He proposed to give food to the soldiers at Sumter. He asked the advice of all his cabinet on this question, and all, with the exception of Montgomery Blair, answered in the negative, giving their reasons in writing. In spite of this, Lincoln took his own course--endeavored to send the supplies, and while thus engaged, doing his simple duty, the South commenced actual hostilities and fired on the fort. The course pursued by Lincoln was absolutely right, and the act of the South to a great extent solidified the North, and gained for the Republic the justification of a great number of people in other lands. At that time Lincoln appreciated the scope and consequences of the impending conflict. Above all other thoughts in his mind was this: "This conflict will settle the question, at least for centuries to come, whether man is capable of governing himself, and consequently is of greater importance to the free than to the enslaved." He knew what depended on the issue and he said: "We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of earth." HEN came a crisis in the North. It became clearer and clearer to Lincoln's mind, day by day, that the Rebellion was slavery, and that it was necessary to keep the border States on the side of the Union. For this purpose he proposed a scheme of emancipation and colonization--a scheme by which the owners of slaves should be paid the full value of what they called their "property." He knew that if the border States agreed to gradual emancipation, and received compensation for their slaves, they would be forever lost to the Confederacy, whether secession succeeded or not. It was objected at the time, by some, that the scheme was far too expensive; but Lincoln, wiser than his advisers--far wiser than his enemies--demonstrated that from an economical point of view, his course was best. IV. He proposed that $400 be paid for slaves, including men, women and children. This was a large price, and yet he showed how much cheaper it was to purchase than to carry on the war. At that time, at the price mentioned, there were about $750,000 worth of slaves in Delaware. The cost of carrying on the war was at least two millions of dollars a day, and for one-third of one day's expenses, all the slaves in Delaware could be purchased. He also showed that all the slaves in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri could be bought, at the same price, for less than the expense of carrying on the war for eighty-seven days. This was the wisest thing that could have been proposed, and yet such was the madness of the South, such the indignation of the North, that the advice was unheeded. Again, in July, 1862, he urged on the Representatives of the border States a scheme of gradual compensated emancipation; but the Representatives were too deaf to hear, too blind to see.