"No; I shall prescribe no new test of party fealty to Northern Democrats, those men who have hitherto stood with honor and fidelity upon their engagements. They have maintained the truth to their own hurt. They have displayed a patriotism, a magnanimity rarely equaled in the world's history, and I shall endeavor, in sunshine and in storm, with your approbation if I can get it, without it if I must, to stand by them with fidelity equal to their great deserts. If you will stand with me, we shall conquer faction in the North and South, and shall save the country from the curse of being ruled by the combination now calling itself the opposition. We shall leave this country to our children as we found it--united, strong, prosperous and happy." This was a memorable speech, strong, sincere, and conservative, and had a marked effect. It was intended, not only to influence the canvass then pending, but to have an effect in controlling the National convention to be held six months later. It was copied far and wide, and the success of the State candidates whom Mr. Toombs supported showed that its statesmanlike utterances were adopted overwhelmingly in Georgia. CHAPTER XV. JOHN BROWN'S RAID. But events were moving fast and furiously. The times needed no new Mirabeau. The people were slowly welding a revolution, which must sweep statesmen from their feet and bear upon its fierce current the strong and weak alike. It has been asserted, and with truth, that disunion was precipitated by the people, not by the politicians--by the North as well as by the South. The raid of John Brown of Kansas into Virginia was not an event which would have stirred the people in ordinary times. It was the wild foray of a fanatic, who tried to stir up a slave insurrection. He was captured, tried, convicted, and hanged. There were demoralized followers and duped negroes with him, when he was overcome by Colonel Robert E. Lee, with a detachment of marines, at Harper's Ferry. This affair created a feverish excitement. The South did not know how far this movement extended, nor by what authority it had been started. The criminal was execrated at the South and intemperately defended at the North. The man, who under normal conditions of society would have been sent to the insane asylum, was sentenced speedily to the gallows and mourned as a martyr by many at the North. Bells were tolled in his honor. Following this remarkable episode, several free States passed strong laws against the detention of fugitive slaves, and the Northern press and pulpit teemed with new lessons and fresh morals. John Brown's body, in the language of the sentimental dirge, "lay moldering in his grave"; but the spirit of the Kansas boomer actually pervaded the land.