Such, briefly and comprehensively stated, having been the situation in 1853, it remains to consider the practical outcome thereof during the sixty years it has been my fortune to take part, either as an actor or as an observer, in the great process of evolution. It is curious to note the extent to which the unexpected has come about. In the first place, consider the all-absorbing mid-century political issue, that involving the race question, to which I first referred, --the issue which divided the South from the North, and which, eight years only after I had entered college, carried me from the walks of civil life into the calling of arms.