Excerpt from Poems

Abraham Lincoln was elected President, and the rising storm of Southern rebellion darkened the air. The Commercial Office had about three years before parted with Henry Reed, one of the strongest writers ever on the American press, and my own mind, that had been largely instructed in editorial duties under his influence, had not fully asserted itself in the expression of final opinions, and while I had gone into the Chase campaigns in Ohio, and the Fremont national campaign with zeal, Mr. Reed had held back and checked my enthusiasm with his conservative political philosophy. When he was gone, I found those about me going faster instead of slower in the popular current than I was disposed to go. Mr. Potter's general orders were very simple. The Commercial had to support the cause of free territories - Which speedily became that of the free States.

As the discussion of the duty of the General Government in the presence of State rebellion progressed, and the various compromises and expedients looking to reconciliation were tested and found wanting - as the border State propositions, that those who had elected Lincoln should surrender, were found inapplicable, and the view that he should make his submission to the slave power, then rampant and threatening, was known to be inadmis sible, and the theory that there should be a convention of all the States to make a permanent adjustment of difficulties, otherwise the peaceful separa tion of the conflicting sections, was seen to be as impossible as inexpedient, my associate in editorial labor was A. R. Spofford, who has long been librarian of Congress, and who held the pen of a very ready and strong writer, and While possessed of a vast fund of information, was wonderfully ready and accurate in quoting the teachings of history and the texts of literature.

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