Before 1860, slavery was non-existent in all sections of the union except the tobacco, cotton and sugar cane belts. In upholding the institution of slavery, the south was opposed to the spirit of the age. Slavery was doomed by moral and economic pressure. It was a useless procedure for the south to demand the right to carry slavery into the western territory because it was unprofitable economically and was not wanted. For the same reason it was futile for the opponents of slavery to try to prohibit by law its extension westward—the westerners had no desire or use for it. It was this contention over slavery in western territory which was the abstraction over which the Civil War was fought.

Many people before 1860, saw the folly of this controversy. Governor Robert J. Walker of Mississippi recognized that the west would never be open to slavery, as did Stanton of Tennessee and Senator Toombs of Georgia. The status of slavery in the west had been automatically settled by the laws of nature. The two sections, however, cherished perverted ideas of each other. It was reported, and actually believed, in the north, that Senator Robert Toombs, of Georgia, had boastfully declared that he would call the roll of his slaves in Massachusetts.

The following incidents given in Macy's "Political Parties in The United States," pages 209 to 211, are illustrative of the state of public excitement preceding the Civil War. In an effort to dictate the slave policy of the west, Charlie B. Lines, a deacon of a New Haven congregation, had enlisted a company of seventy-nine emigrants for the war. A meeting was held in the church shortly before their departure, for the purpose of raising funds, at which many clergymen and members of the Yale College faculty were present. The leaders of the party announced that Sharpe's rifles were lacking and that they were needed for self-defense. After an earnest address from Henry Ward Beecher, the subscription began. Professor Silliman started the subscription with one Sharpe's rifle; the pastor of the church gave the second. Fifty was the number wanted. Then Beecher announced that if twenty-five were pledged on the spot, Plymouth Church would furnish the rest. Churches in both sections had by that time become agencies for propagating hatred. Another incident is a southern one. Colonel Bufort of Alabama sold a number of his slaves valued at $20,000, and invested the money to equip a troop of three hundred soldiers to fight for southern rights in Kansas. "The day that Bufort's battalion started from Montgomery they marched to the Baptist Church. The Methodist minister solemnly invoked the divine blessing on the enterprise; the Baptist pastor gave Bufort a finely bound Bible, and said that a subscription had been raised to present each emigrant with a copy of the Holy Scripture." This battalion left for the west armed with Bibles and Sharpe's rifles. The existence of such a condition of excitement made it an easy matter to precipitate war.

In political contests the natural tendency is for persons of extreme views to gain leadership—decided and partisan convictions are easily described and understood, whereas people of moderate and discreet judgment often lack conviction themselves and so cannot very well impress their views upon the masses. Garrison's extreme abuse of the south was met there with similar other extremes. The abolitionists had great sympathy for the oppressed but great hatred for the oppressor, and regarded the slave owner as personally responsible for slavery rather than as an agent of circumstances. Perhaps if the abolitionists had directed their appeal to the moral conscience of the south, avoiding sectional and personal abuse, secession would never have taken place. The south met this abuse by demanding that all anti-slavery publications be excluded from the mails. Books, papers, and all publications suspected of containing anti-slavery propaganda were taken from the mails and publicly burned at Charleston, S. C. There were many manifestations of disregard for the sanctity of the mails. The north judged the south by these extreme actions, and the efforts of the south to suppress anti-slavery agitation resulted only in greater propaganda for the abolitionists.

The public is quick to demand war, but is not so willing to accept its hardships. During the conflict it was necessary for both the north and the south to suspend civil liberties, including freedom of the press and speech. Expressions that might weaken war morale were punished—both sections suspended the writ of habeas corpus and arbitrarily imprisoned their citizens. About 38,000 people were imprisoned in the north while the number in the south is unknown. Both sections, as in all major wars, resorted to the draft to recruit soldiers. Yet, with all these weapons at their disposal, the northern army succeeded in enlisting only about 1,325,000 of its native white population out of a total of 23,000,000. Besides approximately 1,325,000 native whites, the northern army consisted of 300,000 whites from the south, 186,000 negroes, and 500,000 foreigners. Left to the voluntary support of its citizens neither section could have carried on the war, as no major war of modern times could have been fought with that voluntary support alone. The draft acts of both sections allowed for the employment of substitutes, which, of course, was hard on the poorer classes who could not employ substitutes, but the richer classes often avoided army service by this method. It is impossible to obtain an exact figure for the number of substitutes employed, but the Secretary of War under Davis considered 50,000 a low estimate for the Confederate army in 1864. Desertion was frequent on both sides. Rhodes estimates the number of deserters in the south at 100,000 in 1864.

Much has been heard of the heroism and sacrifice displayed during the conflict, but little of the crimes committed by both sections. Only the pleasant phases of the war have survived. When Joseph Holt and Robert Dale Owen were appointed by Secretary of War Stanton to adjust claims for materials supplied to the War Department, they found fraud at every turn, and before making their final report in July, 1862, secured deductions of nearly $17,000,000 from claims amounting to $50,000,000. One claim alone was reduced $1,000,000 and another was reduced $580,000. One senator had received $10,000 for securing an order from the War Department for a client. Colonel Henry S. Olcott, who was appointed special commissioner to investigate frauds, after a thorough examination of the facts announced that from 20% to 25% of the expenditures of the Federal treasury during the Civil War was tainted with fraud, and, according to his estimate, approximately $700,000,000 was paid through fraud. (See Rhodes, Vol. V, page 220.)

In commenting upon moral conditions during the conflict, the Springfield Republican said editorially: "It is a sad, a shocking picture of life in Washington, which our correspondents are giving us;—a Bureau of the Treasury Department made a home of seduction and prostitution; the necessities of poor and pretty women made the means of their debauchery by high government officials; members of Congress putting their mistresses into clerkships in the departments; whiskey drinking ad libitum." (See Rhodes, Vol. V, page 212.) These are some of the typical incidents of conditions in both sections, but text books in treating of this war, as of all others, present only those phases which glorify the conflict.

The cost of the Civil War, including the expenditures of both sections, pensions, destruction of property, and other indirect expenses, was $12,000,000,000. Its damage to the moral and spiritual development of the United States cannot be estimated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dodd, W. E.—The Cotton Kingdom.