in the South, able to fight, to take up arms for his country. Death on the field was less terrible, even to cowards, than the scorn of the women of the South, who, if men failed were ready themselves to enter the ranks of the army. Planters, merchants, lawyers, clergymen, physicians, the flower of the Southern population flew to arms.

The unity of feeling in the South was a grievous disappointment to the North. The slaveholders were known to be but few in number—not amounting in all the seceded States to 300,000 persons, out of a white population of 6,000,000. It was supposed that the large class of non-slaveholders, and the poor whites unable to own slaves, would have different feelings and interests from those of the planters and slaveholders. Never was there a greater mistake. Never, in the world, perhaps, was a great population more thoroughly united. And, what may seem strange, it was found that Yankees and Northerners, who had resided in the South but a short time, Englishmen, Irishmen, and other foreigners, were all animated by the same feeling. There is no doubt that there were a hundred Northerners in the Southern army, and some in high command, for one Southerner in the armies of the North, if we leave out of the account the divided populations of certain border districts.

Even the great mass of the Southern negroes were faithful to their masters. At the beginning of the war, England's noblest poetess, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in her zeal against slavery exclaimed, "Why do not the negroes rise?" Every effort was used by the Government of the North to excite the negroes to insurrection, but without the least effect. The proclamation of freedom to all the slaves in the Rebel States on the 1st of January, 1863, fell dead. The negroes attended their masters in the field, dug in the trenches, brought intelligence to their friends and deceived the invaders. They worked on the plantations, with only women and old men to oversee them, and

raised food for the Southern armies. It was only late in the war when a large part of the South had been overun by the Northern invaders that some negro regiments were organised and became food for powder in the final campaign in Virginia. There has never been much love for negroes in the North, and there was less in the West. President Lincoln did not desire to make them citizens. He signed the Proclamation of their freedom reluctantly as a war measure only, and applying only to the slaves of rebels; but he was in favour of transporting the whole race to Africa, or Central America.

It is not probable that any country was ever shut up by a blockade, whose inhabitants were so dependent upon commerce and foreign supplies as the Confederate States of America. They produced an abundance of wheat, Indian corn, rice, sugar, beef, pork, and tobacco, great quantities of cotton, and some wool. But what a vast number of articles were brought from the North or from foreign countries! Clothing, from hats and bonnets to shoes, both inclusive, came from the North. Household furniture of every description was made in the North. Hardware, from an anchor to a cambric needle, was made in the Northern States or imported from England. Saddles, harness, carriages of all kinds, railway cars and locomotives, came from the North; tea and coffee, of course; spices and condiments; books and stationery; drugs and medicines. And these last, at the beginning of the war, were declared contraband by the Northern Government. So were surgical instruments. The war, from its beginning, was inhuman; a war upon the wounded and the sick-upon women and children, and feeble old age—a war of hatred and revenge against people who asked only for independence and peace. It was different in its spirit from a war against a foreign enemy. The Southerners were not common enemies, but rebels; and those who were proud of being the descendants of rebels were very mad against them and very cruel.

It is wonderful to what an extent the Southern people habitually depended on commerce to supply their wants. It was not necessary in many cases, but it was convenient. It was easier to raise cotton, and buy everything they required. Raising immense quantities of cattle, they made no leather, and got their shoes from Massachusetts and Connecticut. I was amused to see at Mobile in Alabama great piles of flagstones imported from Liverpool, while their own rich quarries were unworked. It is easy to imagine the condition of such a country blockaded for four years. Even pins and needles rose to fabulous prices. Tea and coffee were soon exhausted. Indigenous herbs were used for tea, and rye or corn were the common substitutes for coffee. French wines, which were largely used in the Southern cities, could only leak in in small quantities through the blockade.

There were a few cotton factories in the South before the beginning of the war, and the domestic manufacture of coarse cotton and woollen goods was pretty common. Every old spinning wheel was brought into requisition, and thousands of hand looms put in motion. The women of the South went to work with a will to clothe the army. Amateur concerts were given in Southern cities to supply regiments with clothing, where a pair of soldier's socks was the price of admission. The war developed to a considerable extent the industry and resources of the South. It opened mines of coal and iron, and built up foundries, forges, and manufactories of a hundred kinds. The people of the South exhibited an energy and a command of resources, as well as a heroism and devotion which astonished the Northern people, and won them the respect of the whole world.

CHAPTER. XL.

THE RIGHT OF SECESSION.

IN the practical politics of this world might makes right. Justice is with those who have the most artillery. As the North had three times the effective military population of the South, the navy that belonged to both, the command of the sea and the resources of the world to draw upon, it decided, after a contest of four years, and an immense expenditure of property and life that there was, or, at least, that there is, and henceforth shall be, no right of secession from the American Union. State Rights and State Sovereignty, so long the dominant doctrines of American politics were buried on the battlefields of Virginia. But I think it is just to the South and to those who sympathised with her in her gallant struggle for independence, that the American doctrine of State Sovereignty, State Independence, and State Rights, by which the smallest State in the American Union was intended to be the equal of the largest, and all free, sovereign, and independent, should be carefully set forth and illustrated. I give, therefore, the following facts, with all convenient brevity.

The colonies, before the revolution of 1776, were quite independent of each other, with separate governments for each.

They combined with each other in the War for Independence as separate and equal powers.

At the end of the war the King of Great Britain acknowledged their independence as separate and individual States. As such, they are named in the treaty of recognition.

The States existed as independent Governments before the formation of the Federal Constitution.

In the Convention of 1787, by which the Federal Constitu

tion was framed, each State, large or small, had but one vote. It was not a convention of the people, but of States.

Under the Constitution, each State, small and large, has two senators, and thereby equal power in the higher branch of the legislature. New York, with a population of five millions, has no more power in the Senate of the United States than Rhode Island or Delaware, with a quarter of a million.

The Constitution recognises the crime of treason against the individual States. The Federal Government cannot occupy an acre of land in any State, not even for a fortress, without the express grant of the legislature of that State. The Constitution declares that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people."

The principle of State Rights, admitted in the Federal Constitution, is expressly declared in the Constitutions of the several States. I copy first the following from the CONSTITUTION OF VIRGINIA :

"A Declaration of Rights made by the Representatives of the Good People of VIRGINIA, assembled in full and free convention; which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government. Unanimously

adopted June 12th, 1776.

66

1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity.

"2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees, and servants, and at all times amenable to them.

"3. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; and that where any government is inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath