The life of Charles Francis Adams, Lincoln's Minister to England, says that up to the very day of the firing on the flag the attitude of the Northern States, even in case of hostilities, was open to grave question, while that of the border States did not admit of a doubt; that Mr. Seward, the member of the President's Cabinet, repudiated not only the right but the wish even to use armed force in subjugating the Southern States. Morse's Lincoln (Volume I, page 131) makes the following remarkable statement: "Greeley and Seward and Wendell Phillips, representative men, were little better than secessionists. The statement sounds ridiculous, yet the proof against each one comes from his own mouth. The _Tribune_ had retracted none of these disunion sentiments of which examples have been given." Even so late as April 10, 1861, Seward wrote officially to Charles Francis Adams, Minister to England: "Only an imperial and despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the State." On April 9th, the rumor of a fight at Sumter being spread abroad, Wendell Phillips said: "Here are a series of States girding the gulf who think that their peculiar institutions require that they should have a separate government; they have a right to decide the question without appealing to you and to me. * * * Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them that right?" Woodrow Wilson's Division and Reunion says (page 214) that President Buchanan agreed with the Attorney General (Hon. Jere Black, of Pennsylvania) that there was no constitutional means for coercing a State (as his last message shows beyond a doubt) and adds that such for the time seemed to be the general opinion of the country. MAJOR J. SCHEIBERT (OF THE PRUSSIAN ARMY) ON CONFEDERATE HISTORY [In Southern Historical Papers, Volume 18, pages 425-428.] _Tariff_ Besides the differences of race and religion, nature itself, through the varied geographical position of the States, had created relations of varied character that not only must conflict ensue, but the least law affecting the whole Union often aroused diametrically and sharply opposed interests; the consequences of which were to embitter sectional opinions to an intolerable degree.