DRUM-BEAT OF THE NATION.

TH

CHAPTER I.

CAUSES WHICH BROUGHT ABOUT THE WAR.

HE war between the northern and southern sections of the United States, which began in April, 1861, and lasted till April, 1865, was a conflict of ideas and institutions. The moral and political causes which brought it about are so many that I think of them as I think of the rivulets springing from far-off mountain ranges, which united become a mighty river, broadening and deepening as it flows to the sea. The fountain-heads are far away.

In those days when Rome was mistress of the world, the Angles or Saxons of Germany lived in villages which were called tuns. Each man had the right of voting in tun meeting, which was held at the moot, or meeting place. The meeting was a parliament in which the majority ruled. Each tun was independent and sovereign, but ever ready to unite with other tuns against a common enemy. From the tuns along the shores of the Baltic Sea a band of Angles sailed across the German Ocean and landed in Britain, gaining a foothold on the banks of the Thames. They carried to Britain individual freedom, the organizing faculty, and obedience to the will of the majority. They conquered the country, making it Angle-land, or England.

We come down to an October day, 1066, when William of Normandy and his followers won the battle of Hastings on the white cliffs of Dover, conquering the Saxons, or Angles, dividing the land, giving the estates to the soldiers, with titles of honor to those who had been brave in the battle. Out of the victory came the barons, lords, earls, and dukes; the titled nobility of England on the one hand, and on the other the subjugated Saxons and Britains, who became the common people of England.

In all ages men have worshipped power, and have assumed that the conferring of a title made men noble; that the descendants of those thus honored, by some inexplicable process, were more worthy than the common herd of men. The nobility could look disdainfully down upon the multitude, regarding them as of inferior make, with the taint of low condition. in their blood.

From London, in 1606, sailed three vessels which bore the first permanent English settlers to America. Of the one hundred and five on board. the ships, four were carpenters, twelve laborers, four gold-refiners, while forty-eight regarded themselves as gentlemen, far superior to the joiners and carpenters. So it came about that class distinction, sense of superiority, and antagonism to labor were transplanted from English soil to the banks of the James, in Virginia. These features of society were made more prominent when the merchants who established the colony sent over indentured servants to work in the tobacco fields who could have no social rights, and they became a permanent force affecting the community, when a Dutch ship-master, in 1619, sailed up the James with sixteen slaves stolen from Africa, which were purchased by the planters.. In those years no one thought it wrong to steal or hold negroes or Indians in slavery. Sir John Hawkins, who engaged in the traffic, thought himself a special servant of God elected to bring blessings to the negroes, who would be better off as slaves in a Christian land than remain barbarians in Africa. Besides, it was very profitable. Little did that Dutch shipmaster, or any one else, comprehend what would be the outcome of that cargo of slaves-that the little rivulet would become a river-the migh-tiest of all the forces to bring about the greatest civil war of all the ages.

There came a time when there was trouble between King Charles and Parliament, resulting in civil war in Great Britain. Most of the noblemen sided with the King. They called themselves Cavaliers. To be a Cavalier was to be brave, to have exalted ideas of honor, and be quick to resent insult. To be spoken of as a true Cavalier was regarded as the highest praise. The King was defeated in battle and executed. Many of the men who had sided with him made Virginia their home, bought large tracts of land, owned slaves, and dispensed lavish hospitality. It was natural for them to regard themselves as superior to those who were obliged to labor for their bread. They believed in class distinction, gave direction to society, and left their impress upon the State. One of the emigrants was Sir John Washington, who had followed King Charles in all his misfortunes; but when the King lost his head, when the outlook for the future, as SirJohn saw it, was only dark and gloomy, he sold his old home in England,

bade farewell to all that was dear, crossed the Atlantic, and made himself a home in Virginia.

Following another rivulet, we are led back to that day when, by order of Henry VIII., King of England, a Bible was placed in every church throughout the realm. From reading it people began to think for themselves, and to obtain exalted ideas of the worth and dignity of man; that men have natural rights which cannot be justly taken away by king or bishop, or any one else.

