crossed and the Virginia hills (including Arlington heights) which
overlooked the Federal Capital, had been occupied and fortified by Union
troops; the young and gallant Colonel Ellsworth had been killed by a
Virginia Rebel while pulling down a Rebel flag in Alexandria; and
General Benjamin F. Butler, in command at Fortress Monroe, had by an
inspiration, solved one of the knottiest points confronting our armies,
by declaring of three Negroes who had fled from their master so as to
escape working on Rebel fortifications, that they should not be returned
to that master--under the Fugitive Slave Law, as demanded by a Rebel
officer with a flag of truce--but were confiscated "property," and would
be retained, as "contraband of war."

It was about this time, too, that the New Orleans Picayune fell into
line with other unscrupulous Rebel sheets, by gravely declaring that:
"All the Massachusetts troops now in Washington are Negroes, with the
exception of two or three drummer boys. General Butler, in command, is
a native of Liberia. Our readers may recollect old Ben, the barber, who
kept a shop in Poydras street, and emigrated to Liberia with a small
competence. General Butler is his son." Little did the writer of that
paragraph dream how soon New Orleans would crouch at the very feet of
that same General!

And now, while the armed hosts on either side are assembling in hostile
array, or resting on their arms, preliminary to the approaching fray of
battle, let us glance at the alleged causes underlying this great
Rebellion against the Union.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CAUSES OF SECESSION.

In preceding Chapters of this work, it has been briefly shown, that from
the very hour in which the Republic of the United States was born, there
have not been wanting, among its own citizens, those who hated it, and
when they could not rule, were always ready to do what they could, by
Conspiracy, Sedition, Mutiny, Nullification, Secession, or otherwise, to
weaken and destroy it. This fact, and the processes by which the
Conspirators worked, is very well stated, in his documentary "History of
the Rebellion," by Edward McPherson, when he says: "In the Slaveholding
States, a considerable body of men have always been disaffected to the
Union. They resisted the adoption of the National Constitution, then
sought to refine away the rights and powers of the General Government,
and by art