The next three years (after the decision of the Kansas troubles) were marked by the unnatural quiet that forebodes the storm. Anti-slavery feeling was maturing in the North, and discontent and secession tendencies in the South.

1858.

May 11—Minnesota admitted into the Union as a State.

1859.

Feb. 14—Oregon admitted into the Union as a State. The admission of these two without any corresponding ones in the South indicated the strength of Northern sentiment, and that the South had given up the struggle in that way. John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, in this year, as showing the tone of Northern feeling, still further estranged the South from the Union.

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE CIVIL WAR

Was the inevitable result of an antagonism of interests, sentiments, and social structure in the two great sections of the Union—the North and the South. The foundation of these tendencies was laid before the formation of the Union, in early colonial times. The conflict commenced as soon as a close union was attempted, and the Constitution was adopted only through the personal influence of Washington and other statesmen of that time, and from the general conviction that it was essential to the protection of the new nation from England and other European powers. Some provisions of the Constitution involved a compromise between the North and the South; and a constant series of compromises was required to be arranged from time to time, down to this period.

The institution of slavery it was believed by many of the revolutionary fathers, would expire of itself at no distant time; but the value of the cotton cultivated at the South, and the intimate relations that slavery bore to the social life, made it profitable and agreeable to that section, and they held to it with great tenacity. Meanwhile the compromises of the Constitution grew more and more disagreeable to the North. The requirement of that instrument—that persons held to service in the South, and becoming fugitives in the North, should be returned by them—was objected to on humane and religious grounds, and they found slavery an industrial embarrassment. The enterprise and vigor of the northern population gave their section a more rapid growth, and its political power became continually greater.

But three ways of peacefully avoiding the conflict were open: the North must fully carry out the spirit of concession that gave birth to the Union, the South must consent, sooner or later, to abolish its peculiar institutions, or they must agree to separate. Interest, habit, and the aristocratic pride of the South forbade the second; while, in the North, interest, religious sentiment, and the workingman’s pride as decidedly forbade the first. The natural relation of the two sections, especially by the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, so essential to the commercial interests of the Western States: the improbability of maintaining amicable intercourse, with slavery in the South, and fugitives from it to produce constant irritation; the apparent probability that, if the right of dissolution were conceded, the West, and the Pacific States would follow this example; and the conviction that the true interests of the whole country, internal and external, required an indissoluble Union, inspired the majority of the northern people to resist disunion at every cost. On the other hand, the South claimed the right to depart in peace. Thus, war was inevitable; nor can it be correctly affirmed that any party, or any generation, or either section of the Union, was properly responsible for so lamentable a result. Each section, generation, and party follows the line of its own interest, ideas, and habits. It is a law of humanity, and each sees therein its duty and pleasure. While interests do not clash very seriously, while ideas are not sharply and clearly defined, and while habits are yet unsettled, compromises may be readily effected. Humanity, taken together, in the most advanced society heretofore known to men, is not yet capable of views so high, liberal, and far-seeing as to free it from the possibility of such conflicts. It will, however, reach that height, in the course of time.