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these latter questions, and for the arguments on each side, I have quoted Northern utterances and Southern utterances. These, with the "Remarks" inserted at the close of each chapter, will enable the careful reader, at a small expense of time, to obtain a knowledge of the principal sectional questions which have agitated the country from the first to the present time. He cannot fail to see that the same questions, under different forms, appear, disappear, and reappear, on the tide of time, as if they had not already been discussed, and as if one generation of politicians must again settle what had been regarded as settled by a former generation. Every political aspirant in each section has been ready to show his prowess in attacking some supposed political heresy in the other section, even though it had been often confuted; just as formerly every young churchman militant would try his arms in thundering on Hobbes's Steel Cap."

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Disguise it as we will, bitter feuds have existed between the North and the South, for a generation at least, reckoning a generation at thirty years. In that period men have come forward into life in each section who think of those born in the other section, only to hate them or despise them, or, at least, to misunderstand them. Where does the blame rest? Not solely on the North, nor solely on the South. Iliacos intra muros peccatur, et extra. The careful reader of this small volume will be satisfied that all the political intelligence and virtue of the country is not to be found north of Mason and Dixon's line, nor south of it; and that political and sectional pride, and intolerance, and hatred, and desire of office, confined to neither section, have brought the Union of the States to the verge of ruin.

When the rapid current of events in 1861 outran the fears of the ridiculed "Union-savers," and hurried on the dreaded catastrophe, the civil war, then begun, was but the logical sequence of foregoing events. Bitter feelings long cherished, bitter

words often uttered, injuries inflicted, insults offered, naturally germinated and grew into deeds of violence and blood. Dragons' teeth had been plentifully sown, and they started up armed men. And yet multitudes, at the time, were so ignorant of the prevalent sectional feelings and purposes, that, in surprise, they asked, "What are they fighting for?"

The people of the two sections of the country, are, to a large extent, ignorant of each other, and hence, in their estimate of each other's institutions, they are misled by illusions of the imagination.

For the purpose of distributing information among the people, this volume, which might be entitled "HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS," is offered to various classes of readers.

I. To all, whether North or South, who are ignorant of the political history of the United States, and who have not an opportunity of referring to original sources.

II. To all, whether North or South, who have strong sectional prejudices.

III. To all, whether North or South, who wish for the restoration and the preservation of the Union.

IV. To all, whether North or South, who wish to understand the causes of the war between the sections.

V. To all, whether North or South, who value the prosperity of the country more than they do the success of their party. VI. To all, whether North or South, who believe that merely defeating the armies of the Southern States will bring back the Union.

VII. To all, whether North or South, who wish to understand the constitutional relations between the States and the Federal Government.

VIII. To all, whether North or South, whose hearts, not limited by party or section, are large enough to embrace the interests of the whole country, and of all the States.

The final issue of the sectional controversy lies in the future, beyond the ken of mortal vision, wrapped up in the hollow of God's mysterious hand. He only, who presides over the destiny of nations, "sees the end from the beginning." But though thus limited in vision, man can gather from the past the lessons of wisdom for his guidance in the future. And may we not indulge the pleasing hope that the people of the States, gathering wisdom from the mistakes of the past, in the sectional controversy, may become qualified to enjoy, in the long future, the blessings of union under the FEDERAL CONSTITUTION?

W. C. F.

NEW YORK, 1862.

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