A few weeks later the bombardment of Fort Sumter put an end to all projects of compromise. At the memorable mass meeting held in Union Square, New York, shortly after the receipt of this news, Peter Cooper, then seventy years old, was among the first to mount the platform. His familiar white hairs and kindly face were recognized by the crowd, which vociferously called for a speech from him. Stepping to the front, he uttered a few ringing sentences which sounded the keynote of the meeting. I quote but one or two:-- "We are contending with an enemy not only determined on our destruction as a nation, but to build on our ruins a government devoted with all its power to maintain, extend, and perpetuate a system in itself revolting to all the best feelings of humanity,--an institution that enables thousands to sell their own children into hopeless bondage. "Shall it succeed? You say 'No!' and I unite with you in your decision. We cannot allow it to succeed. We should spend our lives, our property, and leave the land itself a desolation before such an institution should triumph over the free people of this country. . . . "Let us, therefore, unite to sustain the government by every means in our power, to arm and equip in the shortest possible time an army of the best men that can be found in the country." From that day on his patriotism never doubted or faltered. When the war loan was announced he was the first man at the door of the subtreasury in New York waiting to make payment over the counter of all the money he had been able to collect without business disaster. "In those days," says a friend, "whenever he had nothing else to do, he would go down to the recruiting office and put in a substitute." It is estimated that he must have sent, first and last, about a score of soldiers to serve for him under the flag. From the first he urged the emancipation and enlistment of the Southern negroes,--a policy which was ultimately adopted with successful results; and when in 1864, at the darkest hour of the struggle, there was danger of a fatal compromise, he actively promoted that great mass meeting in the hall of the Cooper Union which marked the turning-point of the struggle, carried the State of New York for Lincoln, and secured the triumph of the Union. After the war was over he presided at another meeting, called to favor aid to the disabled soldiers of the nation; and the following paragraph quoted from his remarks on that occasion forms a fitting close to this brief notice of his patriotic activity:--