d thought Secession expedient or
not, believed that each State was the rightful judge of its own course,
that the citizen's first allegiance was due to his State; and that the
attempt at coercion was as tyrannical as the refusal by Great Britain of
independence to the American colonies. And, apart from all political
theories, there instantly loomed on the horizon the armies of the North,
bearing down with fire and sword on the people of the Southern States.
The instinct of self-defense, and the irresistible sympathy of
neighborhood and community, prompted to resistance. Beyond doubt, the
typical Southern volunteer could say in all sincerity, as one of them
has expressed it: "With me is right, before me is duty, behind me is
home."

So natural and profound was the motive on each side, when the war began.
Wholly different from the moral responsibility of those who initiated
Secession, is the case of those who afterward fought for what to each
side was the cause of home and country. But, driven though both parties
felt themselves to war, none the less terrible was the war in itself.
There are difficulties from which the only escape is through disaster.
John Morley writes: "It is one of the commonest of all cheap
misjudgments in human affairs, to start by assuming that there is always
some good way out of a bad case. Alas for us all, this is not so.
Situations arise, alike for individuals, for parties, and for States,
from which no good way out exists, but only choice between bad way out
and worse." For the American people, in the situation into which by sins
of commission and omission they had been brought, the only way out was
one of the worst ways that human feet can travel.

It does not belong to this work to give a history of the Civil War. But
a truthful history might be written in a very different vein from the
accepted and popular narratives. These for the most part describe the
conflict in terms resembling partly a game of chess and partly a
football match. We read of grand strategic combinations, of masterly
plans of attack and admirable counter-strokes of defense. On the
battlefield we hear of gallant charges, superb rushes of cavalry,
indomitable resistance. Our military historians largely give us the
impression of man in battle as in the exercise of his highest powers,
and war as something glorious in the experience and heart-thrilling in
the contemplation.

But a succinct account of the whole business would