There were always some people, both in the North and the South, who did not like slavery. Among them were Franklin and Washington and Jefferson and other great men. In time there got to be so many of these people in the North that they formed what were called Anti-slavery Societies. Some of them said that slavery should be kept where it was and not taken into any new states. Others said that every slave in the United States ought to be set free.
This brought on great excitement all over the country. The people in the North who believed in slavery were often violent. Now and then there were riots. Buildings where Anti-slavery meetings were held were burned down. One of the leaders of the Abolitionists, as the Anti-slavery people were called, was dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope tied round his body, and would have been hanged if his friends had not got him away.
But as time went on the Abolitionists grew stronger in the North. Many slaves ran away from their masters, and these were hidden by their white friends until they could get to Canada, where they were safe. All through the South and North people were excited.
I do not think many of our people expected the cruel war that was coming. If they had they might have been more careful what they said and did. But for all that, war was close at hand, and two things helped to bring it on.
There had been fighting in Kansas, one of the territories that was to be made into a state, and among the fighters was an old man named John Brown, who thought that God had called him to do all he could for the freedom of the slaves.
Some people think that John Brown was not quite right in his brain. What he did was to gather a body of men and to take possession of Harper's Ferry, on the Potomac River, where there was a government army. He thought that the slaves of Virginia would come to his aid in multitudes and that he could start a slave war that would run all through the South.
It was a wild project. Not a slave came. But some troops came under Colonel Robert E. Lee, and Brown and his party were forced to surrender. Some of them were killed and wounded and the others taken prisoners. John Brown and six others were tried and hanged. But the half-insane old man had done his work. That fight at Harper's Ferry helped greatly to bring on the war.
I said there were two things. The other was the election of Abraham Lincoln as President.
For a long time, as I have told you, the Abolitionists, or people opposed to slavery, were few in number. When they grew more numerous they formed a political party, known as the Anti-slavery Party. In 1856 a new party, called the Republican Party, was formed and took in all the Abolitionists. It was so strong that in the election of that year eleven states voted for its candidate, John C. Fremont, the man who had taken California from Mexico.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln, a western orator of whom I shall soon tell you more, was the candidate of the Republican Party, and in the election of that year this new party was successful and Lincoln was elected President of the United States.