no guaranty of right and injustice if we throw those standards behind us the moment we have done wrong enough to find ourselves at war. The war ended, moreover, in an acquisition of territory, which, of course, was popular; and it proved that this territory was rich in precious metals, which added to the popular estimate of it. The antecedents of the war were forgotten.
Its political results, however, were far more important. Calhoun now came forward to ward off a long conflict in regard to slavery in these territories, by the new doctrine that the Constitution extended to all the national domain, and carried slavery with it — a doctrine which his followers did not, for ten years afterwards, dare to take up and rigorously apply, and which divided the Democratic party of the North. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law were only steps in the conflict which was as yet confused, but which was clearing itself for a crisis. The South, like every clamorous suitor, reckless of consequences, obtained wide concessions from an adversary who sought peace and contentment, and who saw clearly the dangers of a struggle outside the limits of constitution and law.
The Abolitionists, from their first organization, pursued an "irreconcilable" course. They refused to vote for any slaveholder, or for any one who would vote for a slaveholder, and refused all alliances which involved any concession whatever. They more than once, by this course, aided the party most hostile to them, and, in the view of the ordinary politician, were guilty of great folly. They showed, however, what is the power of a body which has a principle and has no ambition, and is content to remain in a minority. Probably if the South had been more moderate, the Abolitionists would have attracted little more notice than a fanatical religious sect; but, as events marched
