Though the consumption of confections is pretty well distributed over the Union, it appears that the largest share compared with population is found in that part of the West bounded east and south by the Ohio River, and west by the Mississippi. Nor is this matter of taste confined to the mere element of quantity. Whilst the people of the United States have a strong affinity for sweetmeats of some kind, and consume more than any other nation in the world, they are equally fastidious in their choice of goods. What suits one section is unpopular in another. This diversity of popular taste is particularly noticeable in the choice of flavorings. Thus, in the North, winter green is most in favor; in the South peppermint, whilst in the Southern seaboard States a decided preference is shown for sassafras. of the chemistry of sugar, and of its treatment for the | Union. Thus, for instance, the local statistics of Chivarious purposes to which it is to be applied. Pure cago show that the sales of confectionery in all its cane sugar melts at a temperature of 320° Fahr. ; crys- forms during the year 1880 foot up a valuation of tallized glucose, or grape sugar, at 187°; and the $3,000,000-two concerns alone doing a combined anhydrous, or glucose proper, at 270°. When sugar business of over $2,000,000 a year. This is a fraction and glucose are mixed the point of melting will de- over the whole production of the 27 establishments pend on the proportion of each to the mass; and it is accredited to Chicago in the United States Census for in calculating this relation in each case that the art of that year. The same remark applies to New York, sugar- and of course candy-making largely consists. Philadelphia, and all other large cities similarly sitThe next step is to ascertain the amount of boiling uated. needed to bring the sugar to the proper condition, and this varies with the class of goods to be made. Where pure cane sugar alone is used, the following degrees serve most purposes: 1. The Smooth. This degree is reached at 215° to 220° Fahr., and is ascertained by immersing the thermometer in the pan. At this point the sugar is used for crystallizing creams, gum goods, and liqueurs. 2. The Thread, at 230° to 235°, for making liqueurs. 3. The Feather, at 240° to 245°, for making fondants, rich creams, cream for chocolates, and fruit-candying. 4. The Ball, at 250° to 255°, for making cocoanut-ice, cocoanut, and other nut candies, and most grained sugars. 5. The Crack, at 310° to 315°, for making all kinds of drops, toffees, rocks, and all clear goods. There is also the Caramel, at 320°, used for making confections of that name. This is the highest point at which sugar can be kept on the fire without burning. Where refined sugars are to be used it is of the greatest importance to know that when boiled above the Ball, or 250 degrees, they are grainy, and when turned out of the pan and allowed to cool will be simply hard-candied sugar, unfit for further use. To prevent this the grain must be "cut" by the addition of cream of tartar. This ingredient makes the sugar pliable when hot, and transparent when cold; and hence its use for making drops, rocks, toffees, and clear goods. The usual proportion of this ingredient is oz. to every 8 to 10 lb. boil of sugar. Glucose is equally effective in preventing crystallization, and being harmless, and at the same time cheaper, it is rapidly displacing cream of tartar. According to the census returns of the Bureau of Statistics there were in 1880 in the United States and Territories 1450 manufacturers of confectionery, with a combined capital of $8,486,874, employing 6157 male adults, 2827 adult females, and 817 children, or a total force of 9801. The amount paid annually in wages is $3,242,852, for materials $17,125,775, and the value of the products for that year is put down at $25,637,033. A comparison of the States shows that New York takes the first rank, her proportion being 25 per cent. of the whole, and Pennsylvania second, with 20 per cent., the two combined containing nearly half the establishments of the entire country, and holding the same relation as to the value of the products. Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, and Maryland come next in the order named, but in these States the production, as compared with New York and Pennsylvania, is largely in excess of the number of establishments, owing to the fact that the business is chiefly centred in a few cities, such as Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and Baltimore, where it is conducted on a very large scale by comparatively few houses. The returns from twenty of the leading cities of the Union show an aggregate production of $17,921,929, or nearly 70 per cent. of the entire country. Among these cities New York heads the list, having 187 establishments, and showing a production of $4,592,622. Philadelphia follows with 173 establishments and a production valued at $2,653,074; Chicago third, with only 24 factories and a production valued at $1,953,558, and Boston fourth, with 33 factories and producing goods estimated at $1,606,214, the next in order being St. Louis and Baltimore. Imposing as these figures are they are quite misleading as to the real magnitude of the business. They take no account of the foreign goods consumed here, or of the large amount produced by small dealers and retailers in all sections of the One peculiar feature of this important industry in the United States is that there is no local specialty in any city or