d
especially the latest army appointments--these and kindred subjects
were canvassed with heat equaled only by ignorance. Men from every
section of the South defended their own people in highest of keys and
no little temper; startling measures for public safety were offered and
state secrets openly discussed in this curbstone congress; while a rank
growth of newspaper correspondents, with "the very latest," swelled the
hum into a veritable Babel. And the most incomprehensible of all was
the diametric opposition of men from the same neighborhood, in their
views of the same subject. Often it would be a vital one, of doctrine,
or of policy; and yet these neighbors would antagonize more bitterly
than would men from opposite parts of the confederation.

Two ideas, however, seemed to pervade the entire South at this time
which, though arrived at by most differing courses of reasoning, were
discussed with complacent unanimity. One was that keystone dogma of
secession, "Cotton is king;" the second, the belief that the war,
should there be any, could not last over three months. The causes that
led to the first belief were too numerous, if not too generally
understood also, to be discussed here afresh; and upon them, men of all
sections and of all creeds based firmest faith that, so soon as Europe
understood that the separation was permanent and a regular government
had been organized, the power of cotton alone would dictate immediate
recognition. The man who ventured dissent from this idea, back it by
what reason he might, was voted no better than an idiot; if, indeed,
his rank disloyalty was not broadly hinted at.

But the second proposition was harder still to comprehend. There had
already been a tacit declaration of war, and overt acts were of
frequent commission. As the states seceded, they seized the arsenals,
with arms and munitions; the shipping, mints and all United States
property, only permitting the officers to go on their parole.

The North was already straining preparation to resent these insults
offered to the power and to the flag of the Union. The people were of
one race, embittered by long-existent rivalries and jealousies as
strangers can never be embittered; and the balance of numbers, of
capital and of machinery were on the other side. These causes, as they
were without fresh incentives that needs must follow war, seemed
sufficient to convince reasoning men that if the storm burst, it would
be as enduring