the present rupture. The question of slavery is the principal, perhaps the only one. The South wishes and declares that slavery must be protected like any other property-right in all the Territories belonging to the United States. The North opposes this doctrine and wishes to confine slavery to its present limits, and that is the great difficulty and the ostensible cause of the war.
Senator Douglas and his party advocated that the decision concerning the introduction of slavery into the Territories and its protection there should rest with the citizens of those Territories. The ultra-South declared against this doctrine. The Cotton States wanted slavery protected in the Territories whether the citizens of those Territories (that is, the majority) desired it or not. This was the great cause of the division in the Democratic Convention at Charleston, which led to the nomination of two Democratic candidates for the presidency - Douglas and Breckenridge.
The South, or the Breckenridge party, knowing that the Republican party would never consent to have slavery thus forced upon the Territories, and desiring to find a pretext for separation from the Union, insisted upon this question being decided in their favor, as a condition sine qua non of their fidelity to the Union. The consequence was that the two Democratic candidates were defeated in the election, and Mr. Lincoln, the Republican, elected upon the platform " that slavery should be protected where it existed, but should not be extended to the new Territories."
After Lincoln's election South Carolina at once withdrew from the Union, even in defiance to the Constitution of the United States. Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas followed this rebellious course. Afterward came Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. In fact it is probable that all the slave States would withdraw if they had the strength; namely, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri.
How has this question of slavery been able to produce results so surprising and deplorable, considering especially