section; for though many of the most popular goods had their origin in the inventive brain of some individual, and for a while the inventor was able to guard the secret, it was soon discovered and imitated. The "A. B. gum-drop," for instance, is said to have been first introduced to the trade by a German confectioner of New York city a few years ago; cocoanut caramel and walnut candy in Philadelphia by a German and his wife about the year 1869, and "soft Imperial pan-work" by a manufacturer of New York city in 1868. All these and many other standard goods of purely American origin are now made by confectioners everywhere the only distinction recognized being based on the real or supposed superiority attached to the individual brands. In the manufacture of machinery and tools used by confectioners circumstances have combined to create specialties in certain lines. Thus Philadelphia is conspicuous among the large cities of the United States as the headquarters for machinery, tools, and most utensils used in the trade, a branch of industry which is carried on here on a more extensive scale than in any other city. New York city, in the same way, enjoys a monopoly of the copper work used by manufacturers, whilst all the delicate machinery used for making chocolate is imported from France, where it originated. Among the causes which have led to the remarkable growth of this industry is, first, the general introduction of machinery and implements, which, besides enlarging the productive capacity of the numerous establishments, has improved the quality of the goods; secondly, the rapid increase in the population of the country; thirdly, the general prosperity of the country. In Europe the laboring classes cannot afford to indulge in luxuries of any kind, and least of all in sweetmeats; and hence confectioners are driven to depend for their support and patronage on a very small fraction of the populations of the respective countries. In the United States, on the contrary, the industrial classes are by far the largest consumers. Lastly, the low prices at which confections are sold being the result of cheap production as compared with Europe, have largely aided in the development of the industry. It reflects no little credit on the ingenuity and enterprise of American manufacturing confectioners that notwithstanding the higher cost of material, labor, capital, rents, etc., the most popular goods, such as caramels, plain and fancy cream bonbons, creams, and nougats, are fully 50 per cent. cheaper in any of our large cities than the same grades of goods in Paris 66 Vienna, or London; without detracting in the least after the formal inauguration of the Constitution in from the credit due to the French or German confec- March, 1789, two States, Rhode Island and North tioners for their discoveries and progress in the art, Carolina, had for considerably more than a year refused the American representatives in the trade have done, to ratify the Constitution, or take part in the governand are still doing, more to popularize the manufacture ment; and yet their troublesome independence had and consumption of confections than all Europe com- been submitted to by the other States until "volunbined. The result of the causes referred to are appa-tary" ratification ended the difficulty. In 1861 there rent even to the most superficial observer. More were some far-seeing men in the North and West, like confections are made and sold in the three cities of Gov. Andrew, of Massachusetts, who ordered arms New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, with a com- and prepared for war; there were others, like Seward, bined population little more than the single city of who looked to Canadian annexation to make good a Paris, than in the whole of France. In each of these confessed loss; but to the great mass of the people centres goods are made by the ton, and often sold in the status of South Carolina and the other seceding single orders ranging from ten to fifty barrels each. States seemed quite on a par with that of Rhode Transactions on a similar scale are entirely unknown in Island and North Carolina in 1789-90. Neither in any other country in the world. To sum up in a single 1789 nor in 1861 was there any definite idea of the sentence, the confectionery industry of the United method by which the problem was to be solved; but States has already attained vast proportions, its de- in both cases there was the same reliance on natural velopment is steadily onward, and its possibilities in forces, the same characteristic American confidence the future practically unlimited. (E. H.) that the solution would be reached "somehow.' And CONFEDERATE STATES. The organization of in the South the feeling was generically similar. We the Confederate States of America" in 1861, as an have the emphatic testimony of a competent observer, independent government, is now commonly regarded Alexander H. Stephens, that the "wavering scale as the result of a conspiracy, for the reasons which in the essential State of Georgia was turned by one follow. A distinction may be properly made between cry, "We can make better terms out of the Union secession, the withdrawal, or attempt to withdraw, than in it.' It was hard, at the best, to carry a mafrom the National Union, and the organization of the jority of Southern voters into secession, with all its Confederate States. The former was only an abnormal vague idea of only a temporary suspension of union, development of the particularist side of American and