again with his whole soul into problems that were chiefly
military. He did not realize that the crisis had come and gone
and that he had failed to grasp the significance of the internal
political situation. The Government had failed to carry the
elections and to secure a working majority in Congress. Never
again was it to have behind it a firm and confident support, The
unity of the secession movement had passed away. Thereafter the
Government was always to be regarded with suspicion by the
extreme believers in state sovereignty and by those who were
sullenly convinced that the burdens of the war were unfairly
distributed. And there were not wanting men who were ready to
construe each emergency measure as a step toward a coup d'etat.



Chapter VI. Life In The Confederacy

When the fortunes of the Confederacy in both camp and council
began to ebb, the life of the Southern people had already
profoundly changed. The gallant, delightful, carefree life of the
planter class had been undermined by a war which was eating away
its foundations. Economic no less than political forces were
taking from the planter that ideal of individual liberty as dear
to his heart as it had been, ages before, to his feudal
prototype. One of the most important details of the changing
situation had been the relation of the Government to slavery. The
history of the Confederacy had opened with a clash between the
extreme advocates of slavery--the slavery-at-any-price men--and
the Administration. The Confederate Congress had passed a bill
ostensibly to make effective the clause in its constitution