Now, then, what was the real issue between the Confederate States and the United States? Why, it was extension of slavery by the former, and the restriction of slavery by the latter. To put the issue as it was understood by Northern men--in poetic language, it was "_The Union as it is_." While the South, at length, through its leaders, acknowledged that slavery was their issue, the North, standing upon the last analysis of the Free-Soil idea of resistance to the further inoculation of free territory with the virus of slavery, refused to recognize slavery as an issue. But what did the battle cry of the loyal North, "_The Union as it is_," mean? A Union half free and half slave; a dual government, if not in fact, certainly in the brains and hearts of the people; two civilizations at eternal and inevitable war with each other; a Union with the canker-worm of slavery in it, impairing its strength every year and threatening its life; a Union in which two hostile ideas of political economy were at work, and where unpaid slave labor was inimical to the interests of the free workingmen. And it should not be forgotten that the Republican party acknowledged the right of Southerns to hunt slaves in the free States, and to return such slaves, under the fugitive-slave law, to their masters. Mr. Lincoln was not an Abolitionist, as many people think. His position on the question was clearly stated in the answers he gave to a number of questions put to him by Judge Douglass in the latter part of the summer of 1858. Mr. Lincoln said: "Having said this much, I will take up the judge's interrogatories as I find them printed in the Chicago 'Times,' and answer them _seriatim_. In order that there may be no mistake about it, I have copied the interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to them. The first one of these interrogatories is in these words: "Question 1. 'I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law?' "Answer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive-Slave Law. "Q. 2. 'I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to-day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, even if the people want them?' "A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admission of any more slave States into the Union. "Q. 3. 'I want to know whether he stands pledged against the admission of a new State into the Union with such a constitution as the people of that State may see fit to make.' "Q. 4. 'I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia?' "A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.