every motive of pride, passion, prejudice, interest, politics, brought to a head by the sectional differences and even terror, had to be invoked to do it. Had the caused by negro slavery. The particularist notion that spectre of a Southern national government, and its the union was a league, a voluntary association" of inevitable war with the United States, been as familiar States for mutual benefit, was extremely common to Southern voters as to Southern politicians, it is everywhere until after the end of the war of 1812, difficult to name any State outside of South Carolina though its corollary, the right of secession, was either which would have seceded; and we have Gov. Gist's unthought of or kept out of sight, except in such confidential letter to other Southern Governors, in isolated instances as the Virginia and Kentucky res- October, 1860, to assure us that South Carolina's olutions of 1798, from which it may perhaps be drawn secession, without assured support by one or more by argument, and Tucker's edition of Blackstone's other States, was Commentaries in 1803, in which it is completely formulated. There was very little national feeling at any time, and it is hardly too strong an assertion to say that the national government owed its continued existence during this period to its control of the great western territory, in which States and individuals had a common interest. After 1815, the national idea grew rapidly and increasingly in those States in which slavery had ceased to exist, (1) because of the growth of manufactures, banking, commerce, and other interests which ignored or were embarrassed by State lines; (2) because of the rapid internal transfer of population to new States without historical associations; and (3) because of the increasing influx of foreign immigrants, who sought and thought of only the United States, not a particular State. From all these influences, with the possible exception of the second, the South was completely shielded by slavery, and the idea of State sovereignty remained as strong there as ever. Indeed, by a reactionary movement, it had grown stronger in 1860 than in 1787-88, and community of interest had given it the more dangerous character of sectional Sovereignty. But, though the two sections were thus drifting apart, the political vocabulary of the North and West remained unchanged, and such phrases as "the confederacy" and "the voluntary nature of the Union" were very frequently used by men of all parties, who either forgot that they implied a right of secession, or did not see that they had already collapsed under New England's experience before and during the war of 1812, and that unseen physical forces had given the Union a stronger than "voluntary" character. Even the idea of secession, for which the way had been paved by consistent theory in one section and by a survival of political phrases in the other, was not at first generally terrible in 1860-61, for there was a vague feeling that the process, however extraordinary, was nothing more than a final summons to the other States to compromise national difficulties. Even very doubtful." For all these reasons, secession, pure and simple, was looked upon at the North, until very late in January, 1861, as no finality, but as the last desperate effort of a minority to compel some compromise which both it and the incoming administration of President Lincoln would be glad to accept. President Lincoln's inaugural in March, 1861, declaring his intention to collect duties and to continue the mails, "unless repelled," but not "to force obnoxious strangers into any locality "where hostility to the United States shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding federal offices," seems to mark his acceptance of a policy which, impossible as it had then come to be, was at least in the line of the idea which had at first been generally entertained of the design and possible results of secession. But the organization of a new national government by the seceding States was a very different matter. Secession, so long as it looked to individual State action alone, was at the worst a negation of national authority for a longer or shorter period; but here was a distinct affirmation of a new power, whose recognition would end the Union, in its old form, forever. Such an affirmation was desirable only to the politicians, as a means of coercing the allegiance of the doubtful mass of voters. It was made in every case by the State conventions, without reference to or ratification by the popular vote. was proposed in the first instance by a few great leaders at Washington, whose influence over their respective State conventions was very great. It is not wonderful, then, that the story of a secret meeting of the senators of the seven original seceding States, at Washington, Jan. 5, 1861, of its decision to force through the organization of a national government, of its appointment of an executive committee headed by Jefferson Davis, and of its dictation of the whole course of procedure, has been accepted by all historians, North and South, without any great search for its authority. It rested originally on an anonymous It letter to a Washington newspaper four days after the cess was closely similar, omitting the declaration of date of the meeting, but has since been confirmed by causes. In this manner ordinances of secession were several detached items of evidence; and the least that passed by the State Conventions of Mississippi, Jan. can be said of it is, that