find George H. Pendleton; James M. Ashley, the mover of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution; Samuel S. Cox, who as a wit had no equal in Congress since the days of John Randolph; Clement L. Vallandigham, whose somewhat erratic career brought him at least the credit of unlimited courage; and Robert C. Schenck, whose powers of leadership in the House threatened for a time the prestige of the "Great Commoner " from Pennsylvania.

It was at this time that Ohio began that remarkable career in National politics which no other State can parallel in our history, except Virginia.1

1 It is a notable fact that the three most famous generals of the Civil War were natives of Ohio - Grant, Sherman, Sheridan. Of the seven Presidents since the war, three, Hayes, Garfield, and McKinley, were born in and elected from Ohio, while two others, Grant and Harrison, were natives of Ohio. Vice-President Hendricks was born in Ohio; Cleveland's running mate in 1888, Allen G. Thurman, was an Ohioan; Harrison's running mate in 1892, Whitelaw Reid, is a native of the same State. The record is a very remarkable one and may not be duplicated by any State for centuries to come. It may be added that the two ablest Indian warriors ever known to the white race were both born on Ohio soil- Pontiac and Tecumseh.

CHAPTER IV

EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE CIVIL WAR

Cause of the War

THE cause of the great Civil War in America was slavery. Some writers have endeavored to show that there were various causes that brought about that great conflict; but they may all be condensed into one great, sweeping cause of causes slavery. The immediate occasion of the opening of hostilities was, as every one knows, secession; the war was essentially a war for the Union in its early stages, a war against secession; but secession was the outgrowth of the long strife engendered by slavery. The election of Lincoln precipitated secession, it is true; but why was Lincoln objectionable to the South? Because of his views and the views of his party on the extension of slavery. The fierce struggle for Kansas hastened the great con

flict; but that was a struggle for and against slavery; it was a child of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was a slavery measure. The Dred Scott deci

sion did much to widen the breach between the North and the South, but there would have been no Dred Scott decision without slavery.

It is true that the civilization of the South was quite unlike that of the North, that there was much prejudice on each side, and that the two sections had grown apart for many years; but the underlying cause of this difference was that slavery existed in the one section and not in the other. It is a fact that the people of the South loved their respective States better than they loved the Union; they honestly believed in State Sovereignty, miscalled States' Rights, and the conviction that they were defending their sovereign States from invasion did much to animate the common soldier in battle. But those who looked beneath the surface could not fail to see that the doctrine of State Sovereignty was not more accepted at the South than at the North

during the first decades of the government's existence, that it had been developed and nurtured by the South only as an effective weapon with which to fight the battles of slavery. The climate and soil of the South conduce to establish a different form of industry from that of the North, and in some degree they affect the general status and civilization of the people; but this slight difference could in no way engender a mortal strife between the two sections. Why should the Southern planter be less loyal to the Union which his fathers had aided in establishing than the Massachusetts manufacturer or the Ohio farmer? It was not so at the beginning of the century; it is not so to-day, since the apple of discord has been removed. In point of fact, there was but one basal cause of the long years of strife between the great sections of our country, resulting in the Civil War, and that was slavery.

Slavery was a political question and it was a moral question. The slaveholders sought

to extend their peculiar institution so as to maintain their political power and thus pre

vent unfriendly legislation in Congress.

But

as free labor and slave labor could not flourish in the same locality, the free States sought to restrict slavery, or at least to prevent its extension. Hence arose a strife in the National Legislature in the first quarter of the century, and it increased in violence for many years. The question was also a moral one. There was a large and increasing number of people in the North who believed slavery to be morally wrong. Hence arose the Abolitionists, the Lundys, the Lovejoys, the Garrisons, the John Browns. It is difficult to say which of these two forces was the stronger, the moral or the political. Certain it is that the two working together brought about the estrangement of the two great sections of the country, resulting finally in the great Civil War.

Beginning of the Long Strife

The friction between the North and the South on account of slavery was almost constant for forty years before the war. At times the agitation subsided, and the subject seemed to slumber for several years, when it