lecture I returned and made my visit, and before I went to bed, your clock, though behind time, struck twelve. So I retired this morning, instead of last evening. I send you a flower from your garden, and could send one in full bloom, but I thought that this one, which is just opening, would be in a better state of preservation when you got it."

And one more:

"October 5, 1859.-I am glad and thankful that you received the draught and letters in time. How kind is God, to His children especially! I feel so thankful to Him that He has blessed me with so much faith, though I well know that I have not that amount of faith which it is my privilege to have. But I have been taught never to despair, but to wait, expecting the blessing at the last moment. . . . Such occurrences should strengthen our faith in Him Who never slumbers."

In the holy happy union which these simple everyday extracts indicate, he lived at Lexington, peaceful in the present, trustful for the future. But the quiet days were rapidly coming to an end with the advent of a momentous crisis in the history of his country. The storm was beginning to fall, and the voice was soon heard above it, summoning him to a career of imperishable renown.

CHAPTER V.

SECESSION.

We have now arrived at the great crisis in Jackson's public life. His political opinions have been already defined as those of a States-Rights Democrat-not, that is to say, of a Republican in the Old World sense -but of one eager to maintain for each of the separate States of the Union that independence which, according to his view, and theirs who thought with him, was by no means sacrificed when the Federal Government was constituted. The judgment of the States-Right Party was in effect that the constitution of the Union should be administered from Washington, temperately and modestly, not as possessing in itself imperial rights, but as bound to respect that voluntary covenant out of which it sprang. That as being the creation of sovereign commonwealths it was compelled to defer to them in a measure as such, and to avoid with the utmost jealousy all tendency to arrogate to itself powers in excess of those with which, at its formation, it had been spontaneously intrusted. That the States themselves separately possessed a right, each in its own case, to decide whether

by any act of the Government this covenant was departed from, and to dictate and claim redress. That this right neither was nor could be a concession on the part of the Federal Government, inasmuch as the latter was as child to the former.

The original view of the United States Constitution, as taken by those who administered it in its infancy, appears to have been in perfect harmony with this teaching. They regarded it as a common agent for the equal benefit of each of the States, and claiming no right beyond those derived from their free consent. And it was this principle of free consent which formed the battle-ground on which, during a long and terrible civil war, Federals and Confederates met and fought.

As an illustration of the truth of this view, it may be mentioned that the State of Virginia, among the most reluctant to enter the Union, reserved for herself the right to quit it should she deem such isolation more favourable to her separate interests. Nor was she alone in making this stipulation: New York and Rhode Island insisting on similar freedom.

Meanwhile it is asserted by the Federal Party that unless the right of resisting secession be conceded to the United Government, the right to withdraw for any cause, or no cause at all, rests with each separate State. To which the States-Rights man would reply, that the security for the maintenance of the Union lies in public opinion; and the interested motives which sound Government would furnish, as

ALLEGED PROVOCATIONS TO SECESSION.

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well as in the inconveniences which frivolous or causeless secession would entail upon the seceder.

It is not possible in this brief memoir, nor indeed is it desirable to enter into a discussion of the great Secession question, or of the alleged provocations that led to it. The bounty on fisheries affecting the maritime North, to the injury, it is said, of the agricultural South: the creation of a great banking corporation within the limits of one State involving the removal thither of the financial centre; the system of partial taxation by tariffs, instituted to foster local enterprises, seated almost exclusively in Northern and Middle States, with the crowning questions of slave labours, was the pretext of the war; these constituted the acts of partial legislation, which increased, as they were regarded by the South as directly unfavourable to its interests, and were held to be so many departures from the vital principle of the original convention, which was pledged to provide, in the strictest spirit of even-handed justice, for the rights of each separate State.

It has been asserted that Jackson was won over to the Confederate side by fictitious influences, but to assume that one, whose character stands out so boldly for its stern integrity, could espouse so thoroughly either cause in a quarrel of such terrible moment, except after entire conviction that he was doing right, would be to hold that the man who relied on the grace and guidance of God for support in the most ordinary transactions of his life, abjured his

principles and practice at its most eventful crisis. It is hard to believe that one who never dropped a letter into the post office, or drank a glass of water without looking up and waiting for a blessing, would engage in all the solemnities and responsibilities of war, leaning to his own understanding. Not that it is insinuated that because he was so genuine a servant of God his judgment and conduct were infallible; nor is it sought to be inferred that truth and justice were necessarily on the Southern side because he so heartily espoused it. This memoir is not intended as an advocate of either cause, or indeed as anything else than the record of a good man's life, involving inevitable reference to the stirring events in which he so largely shared. All that is desired here is to protest against their judgment who affirm that he took his part in the struggle in a manner inconsistent with the accumulated evidence of his previous history. His political opinions were maturely formed and firmly fixed, and when he declared that the South was bound to protect its rights, even with the sword, should so painful a necessity arise, it is but fair to assume that he spoke under no unworthy influence, still more that he uttered no second-hand opinions, but that what he plainly said was what he honestly thought; and that his thought and conviction leading to such eventful action had been slowly and laboriously arrived at.

The Harper's Ferry raid may be regarded as the first droppings of the approaching hurricane. As