it is not at all improbable. It 9, 84 to 15; Florida, Jan. 10, 62 to 7; Alabama, Jan. is for these reasons that the organization of the Con- 11, 61 to 39; Georgia, Jan. 19, 208 to 89; Louisiana, federate States government, rather than the antecedent Jan. 25, 113 to 17; and Texas, Feb. 1, 166 to 7. The act of secession, is usually termed a conspiracy, the ordinance was submitted to the people for ratification few Washington leaders being the conspirators, and in but one State, Texas, and there only because the the mass of Southern slave-owners and politicians being convention was an entirely revolutionary body, called rather active supporters than admitted participants. by private persons, the Legislature not being in sesThe event which crystallized the theory of secession sion, and it needed some vestige of authority. into practice was the election of President Abraham The act of secession, though only a stepping-stone, Lincoln in November, 1860. While the United States was a most important one. Under the State sovereignty extended only to the Mississippi, the Ohio furnished theory, the primary allegiance of the citizen was due to a safe boundary between new slaveholding and non- the State, and his obedience, or secondary allegiance, to slaveholding States. When migration passed the the Union of which his State was a member. By the Mississippi, the dividing line was lost. Louisiana, dissolution of the Union the allegiance of the citizen when acquired in 1803, was a slaveholding territory was due only to the State, whose sovereignty was repreby French and Spanish law, and Congress took no sented now by the conventions. These did not finally steps to prohibit slavery therein. Consequently slavery adjourn after the act of secession, but, by concert of spread over the intervening Territory of Arkansas into action, elected delegates to a Congress at Montgomery, Missouri, which was a slave State when admitted in Ala., Feb. 4, and continued in existence. The "pro1821. With its admission was coupled a proviso pro-visional" Congress, of one house, met at the time and hibiting slavery for the future in the remainder of the place appointed, though the Texas delegates were not Louisiana purchase, north of latitude 36° 30'. The appointed until ten days later. Each State had one whole was known as the Missouri compromise. When vote. A provisional constitution, being that of the California, Utah (including Nevada), and New Mexico (including Arizona) were acquired from Mexico in 1848, a conflict between the two sections, so much stronger in wealth and population, was a more serious matter than in 1821. After a struggle of more than two years, the compromise of September, 1850, admitted California as a free State, ignoring the question of slavery in Utah and New Mexico, and gave the South a more stringent fugitive slave-law. This last item proved highly unpopular in the North and West, but was submitted to. In 1854 the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska were organized. Both were part of the Louisiana purchase, and north of the line of 36° 30', and hence were free territory by the Missouri compromise; but, most unfortunately, the Northern Democratic leaders conceived the idea that political consistency called upon them to follow the same plan with Kansas and Nebraska as with Utah and New Mexico. The result was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which effusively proclaimed its neutrality as to slavery, and thus repealed the Missouri compromise, with its prohibition of slavery. The secondary results never stopped short of war. The Republican party was instantly organized, its leading tenet being the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the Territories. In the struggle, 1855-58, between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers for the control of Kansas, the former were defeated, in spite of the Dred Scott decision in 1857, in which the Supreme Court affirmed the constitutional existence of slavery in a Territory, whenever an owner should see fit to carry a slave thither. In 1860 the National Democratic party split into two sections, and Lincoln and Hamlin were elected, having a majority of the electoral and a minority of the popular vote. Their election was the signal for action. The South Carolina Legislature, which was in session to choose presidential electors, called a State Convention. It met Dec. 17, unanimously adopted an ordinance, Dec. 20, repealing the State's ratification of the Constitution in 1788, and dissolving "the union between the State of South Carolina and other States under the name of the United States of America." Its declaration of causes for secession was extremely meagre. It consisted mainly of an argument for the abstract right of secession; and the causes were but two-one general, a loss of the identity of interest between the North and South which had made the Union possible, and one particular, the passage of "personal liberty laws by Northern States, intended to secure the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus to alleged fugitive slaves. In the other Southern States the pro United States with some changes, was adopted, Feb. 66 to the seven seceding States, retain the border States | the legislature until April 26, yielding then on finding in the Union, and supply losses by Canadian annexa- that the legislature was preparing to meet without his tions. Early in April he was at last overruled, and summons, but using his prerogative to call the meeting at the