was inevitable that she should make the best of it; for the tendency of human nature to bring moral standards into harmony with conduct that has been irrevocably resolved upon, is invincible. The Abolitionists too, representing as they did the growing antagonism to slavery of the North and the civilized world, had without doubt hastened the process of conversion. It was natural that attacks from without should lead to greater devotion. It is however an error to suppose that the Abolitionists caused the South to accept slavery as a "good." That this should take place was, wholly irrespective of the course of the enemies of slavery, inevitable. Moreover no theory dishonors a people more than the one which assumes that in the weightiest matters their views are decided by their resentments.

The acceptance by the South of slavery, not as an evil to be deprecated, but as a "good, a positive good" and "the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable institutions," marks a turning point in the history of the United States. Hitherto the standing ground of the advocates of slavery had been interest; now they advanced to a higher position. If slavery was a blessing instead of a curse, why not defend and diffuse it? This was the logical outcome of the new position, and the South did not hesitate to accept it. The attitude of the South in the defence of slavery underwent a marked change. In the debates over the admission of Missouri, Southern men freely confessed that slavery was a misfortune and urged its extension to new territory on the ground of "diluting the evil." When in Jackson's second administration the debates on slavery were resumed, the old deprecatory, half-apologetic tone ceased. Here again it is important to note the fact that for nearly a generation the participants in secession had been taught that slavery was a blessing, and, consequently, that it was their duty as well as their privilege to defend and extend this blessing.

This brings us to the end of the inquiry as to the origin of the secession movement. Its development, even in outline, is not within the limits of this article. Assuming that the conclusions just reached are correct, let us recall the theories first quoted. That of Mr. Stephens is erroneous because he makes devotion to State sovereignty the primary cause; whereas the truth is that slavery was, for the most part, the cause of this devotion. Peoples care very little for a political or constitutional principle except as it serves their interests; they are not willing to die for a pure abstraction. The only reason why the people of the South adopted, or rather retained and developed, the doctrine of State sovereignty was the security it afforded to Southern interests. But how did they come to have interests which the national theory of the Union endangered? Only through slavery. In proof of the correctness of this view we need but look at the present condition of the South. Since the destruction of slavery and the interests founded upon it, devotion to national sovereignty is displacing almost too rapidly the old devotion to State sovereignty. The South was altogether mistaken in her claims respecting State sovereignty. In 1860 State sovereignty did not exist in either section. The South believed otherwise, but her experience during the Civil War made the mistake evident. The Confederate government could not have maintained itself at all except through acts which were emphatic denials of this doctrine. Consequently the South had no warrant for the charge that the North was the aggressor and that President Lincoln inaugurated the war. Mr. Blaine's view is mistaken in that it exaggerates the influence of personal agency. He treats as if altogether voluntary, actions which in great measure were compelled. He lays the entire blame upon those who actually initiated and participated in secession; whereas disunion was inevitable from the moment when the South accepted slavery as a "good"; or perhaps from that earlier time when the South, having ceased to be democratic, came under the rule of the slaveholder. Interested motives doubtless had their share in the inception of the secession movement; but there was patriotism also. The event foretold by Calhoun had come to pass; the moral bonds between the sections were broken; we had become "two peoples."

It is difficult to realize the character of the years which just preceded the Civil War - how very evil they were! It was the time of the gospel of hate. In the place of the old Union stood the two highly individualized, sharply antagonistic sections. No man could serve the North without incurring the enmity of the South, or the South without incurring that of the North. Nor could a man serve the moribund Union without forfeiting the good will of his own section. This was the real offence of Webster in his 7th of March speech. In that speech he had virtually said: "I care more for the Union than for either section"; and the reply was repudiation by the North and distrust by the South. Henceforth, in what related to the dominant movement of that day, he was an "isolated man." The tragic close of Webster's life is historic because his sufferings grew out of a contradiction, not in himself, but in the situation of the country, - a contradiction which in some measure involved and darkened the lives of every devotee of the old Union. Perhaps in no way was the increasingly unwholesome influence of the times more clearly shown than by its effect on the finest natures. It transformed John Brown, in whom were united the better qualities of the patriarch, the crusader and the philanthropist, into a deliberate organizer of servile insurrection; it made "Stonewall" Jackson, in whom religious enthusiasm and patriotic zeal were as strongly marked as his phenomenal genius for war, eager to unfurl the black flag. The situation became intolerable. Terrible as were the consequences of secession, they were far less terrible than the sure and steady demoralization of character which it brought to an end.

The true cause of secession is that set forth by the Republican Convention of 1864. It was slavery that paralyzed the productive energies of the South; that confined her to agriculture, and that impoverished both land and people. It was slavery that checked the democratic movement, and delivered the South, bound hand and foot, to the rule of the slaveholding aristocracy. It was slavery that isolated the South, that 1 Pollard, Secret History of the Confederacy, 281-282.

brought her into hostile relations with the progressive outside world, and so obscured her notions of right and wrong, that she could praise as "a good, a positive good," the institution which she had previously condemned, and through which she was being undone. It was slavery that induced her to develop and maintain, on an ultra-democratic basis, the antiquated doctrine of State sovereignty, and at the same time to attempt to overthrow those foundation principles of democracy, the rights of free speech and of petition. It was slavery that induced her to force upon the general government a policy of aggression, which resulted in a prolonged and desperate struggle for the possession of the newly acquired territory; and in the course of this struggle, it was slavery that led to those acts which embittered and inflamed the already alienated sections, - the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the Personal Liberty Laws, the overthrow of the Missouri Compromise, the bloodshed and terrorism in Kansas, the interference there against free labor on the part of Pierce and Buchanan, the Ostend Manifesto, the Dred Scott decision, the attack upon Sumner, the insurrection at Harper's Ferry, and the fatal demand respecting slavery in the Territories made at the Charleston Convention in 1860. Finally, it was slavery that forced the South, in the interest of self-preservation, to withdraw from the Union. Indeed, after the South was fully committed to slavery, the course which she actually pursued became compulsory. She could not have remained true to herself, had she undertaken to abandon it. But this course led directly and inevitably to disunion; for, between the principle of slavery, which is the right of the strong to the uncompensated services of the weak, and the principle of modern progress, which is the duty of the strong to help the weak to become strong, there is an "irrepressible conflict." The events of 1860 made evident what Lincoln and Seward had foretold, that within the Union slavery was doomed to extinction. But the destruction of slavery involved the destruction of the entire Southern system - a revolution greater than the North would need to undergo in being made over into a copy of the Austrian empire. Effacement no self-respecting people can accept. To escape this, the South was forced to secede. The South is responsible for secession only in so far as she is responsible for slavery. The participants in secession were the victims of those who converted the South to the belief that slavery was "a good."