The presidential election of 1860 showed the South that they had lost control of the government and that the free states were increasing enormously in wealth and population, and that, following the example of Great Britain, it would be only a question of time before they would insist on abolishing slavery. Then it was that the Southerners decided to do what their fathers had done eighty-five years before, secede and become Dis-unionists. They could not believe that there would be any opposition to their leaving, especially from Massachusetts, that place that had always been foremost in disunion sentiments. Besides, had not the Abolitionists said repeatedly in Faneuil Hall, "The Cradle of Liberty," that if they would leave the Union they would "pave their way with gold" to get rid of them, and did not the New York Tribune, which had been the organ of the Abolitionists, and which now declared that "if the cotton states wished to withdraw from the Union they should be allowed to do so"; that "any attempt to compel them to remain by force would be contrary to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and to the fundamental idea upon which human liberty is based," and that "if the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three million subjects in 1776, it was not seen why it would not justify the secession of five million of Southerners from the Union in 1861." This was quite consistent with the remark of a leading Abolitionist paper in Boston that "the Constitution was a covenant with hell." The South also contended that even if they were not justified in becoming Dis-unionists in 1776, they had established their right to independence by force of arms and that when they had entered into a confederation with the other seceding colonies, they had never assigned any of their rights which they had fought for, that they were sovereign, independent states, and that the bond that bound them together was simply for self-protection and was what the name signified "United States," and not a nation. In proof of this they stated that when the convention met in Philadelphia in May, 1787, for the purpose of adopting a constitution for a stronger form of government, the first resolution presented was, "Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislature, executive and judiciary." This was followed by twenty-three other resolutions as adopted and reported by the committee in which the word "national" occurred twenty-six times. Mr. Ellsworth, of Connecticut moved to strike out the word "national" and to insert the words "Government of the United States." This was agreed to unanimously, and the word "national" was stricken out wherever it occurred, and nowhere makes its appearance in the Constitution finally adopted. The prompt rejection of this word "national" is obviously much more expressive of