attempt was made to provision Fort Sumter. Frederick, in the Unionist district of the State. By Before this could be effected, the Confederate batteries this time Maryland had become a highway for Federal had forced the fort to surrender, April 12-14, and war troops in motion toward Washington, and the danger was begun. April 15, Lincoln, by proclamation, an- of a revolutionary secession was over. In Delaware nounced the existence of the rebellion, and called for there never was any danger; in January the legisla75,000 volunteers to suppress it; two days afterwards ture had almost unanimously declared its unqualified Jefferson Davis offered letters of marque and reprisal to disapproval" of secession and the organization of a private armed vessels against the commerce of the Confederate government. Before the meeting of United States, and privateers at once began to issue Congress, July 4, 1861, the lines were fairly drawn. from Southern ports; and on the 19th President Lin- The northern boundary of the Confederacy was a line coln declared a partial blockade of Southern ports, following the Potomac to its head-waters; thence S. which was made general on the 27th. May 6, the W. to Tennessee; thence W. along the northern Confederate Congress passed an act recognizing the boundary of Tennessee and Arkansas; and thence S. existence of war with the United States, and foreign W. through Indian Territory and along the western governments immediately began to declare their boundary of Texas to the Rio Grande. Some forty neutrality between the two belligerents. One im-counties of Western Virginia, repudiating the ordimediate result of the outbreak of hostilities was an nance of secession, held a State Convention at Wheelextension of the area of secession. The border States ing, June 11, vacated the positions of State officers, were willing to remain in the Union, at least tempor- and provided for an election of a new State legislature. arily, so long as its voluntary nature was recognized; This body gave the formal consent required by the but the first attempt at "coercion" drove most of Constitution to the erection of a new State within the them into secession. Their governors refused to obey limits of Virginia; and the new State of West Virthe call for troops, summoned their legislatures in ginia was admitted to the Union, June 19, 1863. To special session, and thus obtained the State Conven- counterbalance this loss, the Confederacy had treaties tions which the legislatures had hitherto refused to with most of the tribes of the Indian Territory, from authorize. Ordinances of secession were thus passed, which it drew recruits, and had possession of the 88 to 55, by the Virginia Convention, April 17, which southern tier of counties in Kentucky and Missouri, had hitherto refused to secede; by the Arkansas Con- to which States it had an inchoate claim, to be pervention, May 6, 69 to 1; and by the North Carolina fected, it hoped, at the conclusion of a treaty of peace. Convention, May 21; and all these conventions proceeded to ratify the provisional constitution and enter the Confederate States. The Virginia Convention was embarrassed by a popular majority of about 50,000, directing any ordinance of secession to be first submitted to popular vote. The convention, therefore, took the extraordinary course of concluding a military league" with the Confederate States, April 25, thus allowing Confederate troops to swarm over the State, so that the popular vote in June became a mere farce. The Tennessee politicians were swift and more radical in following the Virginia device. The legislature itself formed the military league and prepared the ordinance, May 7, which was similarly ratified by popular vote, June 8. In Missouri the State government was secessionist, but the State Convention adjourned in March, refusing to secede. Before it reassembled, July 22, the State government had undertaken war on its own account, had been beaten, and had been driven out of the State. The Convention proceeded to vacate their offices and order a new election, which gave the Unionists control of the State; but the fragments of the old legislature undertook to pass an ordinance of secession, of its own power, and enter the Confederate States. In Kentucky the governor at first attempted to exclude both Federal and Confederate troops from the State; but the Union majority of the State, though always pro-slavery, fought secession with uncommon vigor, and never lost their undisputed control of the State legislature and government. Nevertheless, representatives from particular districts in Kentucky, or from Kentucky regiments, were admitted to the Confederate Congress. In Maryland the whole burden of resistance to secession was thrown on the shoulders of one man, Governor Hicks. The secession of this State in Feb., 1861, would have enormously increased the chances of foreign recognition and the dangers of the situation, by installing the Confederate government at Washington as the de facto successor of the United States government. Governor Hicks held the key; no convention could be called but by the legislature, and the legislature was not in session and could only be sum-gress: (1) May 2 to June 15, 1864; (2) Nov. 7, 1864, to moned by the governor. In spite of an attempt to organize a revolutionary convention in February and March, like that of Texas, he staved off the meeting of 66 The provisional constitution was to continue in force one year. The permanent constitution was adopted by the