“The Baltimore Sun” says, “A few moments before leaving the jail, Copeland said, ‘If I am dying for freedom, I could not die for a better cause. I had rather die than be a slave!’ A military officer in charge on the day of the execution says, ‘I had a position near the gallows, and carefully observed all. I can truly say I never witnessed more firm and unwavering: fortitude, more perfect composure, or more beautiful propriety, than were manifested by young Copeland to the very last.’”
Shields Green behaved with equal heroism, ascending the scaffold with a firm and unwavering step, and died, as he had lived, a brave man, and expressing to the last his eternal hatred to human bondage, prophesying that slavery would soon come to a bloody end.
CHAPTER VII—THE FIRST GUN OF THE REBELLION.
Nomination of Fremont.—Nomination of Lincoln.—The Mob Spirit.—Spirit of Slavery.—The Democracy.—Cotton.—Northern Promises to the Rebels.—Assault on Fort Sumter.—Call for 75,000 Men.—Response of the Colored Men.
The nomination of John C. Fremont by the Republican party in 1856, and the large vote given him at the election that autumn, cleared away all doubts, if any existed as to the future action of the Federal Government on the spread and power of slavery. The Democratic party, which had ruled the nation so long and so badly, saw that it had been weighed, and found wanting; that it must prepare to give up the Government into the hands of better men.
But the party determined to make the most of Mr. Buchanan’s administration, both in the profuse expenditure of money among themselves, and in getting ready to take the Southern States out of the Union.
Surrounded by the men who believed that the Government was made for them, and that their mission was to rule the people of the United States, Mr. Buchanan was nothing more than a tool,—clay in the hands of the potters; and he permitted them to prepare leisurely for disunion, which culminated, in 1860, in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.
The proslavery Democracy became furious at the prospect of losing the control of the situation, and their hatred of free speech was revived. From the nomination of Mr. Lincoln to his inauguration, mob-law ruled in most of the cities and large villages. These disgraceful scenes, the first of which commenced at the antislavery-meeting at the Tremont Temple, Boston, was always gotten up by members of the Democratic party, who usually passed a series of resolutions in favor of slavery. New York, Philadelphia, Albany, Buffalo, Troy, Cincinnati, and Chicago, all followed the example set by Boston.