sensitiveness grew as cotton's empire extended. Manufactures were also in a flourishing condition, and it was estimated in 1852, that the capital embarked in the cotton manufactories of the United States was at least $80,000,000; that the value of the products was $70,000,000; that 100,000 male and female operatives were employed, and that quite 700,000 bales of cotton, worth at least $35,000,000, were spun and woven. America possessed, also, a number of woolen manufactories, which employed about the same period 39,252 hands. The American people, then as now, believed in religion and education as the corner-stones of liberty's temple. The population of 23,000,000 in 1850 had 36,221 churches and chapels, with accommodation for 13,967,449 persons--a large accommodation for a new country whose population had spread so rapidly over so extensive an area. Of the youth nearly 4,000,000 were receiving instruction in the various educational institutions. The teachers numbered 115,000, and colleges and schools nearly 100,000. America had upward of seventy theological schools; forty-four medical and surgical schools; nineteen schools of law, and ten schools of practical science and extensive libraries were attached to nearly all of these institutions. Never had the future of our nation seemed more promising than at the very time when the cloud of slavery began to darken the bright horizon, gradually overspreading the heavens until it burst in the storm of secession. The Slavery Conflict. CHAPTER XXXIII. Aggressiveness of Slavery--The Cotton States and Border States--The Fugitive Slave Law--Nullified in the North--Negroes Imported from Africa--The Struggle in Kansas--John Brown--Abraham Lincoln Pleads for Human Rights--Treason in Buchanan's Cabinet--Citizens Stop Guns at Pittsburg--Conditions at the Beginning of the Struggle--Southern Advantages--The Soldiers of Both Armies Compared--Conscription in the Confederacy--Southern Resources Limited--The North at a Disadvantage at First, but Its Resources Inexhaustible--Conscription in the North-- Popular Support of the War--Unfriendliness of Great Britain and France--Why They Did Not Interfere.