provisional Congress, March 11, 1861, and was ratified by the State Conventions, or legislatures, before April 29. It followed the Constitution of the United States very closely, even in form, the following being the most important changes: It formally recognized State sovereignty; used the words "slaves" and "slavery" instead of the various euphemisms of the Constitution; gave the cabinet seats without votes, in Congress; lengthened the term of the re-election of the former; allowed the President to veto President and Vice-President to six years, and forbade the single sections in appropriation bills; forbade Congress to vote money for internal improvements, to pass protective tariffs, or to grant bounties; forbade removals from office, except for dishonesty, incapacity, inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty, the reasons to be reported to the Senate; tories "the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in and directed Congress to recognize and protect in the Territhe Confederate States." The first Presidential and Congressional election under this Constitution took place Nov. 6, 1861. Davis and Stephens were chosen to the respective offices then held by them, and were inaugurated Feb. 22, 1862, to serve until 1868. At the same time the provisional Congress of one house gave way to the permanent Congress, siding over the Senate, and Thomas S. Bocock, of Virginia, in which thirteen States were represented, Stephens preover the House. The Senate numbered 26, two from each State, the most distinguished members being C. C. Clay and W. L. Yancey, of Alabama; B. H. Hill and H. V. Johnson, of Georgia; A. G. Brown, of Mississippi; Wm. A. Graham, of North Carolina; R. W. Barnwell and James Wigfall, of Texas; and R. M. T. Hunter and Allen T. L. Orr, of South Carolina; Wm. S. Oldham and Lewis T. Caperton, of Virginia. A full House consisted of 106 members, as follows: Alabama, 9; Arkansas, 4; Florida, 2; Georgia, 10; Kentucky, 12; Louisiana, 6; Mississippi, 7 ; Missouri, 7; North Carolina, 10; South Carolina, 6; Tennessee, 11; Texas, 6; and Virginia, 16. The delegations from Kentucky and Missouri were fictitious and only submitted to as a basis for ulterior claims, but they disappeared in 1864. The sessions of Congress were as follows: Provisional Congress: (1) Feb. 4 to March 16, 1861; (2) April 29 to May 22, 1861; (3) July 20 to Aug. 22, 1861; (4) Nov. 18, 1861, to Feb. 17, 1862. First Congress: (1) Feb. 18 to April 21, 1862; (2) Aug. 12 to Oct. 13, 1862; (3) Jan. 12 to May 8, 1863; (4) Dec. 7, 1863, to Feb. 18, 1864. Second ConMarch 18, 1865. The cabinets, provisional and permanent, were as follows, the dates being those of appointment: State Department-Robert Toombs, Ga., Feb. 21, 1861; R. M. T. Hunter, Va., July 30, 1861; Judah P. Benjamin, La., Feb. 7, 1862. Treasury Department-Charles G. Memminger, S. C., Feb. 21, 1861; James I. Trenholm, S. C., June 13, 1864. War Department-L. P. Walker, Miss., Feb. 21, 1861; Judah P. Benjamin, La., Nov. 10, 1861; James A. Seddon, Va., March 22, 1862; John C. Breckin ridge, Ky., Feb. 15, 1865. Navy Department-Stephen R. Mallory, Fla., March 4, 1861. Attorney-General-Judah P. Benjamin, La., Feb. 21, 1861; Thomas H. Watts, Ala., Sept. 10, 1861; George Davis, N. C., Nov. 10, 1863. Postmaster-General-Henry J. Ellet, Miss., Feb. 21, 1861; John H. Reagan, Texas, March 6, 1861. the opposition in Congress was always strong; and Congress itself, through its committees, asserted successfully a control over the conduct of the war, which was often troublesome, but always characteristic. In the South, outside of its armies, there was a silence as of death; its Congress was a conclave of "Ja Herrs,' with hardly a thought of interference with the President's control of the war; there was no political struggle, excepting a contested election in North Carolina in 1863, and a symptom of another in Georgia in 1864; This article does not have to do with the military or and there never was any open opposition to the war naval history of the Confederate States, and from any down to the instant when the veil was finally removed, other point of view its career is but a sorry picture. and it was found that the popular unanimity was fal Its political history is almost an absolute blank, its lacious, and that the people were in reality thoroughly diplomatic history a series of failures, and its financial tired of the war. For such a contrast no one man history a series of blunders. Such a record demands can be responsible; a clearer explanation seems to be explanation, and most Southern and Northern writers found in the different social systems of the two sechave found it in the wrongheadedness, meddlesome tions. For the misfortunes of their diplomatic and inefficiency, and obstinate favoritism of President financial history, on the other hand, the circumstances Davis. Some Southerners have not scrupled to express of the Confederate States seem to have been mainly a willingness to enter the conflict again if the Presi-responsible. In both cases, however, the relentless dents could be exchanged. It must be admitted that blockade established by the Federal government was a Davis' errors were unpardonable. And yet it is hard powerful factor in determining the result, and the posto trace all the civil misfortunes of the war to him as sibility of the blockade and its results was mainly due their only source. A more silent but constantly to the same difference of social systems. In the working influence seems to have been