The Missouri Compromise—its enactment and repeal, the controversies as to the power of Congress to prohibit slaveholders from migrating with their slaves into the territories, the enactment by Congress of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and the attitude of certain Northern States in attempting to defeat its execution, the Underground Railroad, the decision in the Dred Scott case, the armed conflicts in Kansas, the John Brown Raid and the sympathy evinced at the North for the man and his venture; and finally:
The asserted right of the Cotton States to withdraw from the Union, and the declared purpose of the Federal Government to defeat their aspiration by force of arms.
Add to all the foregoing the vision of mighty armies struggling for mastery, the terrors and miseries of war—contrasted with the heroism and devotion which it aroused, and there results a combination of causes which will continue to make their compelling appeal to the hearts and imaginations of men.
THE ISSUES INVOLVED
If the causes of the war were manifold and perplexing, the exact object for which each of the contending parties did battle is only less difficult of precise definition. A brief consideration of some of the many forms in which the popular voice has sought to express the conception will serve to illustrate the truth of this suggestion.
"The North fought to preserve the Union—the South, to destroy it."
That one great element of the Northern people took up arms at the call of the Federal Government to prevent a dismemberment of the Union is undoubtedly true. That another element regarded the maintenance of the Union under the existing constitution as unworthy of effort is equally true. The first went forth at the earliest call to preserve the Union under the old constitution; the second came later to the battle to fight for a Union with a constitution which should decree the abolition of slavery. That the Southern people sought to establish the independence of their new Confederacy and to that extent a dismemberment of the Union is true, but that they desired the destruction of the Union and the principles of liberty and law which its establishment was designed to assure are conclusions not easily deducible from their aspirations or necessities.
"The North fought for empire, the South for independence."
That the North fought to keep within the limits of the Union the domain stretching from the Potomac to the Rio Grande is true, but that the great mass of her people were actuated by a desire to hold the land as tributary and its people as subjects is not true. The splendid ideal of a Republic, stretching from ocean to ocean, and securing to its growing millions the dual blessings which spring from National integrity and home rule, we may well believe was ever before them. That one great element of the Southern people fought for independence and all the inspiring ideals which the term implies is true, though it is equally true that joined with them in the battle were states the dominant elements of whose people cherished no primal desire for separation from the Union, but resisted the authorities of the latter because of their convictions that its policy of coercion was illegal and destructive of the principle upon which the Republic had been founded.
"The North fought to destroy slavery; the South, to extend and maintain it."