Jefence committed to his charge; while others, more openly rampant, threatened to tear down the national colors.

In the midst of all this tempest of passion and fanaticism, Hancock stood firm. His personal influence, as we have said, was great, and he exerted it now to the utmost. He rose to the emergencies of the occasion, and appealed directly to the patriotism of his countrymen. With the seditious aliens who were active in fomenting disturbances, who had nothing in common with the citizens who controlled the government by their votes, he was bold, strong, firm; yielding not an inch to their insolent demands, and presenting the courage of a patriot heart and the force of a gallant arm to their treasonable threats.

Thus Hancock met these distant and isolated traitors in one of their own strongholds. Thus he upheld, on that far-off Pacific slope, the flag of his country, the integrity of the Union, and the rights of man. His course in Lower California met the approval of the government and of all our countrymen who are conversant with its high merits. His name will ever be honored on account of it, not only on the shores of the Pacific, but those of the Atlan

tic, all through the United States. He had the happiness to witness the subsidence of this incipient rebellion, and to hear the cry awake and continue to resound on every hand:

"Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us?

With freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And freedom's banner waving o'er us!"

AT

CHAPTER X.

IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION.

"Take heed

How you awake our sleeping sword of war!

We charge you, in the name of God, take heed!"

Old Play.

T his own earnest request, Quartermaster HANCOCK was transferred from his responsible but comparatively quiet post on the Pacific, to the more active scenes that stirred the pulses of the Atlantic coast, at the middle of the year 1861. His position in California was one of great relative importance, but the routine duties of a Quartermaster had never been suited to the energetic and courageous character of such a man as he has proved himself to be. As soon, therefore, as the necessary official preliminaries could be effected, he was on his way to the field of battle.

In the month of September, 1861, he landed in New York. Without stopping even a moment to visit his parents, at Norristown, although he had now

been absent from them over two years, in a distant part of the country, he pushed on, within a few hours of his arrival, to Washington, and immediately reported himself to the War Department, ready for active service. His mind was deliberately made up to the great issue. His life was again in his hand for his beloved country. His valuable services were at once accepted, and he placed in the front of the fight.

Here let us pause a moment, and take a survey of the field.

When, in the month of November, 1860, a large majority of the voters of America had declared the present incumbent constitutionally elected President of the United States, it was clearly the duty of the minority to abide by the law, and yield obedience to the verdict. If they had been fairly outvoted at this election and it is not pretended by any one but they were the fundamental oaths, the democratic canons of the country, affirmed that the government should still be maintained, the laws administered, the powers and emoluments of office transmitted, until a new trial should confirm or reverse the result. The same sacred right of suffrage had been enjoyed by all the electors of the nation. Three parties, with distinct national issues, were in the arena; but all

three openly swore allegiance to the same national standard, and vowed devotion to the same national Union. Secession, Disunion, Rebellion, were not in that presidential canvass. The election, with its greatly increased vote, with all the momentous and exciting issues at stake, was one of the most quiet ever held in the country. No one was molested in public or private discussions of the vast questions involved in the contest. There was not a life lost at the polls, where millions of men, each one as free and as good as another in the eye of the law, marched to the ballot-boxes of their voting precincts, and cast their votes for the candidates of their choice. No one, in all that vast host of qualified suffragants, of equal peers, yea, of reigning sovereigns, could with propriety rudely ask or threaten his fellow at the polls:

"Under which king, Bezonian?
Speak, or die!"

Every intelligent elector was his own king. Every responsible vote he cast was his own royal edict.

We have said the questions of Secession, Disunion and Rebellion were not in this great constitutional contest of voters. It is not to be understood by this historical statement, however, that the relative value of, and purpose to continue, the Union, were not passed upon by the people in that election. On the