EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION HE most dramatic and most momentous epi THE sode in the history of the United States is undoubtedly the Civil War, into which the country slowly drifted for nearly ten years, but which burst out with amazing suddenness and unexpectedness. From one point of view all the volumes of the American Nation, after the Revolutionary period, deal with the friction between the North and the South. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Volume XVI.), specifically discusses the controversy over slavery and anti-slavery. Smith, Parties and Slavery (American Nation, XVIII.), brings out the political divergences. In the first four chapters of this volume, Admiral Chadwick intentionally restates this discussion in the light of the intense sectional rivalry and mutual dislike revealed over the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency; and he shows the economic importance of slave-grown products and the significance of the political theory of state rights at the time of the outbreak. The narrative begins where Professor Smith's volume leaves off in 1859, with the John Brown raid (chapter v.). In the next chapter the political events of 1859 and 1860 are described. Chapters vii. and viii. are on the election of 1860. The process of secession and the attitude of Buchanan occupy chapters ix. and x. Chapter xi. deals with the first and utterly unsuccessful attempt at compromise. In chapters xii. to xv. there is a thorough discussion of the status of the Federal forts in the South, and of the attitude of Buchanan's administration, culminating in the episode of the Star of the West. Chapter xvi. is upon the second attempt at compromise, in February, 1861. With chapter xvii. begins Lincoln's administration and the development of its policy. Chapter xix. in detail expounds the final outbreak in the fall of Fort Sumter. Naval A West Virginian by birth, a sailor in the Union navy during the war, and acquainted with many of the principal actors in this great drama, Admiral Chadwick brings an impartial spirit to his difficult task. The question of responsibility for the Civil War is one which cannot be settled off-hand, and no two writers, even occupying about the same stand-point, will agree as to the character of all individuals or the question of aggression; but the author has aimed in moderate phrase to state the results of a careful study of the men and the principles involved. The volume leads directly to the story of the events of the war in Hosmer's Appeal to Arms and Outcome of the Civil War (American Nation, XX. and XXI.). AUTHOR'S PREFACE N preparing this volume I have had in mind throughout, both the limitations and the extent of the field described by its title. By "Causes of the Civil War," I understand those events, principles, and personalities, which were finally focussed in the exciting period from 1859 to 1861; but it is not possible to bring out the significance of all those influences in a narrative confined to those two years, however eventful. Hence I have devoted several preliminary chapters to the state of mind of those who took the responsibility for the final arbitrament of civil war. No such crisis can be explained in any other way than as a slow development; and though I have in those introductory chapters freely referred to earlier volumes of this series, and have so far as possible avoided going over the ground which they have traversed, I have aimed to make the volume self-explanatory, even at the risk of some slight repetition in the work as a whole. To discover the secret springs of action on both sides is by no means easy, though many of the leading personalities of the Civil War are still alive. The |