ink it can. One may at once dismiss the common illusion--for it is
often in such cases a genuine illusion, though sometimes a piece of
hypocrisy--which undoubtedly had possession of many Northern minds at
the time, that the Southern people did not really want to secede, but
were in some mysterious fashion "intimidated" by a disloyal minority.
How, in the absence of any special means of coercion, one man can
"intimidate" two was never explained any more than it is explained when
the same absurd hypothesis is brought forward in relation to Irish
agrarian and English labour troubles. At any rate in this case there is
not, and never has been, the slightest justification for doubting that
Secessionism was from the first a genuine popular movement, that it was
enthusiastically embraced by hundreds of thousands who no more expected
ever to own a slave than an English labourer expects to own a carriage
and pair; that in this matter the political leaders of the States, and
Davis in particular, rather lagged behind than outran the general
movement of opinion; that the Secessionists were in the Cotton States a
great majority from the first; that they became later as decided a
majority in Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee; and that by the
time the sword was drawn there was behind the Confederate Government a
unanimity very rare in the history of revolutions--certainly much
greater than existed in the colonies at the time of the Declaration of
Independence. To oppose so formidable a mass of local opinion and to
enforce opposition by the sword was for a democracy a grave
responsibility.

Yet it was a responsibility which had to be accepted if America was to
justify her claim to be a nation. To understand this certain further
propositions must be grasped.

First, the resistance of the South, though so nearly universal, was not
strictly national. You cannot compare the case with that of Ireland or
Poland. The Confederacy was never a nation, though, had the war had a
different conclusion, it might perhaps have become one. It is important
to remember that the extreme Southern view did not profess to regard the
South as a nationality. It professed to regard South Carolina as one
nationality, Florida as another, Virginia as another. But this view,
though it had a strong hold on very noble minds, was at bottom a
legalism out of touch with reality. It may be doubted whether any man
felt it in his bones as men feel a genuine national s