The Life of Gen. Thos. J. Jackson, "Stonewall" / For the Young (Fourth Reader Grade), in Easy Words

by Mary L. Williamson

Tell about— Major Jackson’s appointment as professor in the Virginia Military Institute. His reasons for resigning his position in the army and accepting a professorship. His life at the Institute. His method of studying. His Sunday school for negroes. His strict observance of the Sabbath. His home life.

CHAPTER V.
A Confederate Colonel.

Before going on with the life of our hero, I must tell you, in a few plain and truthful words, the causes of the Civil War which in 1861 broke out between the States.

You remember that, after the Revolutionary War, the thirteen colonies agreed to form a Union, and adopted a set of laws called the Constitution of the United States.

From the very first, however, the States did not agree; in fact, laws which suited one section did not suit the other, so that there was always some cause for a quarrel.

At last, the question of slavery seemed to give the most trouble. You have been told that African slaves were first brought to Virginia in 1619 by the Dutch, and that afterwards English and Northern traders brought others, until all of the colonies held slaves.

The cold climate of the North did not suit the negroes, who had been used to the hot sun of Africa. So, by degrees, they were sold to Southern planters.

Many influential men North and South wished to see the slaves freed. But, as the slaves increased in the South, Southern men saw that a rapid abolition of slavery would be disastrous to both whites and blacks, because the negroes were not ready for it. As slavery decreased in the North, many Northern people did not realize this. Besides, the North did not wish slave labor to compete with the free labor of the North.

The North insisted that slaves should not be brought into the new States as they came into the Union. The South demanded that a slave-holder should be free to carry his slaves from one State into another.

Many Southern people also believed that the negroes were the happiest and best cared for working people in the world, and that the North was trespassing upon their just rights.