Many of the parish ministers of England preached to the people to reform their lives, to stop their brutal sports-the fighting of cocks and dogs and worrying of bulls. Lords, ladies, king and queen, as well as the common people, delighted to see bull dogs tear each other to pieces. Men who reformed their lives and became zealous for a purer religion were derisively called Puritans by the rollicking Cavaliers, who found little pleasure in attending church or listening to a psalm or sermon.

The movement for purer morals began with the common people, some of whom met in their own houses for worship instead of attending church. Such independence could not be tolerated by King James and the bishops of the Church of England, and out of their persecutions came the flight of the men and women of the little hamlets of Scrooby and Austerfield to Holland, where they lived ten years, and then, fearing that their children would forget that they were Englishmen, determined to leave Holland, cross the Atlantic, and establish themselves in the wilderness of America. On the 16th of September, 1620, they bade farewell to all friends, sailing from Plymouth, England. They were one hundred and one persons. They were casting loose from all old things. They loved law and order. No one had given them authority to elect a governor, but nevertheless they chose one of their number-John Carver. In the cabin of the Mayflower, riding at anchor in the waters of Cape Cod, they signed their names to a compact organizing themselves as a body politic, agreeing to obey all the laws which they might make, and the governors whom they might choose. The world never before had seen such a paper or government. It was a constitution formed by a Christian people-the beginning of the government of the people.

The men of the Mayflower called themselves Pilgrims. They were poor; they were laborers. Labor was not only a necessity, but they regarded it as a duty-a blessing. Idleness, in their estimation, led to vice; industry to virtue.

In that company of one hundred and one persons there were no inherited privileges, no class distinctions conferred by birth or positions in so

ciety. A democratic State crossed the Atlantic to establish itself upon the barren shores of Massachusetts, on a soil and in a clime where growth was possible only through unremitting industry. On Sunday they assembled in their moot, or meeting-house, for worship, listening to the preaching of Elder Brewster, their bishop, elected by themselves. They elected their governor in the same building, where they discussed all questions affecting the welfare of the community, each man having the right to be heard and to hold up his hand in voting. The Saxon tun became the New England town-meeting. Each citizen cultivated his own land, and there were no large estates.

That their children might not grow up in ignorance, comprehending that ignorance is weakness and knowledge is power, they established free schools. With schools came the printing - press and the establishment of

newspapers.

In contrast, from the settlement of Virginia to the beginning of the war in 1861, in no Southern State was there a complete system of common schools. "I thank God," wrote Governor Berkeley, of Virginia, in 1671, "that there are no free schools nor printing in Virginia, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years."

During the reign of Queen Anne a corporation was formed in England under the title of the Royal African Company, organized for carrying on the slave-trade. It was composed of dukes, lords, nobles, and merchants. Queen Anne reserved one-quarter of the stock for herself. She instructed the Royal governors of the American colonies to give all possible encouragement to the trade, and it is estimated that several hundred thousand slaves were transported to America by the company. So many were brought that the colonists began to be alarmed, and Pennsylvania, in 1712, passed a law restricting the importation. Virginia, in 1726, imposed a tax on the slaves brought from Africa. In 1760 South Carolina enacted a law against the trade. All of these laws were disallowed by the English government. But there was no commercial enterprise which brought in such rich returns. Those engaged in it purchased molasses in the West Indies, shipped it to New England or to Old England, distilled it into rum which was sent to Africa, where it was exchanged for slaves captured in the wars between the negro tribes, which were transported to the West Indies and the American colonies. In 1772 the Virginia assembly sent an address to George III., pleading with him not to thwart their efforts to put a stop to the trade. "The interest of the country manifestly requires the total expulsion of the slaves," read the address. Thomas Jefferson and Henry Lee, of Virginia, were earnest in their efforts not only to put a