De Bow's Review, the great organ of southern opinion, appeared, and in serious scientific articles maintained the proposition that the Negro was not a man but a beast. About that time (and conformably to that opinion) the practice was begun of spelling the word, Negro, with a small "n"—a practice still current in America, even in the socialist press. In the meanwhile, the system of industrial production known as the machine system developed in the north. The factory proletariat whose condition determined that of the other northern workers could fertilize capital more rapidly and cheaply than the slaves. This form of production (and its products) came into competition with the slave system and the tremendous conflict reflected itself upon the political field as a struggle for the restriction of slavery within its original bounds. The Louisiana Purchase, the annexation of Texas, the Missouri Compromise, the Dred Scot Decision, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,—all these were political episodes in the competition between the two main sections of the dominant class; and in the conflict each used the army, the navy, the executive, the courts and the legislature to strengthen its own position. When the business interests of the north had definitely captured the powers of government in the general election of 1860, the southerners seceded because they knew too well what governmental power was generally used for. They wanted a government which would be the political reflex of their own economic dominance. One can see now why the northern statesmen like Lincoln insisted that the preservation of the Union was the paramount issue and not the freedom of slaves. Indeed, Lincoln punished those officers of the army who in the early days of the war dared to act upon that assumption. And not all the arguments of Greeley, Conway and Governor Andrews could make any change in his attitude. Not until he saw that it was expedient "as a war measure" did he issue the "Emancipation Proclamation" which brought 187,000 Negro soldiers into the northern army.