ships upon the waters had been set to catch the passing breeze--but the
application of stream to propel vessels against both wind and current,
and machinery to do all manner of work had not been thought of. The
instantaneous transmission of messages around the world by means of
electricity would probably at that day have been attributed to
witchcraft or a league with the Devil. Immaterial circumstances had
changed as greatly as material ones. We could not and ought not to be
rigidly bound by the rules laid down under circumstances so different
for emergencies so utterly unanticipated. The fathers themselves would
have been the first to declare that their prerogatives were not
irrevocable. They would surely have resisted secession could they have
lived to see the shape it assumed.

I travelled through the Northwest considerably during the winter of
1860-1. We had customers in all the little towns in south-west
Wisconsin, south-east Minnesota and north-east Iowa. These generally
knew I had been a captain in the regular army and had served through the
Mexican war. Consequently wherever I stopped at night, some of the
people would come to the public-house where I was, and sit till a late
hour discussing the probabilities of the future. My own views at that
time were like those officially expressed by Mr. Seward at a later day,
that "the war would be over in ninety days." I continued to entertain
these views until after the battle of Shiloh. I believe now that there
would have been no more battles at the West after the capture of Fort
Donelson if all the troops in that region had been under a single
commander who would have followed up that victory.

There is little doubt in my mind now that the prevailing sentiment of
the South would have been opposed to secession in 1860 and 1861, if
there had been a fair and calm expression of opinion, unbiased by
threats, and if the ballot of one legal voter had counted for as much as
that of any other. But there was no calm discussion of the question.
Demagogues who were too old to enter the army if there should be a war,
others who entertained so high an opinion of their own ability that they
did not believe they could be spared from the direction of the affairs
of state in such an event, declaimed vehemently and unceasingly against
the North; against its aggressions upon the South; its interference with
Southern rights, etc., etc. They denounced the Northerners as coward