The respectable, the rich, the prosperous, the holders of and the seekers for office, held liberty in contempt. They regarded the Constitution as far more sacred than the rights of men. Candidates for the presidency were applauded because they had tried to make slave States of free territory, and the highest court solemnly and ignorantly decided that colored men and women had no rights. Men who insisted that freedom was better than slavery, and that mothers should not be robbed of their babes, were hated, despised and mobbed. Mr. Douglas voiced the feelings of millions when he declared that he did not care whether slavery was voted up or down. Upon this question the people, a majority of them, were almost savages. Honor, manhood, conscience, principle--all sacrificed for the sake of gain or office. From the heights of philosophy--standing above the contending hosts, above the prejudices, the sentimentalities of the day--Lincoln was great enough and brave enough and wise enough to utter these prophetic words: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all the one thing or the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it further until it becomes alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as South." This declaration was the standard around which gathered the grandest political party the world has ever seen, and this declaration made Lincoln the leader of that vast host. In this, the first great crisis, Lincoln uttered the victorious truth that made him the foremost man in the Republic. The Republican party nominated him for the presidency and the people decided at the polls that a house divided against itself could not stand, and that slavery had cursed soul and soil enough. It is not a common thing to elect a really great man to fill the highest official position. I do not say that the great Presidents have been chosen by accident. Probably it would be better to say that they were the favorites of a happy chance. The average man is afraid of genius. He feels as an awkward man feels in the presence of a sleight-of-hand performer. He admires and suspects. Genius appears to carry too much sail--to lack prudence, has too much courage. The ballast of dullness inspires confidence. By a happy chance Lincoln was nominated and elected in spite of his fitness--and the patient, gentle, just and loving man was called upon to bear as great a burden as man has ever borne. III. THEN came another crisis--the crisis of Secession and Civil war.