the abstraction of some

absorbing thought, and as he passed, I heard him singing to himself in a voice deep but not loud, and yet with a far different tone from that of one who hums a careless air as he walks. But a few notes caught my ear, yet I remember their sound, elevated and with that scarcely perceptible vibration which betrays a feeling below the soul's surface, as distinctly now as at the time. Willis grasped my arm quickly, and said in a low voice, "Mendelssohn!" I turned hastily, and looked after him as he went down the quay, apparently but half conscious of the stirring scenes around him. I could easily imagine how the balmy, indolent sensation in the air, so like a soothing and tranquillizing strain of music, should have led him into the serene and majestic realm of his own creations.

It was something to have seen a man of genius thus alone and in communion with his inspired thoughts, and I could not repress a feeling of pleasure at the idea of having unconsciously acknowledged his character before I knew his name. After this passing glimpse, this flash of him, however, came the natural desire to see his features in repose, and obtain some impression of his personality. An opportunity soon occurred. The performance of his "Walpurgisnacht," by the Caecilien-Verein, a day or two thereafter, increased the enthusiasm I had before felt for his works, and full of the recollection of its sublime Druid choruses, I wrote a few lines to him, expressive of the delight they had given me, and of my wish to possess his name in autograph, that I might take to America some token connected with their remembrance. The next day I received a very kind note in reply, enclosing a manuscript score of a chorus from the "Walpurgisnacht."

Summoning up my courage the next morning, I decided on calling upon him in person, feeling certain that he would understand the motive which prompted me to take such a liberty. I had no difficulty in finding his residence in the Bockenheimer Gasse in the western part of the city. The servant ushered me into a handsomely furnished room, with a carpet, an unusual thing in German houses; a grand piano occupied one side of the apartment. These