Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume I.

And not in the South only, but in the North also, had the temples and organizations of religion been gradually molded and manipulated into a more guarded but not less effective subserviency to the Slave Power. Of the many periodicals edited and issued in the interest of the Roman Catholic faith and polity, hardly one had ever indicated even a wish that Slavery should fall; while a large majority were among its most vehement, unshrinking champions. The case was scarcely better with those sustained by the Protestant Episcopalians; while, among the organs of the other great denominations, Slavery had about as many apologists as assailants. The godless ruffianism and rowdy lawlessness of the North were, of course, as thoroughly pro-Slavery as those of the South--conscious baseness and ill-deserving always requiring somewhat to look down upon and to trample underfoot; and he who has nothing else to boast of always seeking to make the most of the [constructive] whiteness of his skin. It thus chanced that, in this, as in some other controversies, the sleek sanctity and the rough rascality at the respective extremities of the social scale were found acting in concert, as when the Jewish hierarchy were aided in compassing the death of Jesus by the rabble cry of “Crucify him!” alternated with clamors for the release of Barabbas the robber.

V. The Rebellion had, at the outset of the struggle, the immense advantage always enjoyed by tile belligerent who alone has a positive creed, a definite purpose, and is moving directly, consistently, toward his proclaimed goal. It said, “I stand for Slavery — strike for Slavery — put all at risk for Slavery — and I demand the sympathy and succor of all who concur with me in regarding Slavery as just and beneficent.” And what it thus boldly and reasonably demanded it naturally and generally secured. There were slaveholders of the Revolutionary school — relics of the era or inheritors of the faith of Washington and Jefferson — who repudiated