Meanwhile blacker and blacker grew the horizon. Abraham Lincoln was elected President, but it brought no comfort to the anxious North. Yet, even then, but few men thought of war. The winter of 1860–’61 came on, and with it the reassembling of the State legislatures. Rising with the emergency Garfield’s statesmanship foresaw the black and horrible fate of civil war. The following letter by him to his friend, President Hinsdale, was prophetic of the war, and of the rise of an Unknown to “ride upon the storm and direct it”: COLUMBUS, January 15, 1861. “My heart and thoughts are full almost every moment with the terrible reality of our country’s condition. We have learned so long to look upon the convulsions of European states as things wholly impossible here, that the people are slow in coming to the belief that there may be any breaking up of our institutions, but stern, awful certainty is fastening upon the hearts of men. _I do not see any way, outside a miracle of God, which can avoid civil war, with all its attendant horrors._ Peaceable dissolution is utterly impossible. Indeed, I can not say that I would wish it possible. To make the concessions demanded by the South would be hypocritical and sinful; they would neither be obeyed nor respected. I am inclined to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. All that is left us as a State, or say as a company of Northern States, is to arm and prepare to defend ourselves and the Federal Government. I believe the doom of slavery is drawing near. Let war come, and the slaves will get the vague notion that it is waged for them, and a magazine will be lighted whose explosion will shake the whole fabric of slavery. Even if all this happen, I can not yet abandon the belief that one government will rule this continent, and its people be one people. “Meantime, what will be the influence of the times on individuals? Your question is very interesting and suggestive. The doubt that hangs over the whole issue bears touching also. It may be the duty of our young men to join the army, or they may be drafted without their own consent. If neither of these things happen, there will be a period when old men and young will be electrified by the spirit of the times, and one result will be to make every individuality more marked, and their opinions more decisive. I believe the times will be even more favorable than calm ones for the formation of strong will and forcible characters. * * * * *