the system of South commerce and manufactures had been practinegro slavery and its impression on the political life of cally impossible with involuntary labor, for the inevithe people. For their ninety years of State existence, table waste of such a system cut off the small margin all their civil honors, all their experience in legislation of profit. There was therefore no ability to resist the and in practical government, had been reserved to the blockade, and, under the blockade, no resource for the single class of slaveholders; and if by chance there government but a grinding system of direct taxation. was an exception, the first use of his newly acquired Both sections appealed to the help of issues of paper wealth was to enroll himself in the dominant caste by money. But in the North the customs revenue was the purchase of slaves. No good authority puts the enough to ensure the interest of the public debt, and number of slaveholders in 1860 at more than 300,000. the whole was supplemented by a high internal revWhat would be the political condition of any people enue tax, mainly on manufactures, which has produced numbering 5,000,000, if its whole civil experience was nearly $3,000,000,000 up to 1882; and gold was thus confined to a fraction of 300,000 of its number, and prevented from rising above 300. In the South cuseach one of that number consumed with a desire for toms and internal revenue were equally unavailable, command in the army? When the President himself and the paper money had no basis except receipts in rated his own office far below the real object of his cotton, which could hardly be sold; gold therefore rose wishes, the command of the Confederate armies, what to 120 in December, 1861, to 300 in December, 1862, was to be looked for from subordinates? With some to 1900 in December, 1863, to 5000 in December, 1864, exceptions Congress, the State legislatures, and civil and to 6000 in March, 1865, when the paper money administration generally, became a refuge for incom- had become practically worthless. During this deprepetent or unworthy men, and the armies in the field ciation the financial history of the Confederate States were left without any reliable support. From the in- is mainly a series of efforts, by taxation in kind, acts ception of the provisional government the sittings of to regulate the prices of produce, and kindred expeCongress were almost continuously secret. Its early dients, to delay or evade a process which hardly any decision to exclude from membership those delegates statesmanship could have delayed or evaded. Before who should accept military commissions deprived it the spring of 1864 the financial system of the Confedpermanently of the services of the ablest men of the crate States was confessedly a chaos; and after that Confederacy. In a legislation of second-rate men, the point it is perfectly true that the Confederate armies presence of the cabinet was a steady strain upon its supported the rebellion on their bayonets" until judgment, and Congress became a bureau for register- April, 1865, with hardly the semblance of efficient ing laws prepared by the executive. There is hardly support from the civil service. Early in March, 1861, an instance of independent action by Congress until its commissioners were sent to the Federal government to quarrel with Davis in the closing hours of the war; negotiate for the transfer of property to the Confedand then its action was undignified, unpractical, and erate States, and the peaceful settlement of a separaconfined to an unconstitutional substitution of Lee for tion. They were finally refused any official hearing. Davis as commander-in-chief. Public opinion had A commission of three, Yancey, Mann, and Rost, was very little weight with Congress or the President at also appointed, which was to seek recognition from any time. The suspension of the habeas corpus, the Great Britain, France, Russia, and Belgium; but the extension of the conscription system, so that in Feb- commission was found to be much inferior in efficiency ruary, 1864, it embraced in its terms every white to single ambassadors to individual courts. Such ammale between the ages of 17 and 55, placed every bassadors, J. M. Mason and John Slidell, were apvoter in the country at the mercy of the President, or pointed to Great Britain and France respectively in the of subordinates controlled by him, and made the gov-autumn of 1861, and were taken out of the British ernment an executive despotism. It would probably mail steamer Trent, Nov. 8, while she was on her way be unfair to look for any lines of political division in a from Havana to St. Thomas, by the United States people engaged in what soon came to be a confessed steamer San Jacinto. The United States had always attempt at revolution; but there is a striking contrast protested against any such practice of search and between the political life of the two opposing sections seizure by belligerent vessels in the case of neutrals, during the war. In the North two great political par- and had gone to war with Great Britain in 1812 mainly ties continued their ancestral struggle with unremitting on that issue. The Federal government was therefore eagerness, even down to the smallest village elections; compelled by its own precedents to disavow the seizure the strongest condemnation of the war, though often and surrender the captives. The disappearance of suppressed, was still more often passed over unheeded; this speck of war between the United States and |