o have behind it a firm and
confident support, The unity of the secession movement had passed away.
Thereafter the Government was always to be regarded with suspicion
by the extreme believers in state sovereignty and by those who
were sullenly convinced that the burdens of the war were unfairly
distributed. And there were not wanting men who were ready to construe
each emergency measure as a step toward a coup d'etat.

Chapter VI. Life In The Confederacy

When the fortunes of the Confederacy in both camp and council began to
ebb, the life of the Southern people had already profoundly changed.
The gallant, delightful, carefree life of the planter class had been
undermined by a war which was eating away its foundations. Economic no
less than political forces were taking from the planter that ideal of
individual liberty as dear to his heart as it had been, ages before, to
his feudal prototype. One of the most important details of the changing
situation had been the relation of the Government to slavery. The
history of the Confederacy had opened with a clash between the
extreme advocates of slavery--the slavery-at-any-price men--and the
Administration. The Confederate Congress had passed a bill ostensibly
to make effective the clause in its constitution prohibiting the
African slave-trade. The quick eye of Davis had detected in it a mode of
evasion, for cargoes of captured slaves were to be confiscated and sold
at public auction. The President had exposed this adroit subterfuge in
his message vetoing the bill, and the slavery-at-any-price men had
not sufficient influence in Congress to override the veto, though they
muttered against it in the public press.

The slavery-at-any-price men did not again conspicuously show their
hands until three years later when the Administration included
emancipation in its policy. The ultimate policy of emancipation was
forced upon the Government by many considerations but more particularly
by the difficulty of securing labor for military purposes. In a country
where the supply of fighting men was limited and the workers were a
class apart, the Government had to employ the only available laborers
or confess its inability to meet the industrial demands of war. But the
available laborers were slaves. How could their services be secured? By
purchase? Or by conscription? Or by temporary impressment?

Though Davis and his advisers were prepared to face all the hazards
involved in the purc