The annexation of Texas was the next step in the great evolution leading to disunion and war. With that event came a tremendous enlargement of the domain of slavery and the reawakening of the agitation. Those who opposed the Mexican War did so, not so much because of the injustice of the conflict, as because of the fact that thereby the area of slave territory would be vastly extended. Next, in 1854, came the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. The Missouri Compromise was repealed, and the whole question opened anew. By this time the character and civilization of the Northern and Southern people had become widely different. A much more general cause of the Civil War was the want of intercourse between the people of the North and the South. Obeying those cosmic laws by which the population of the earth has always been distributed, the people west of the Alleghanies had been car ried to their destinations in channels flowing from the east to the west-never from the north to the south. The artificial contrivances of civilization had been arranged along the same lines. The great railroads and thoroughfares ran east and west. All migrations had been back and forth in the same course. Between the North and the South there had been only a modicum of travel and interchange of opinion. The people of the two sections had become more unacquainted than they were even at the time of the Revolution. The inhabitants of the North and the South, without intending it, had become estranged, jealous, suspicious. They misrepresented each other's beliefs and purposes. They suspected each other of dishonesty and ill-will. Before the outbreak of the war, the people of the two sections had come to look upon each other almost in the light of different nationalities.

Still a fourth cause may be found in the publication and influence of sectional books and writings. During the twenty

years preceding the war many works were published, both in the North and the South, whose popularity depended wholly or in part on the animosity and distrust existing between the two sections. Such books were frequently filled with ridicule and falsehood. The manners and customs, the language and beliefs, of one section were held up to the contempt and scorn of the people of the other section. The minds of all classes, especially of the young, were thus prejudiced and poisoned. In the North the belief was fostered that the South was given up to inhumanity, ignorance and barbarism, while in the South the opinion prevailed that the Northern people were a selfish race of mean, mercenary, cold-blooded Yankees.

To these antecedents must be added, in the next place, the evil influence of demagogues. It is the misfortune of republican governments that they many times fall under the domination of bad men. In the United States the dema

gogue has enjoyed special opportunities for mischief. In the sixth decade of the century American statesmanship and patriotism were at a low cbb. Ambitious and scheming men had obtained control of the political parties and made themselves leaders of public opinion. The purposes of such were selfish in the last degree. The welfare and peace of the country were put aside as of little value. In order to gain power and keep it, many unprincipled men in the South. were anxious to destroy the Union, while the demagogues. of the North were willing to abuse the Union in order to accomplish their purposes.

To all these causes must finally be added a growing public opinion in the North against the institution of slavery itself-a hostility inborn and inbred against human chattelhood as a fact. The conscience of the nation began to struggle, and the belief was more and more entertained that slavery was a civil and social crime per se, and ought to be

destroyed. This opinion, this conviction, comparatively feeble at the beginning of the war, was rapidly developed, and had much to do in determining the direction and final issue of the conflict. Such in brief were the principal causes which led to the Civil War in the United States, one of the most terrible and bloody strifes of modern times.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE struggle now impending was between the supremacy of the Union, upheld by the government at Washington and supported by the populous Northern States, on the one side, and the new Confederate government established at Richmond, backed by the forces of the South and the whole power of the ancient slaveholding system, on the other. The war proper may be said to have begun on the 24th of May, 1861. On that day the Union army crossed the Potomac from Washington City to Alexandria. At this time Fortress Monroe, at the mouth of the James, was held by General B. F. Butler, with twelve thousand men. In the immediate vicinity, at a place called Bethel Church, was a detachment of Confederate under command of General Magruder. On the 10th of June a body of Union troops was sent to dislodge them, and was repulsed with considerable losses. Such was the opening scene in Old Virginia.

West of the mountains the conquest of the State had been undertaken by a Union army under General George B. McClellan. In the latter part of May General' Thomas A. Morris, commanding a force of Ohio and Indiana troops, advanced from Parkersburg to Grafton, and on the 3d of June attacked the Confederates at Philippi. In this fight the Federals were successful, and the Confederates retreated towards the mountains. At this juncture General McClellan arrived, assumed command, and on the 11th of July gained a victory of some importance at Rich Mountain. General Garnet, the Confederate commander, fell back to Cheat

destroyed. This opinion, this conviction, comparatively feeble at the beginning of the war, was rapidly developed, and had much to do in determining the direction and final issue of the conflict. Such in brief were the principal causes which led to the Civil War in the United States, one of the most terrible and bloody strifes of modern times.