Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/291

Rh country was quelled by the agreement upon the dividing line of 36° 30’. &quot;The Missouri question marked a distinct era in the political thought of the country, and made a profound impression on the minds of patriotic men. Suddenly, without warning, the North and the South found themselves arrayed against each other in violent and absorbing conflict. &quot; The annexation of Texas was urged because it increased the area of the Union, and was opposed because its addition to the States gave preponderance to the South.

Thus it is seen that the early sectional rivalries had no vital connection with slavery, and it will appear that its extinction will not of itself extinguish the fires that have so long burned between North and South. The great American conflict began through a geographical division of America made by the cupidity of an English king. It was continued for financial, economic, commercial and political reasons. A false idea of duality a North and South in the United States has been deeply rooted in the American mind.

To understand the causes which produced the Confederate States of America, all the various incidents which successively agitated the fears of either section that the other would gain an advantage, must be held steadily in view. This sectional ambition to secure and maintain the preponderance of political power operated through various incidents in colonial times, then in those which attended the formation of the Constitution, also in subsequent incidents such as the location of the capital; the appropriations of money for internal improvements; the war of 1812; the acquisition of Southern territory; the tariff issue and the distribution of government offices and patronage. One after another of these controversies subsiding, a period approached when slavery itself became the main incident of this long-continued sectional rivalry. Slavery, on coming so conspicuously into notice as to be the main ground of contention between North