There might have been hope of compromise; the fanatics were still in the minority among the men who governed the destinies of the nation, and while there was bitterness and even hatred rife among these men, there was yet stronger dread of open separation, so that there might have been reached some conclusion which would have been productive of results satisfactory in the main to both sides, though not in full measure; but the women would not have it so. They flung themselves into politics with a fervor that was fatal to all the interests of peace; for those of the North could not understand any toleration of "the accursed thing," while they of the South demanded that their husbands and lovers should resent the insult which had been imposed upon Southern womanhood in the vile slanders which were freely circulated in Abolitionist circles. That these slanders were the voice of fanaticism and not of mere hatred was not understood; that they were reprobated by the better elements of the North was not believed. In both sections an appeal to arms was talked of if secession were adopted and resisted. At first this was but idle menace; but it gradually grew to the proportions of stern determination at least in one of the sections, and by none was it so eagerly welcomed and fanned as by the women. "The peace of them that make peace" was not for the American woman of that time; all the natural militancy of the feminine nature was aroused to its highest pitch, and it was more at the instigation of hatred than as an appeal to justice that the thought of war was dear to the women of our riven country. Riven it was already in spirit, though not as yet in fact; the shadow of coming strife lay heavy on the land long before it took substance. There were still those, chiefly among the men, who believed that from all this lurid smoke there would result nothing worse than smouldering embers, which would eventually perish unharmful; that thus it could not be was owing in greatest part to the influence of those who in the bitter days to come were to bear the brunt of the suffering and agony of war, the women of America.