Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/276

240 territorial expansion. The thirteen original States had existed as separate and independent sovereignties before the completion of the general government, and their people had not forgotten that they were the makers of the Constitution and of the United States. The new States, however, had been severally carved out of Federal territory, had been nurtured under the paternal colonial policy of the United States, and had received statehood as a gift from Congress. The people of these created States, therefore, looked to the general government as the source of power and the creator of States. Thus, the theory of &quot;consolidated government,&quot; aided by the progress of the slavery agitation, ignoring the testimony of history and the deductions of logic, grew as a national sentiment.

In 1861, the Southern people realized that their equality in the Union was lost, that their domestic institutions were threatened, that the construction of the Constitution on which they relied for protection was overthrown. The alternative was presented of secession from the Union, or a precarious dependence on the justice and forbearance of the hostile party about to assume the reins of government, with every prospect of permanent control. The South chose the first alternative. Then came the great American tragedy—secession—coercion—war—emancipation—reconstruction.

It does not pertain to the purpose of this chapter to discuss either the causes or the conduct or the consequences of the Civil war. It was certainly not under taken for foreign conquest; yet, it was followed by the uniform result of all our wars—the acquisition of foreign territory. It was concluded in 1865, and was followed in 1867 by the acquisition of Alaska.

Shall we assign to the chronological sequence between the war of 1861-65 and the acquisition of Alaska the logical relation of cause and effect? It was certainly not an accidental coincidence. The acquisition of Alaska was