admitted that they had even then no insufferable grievance; that they really preferred the Union, even without slavery, to disunion; and that the Southerners immediately came back into their places as citizens of the Union and have ever since been and still are as true and loyal to the flag as the northern population. They never really disliked the Federal Union; they had in fact always loved it; but they had been crazed year after year in the course of one political campaign after another by the assaults and insults of Northern platform press and pulpit ranters, and had been deceived, misled and egged on to violence by their own demagogues. It was a case of the cumulative effect of years of repeated word provocations and word retorts on both sides; all delivered either to promote the sale of wicked and sensational newspapers or for electioneering purposes, or to capture the votes of a senseless rabble. The effect of this long-continued agitation was to derange the shallow judgment of the irresponsibles, a class which includes hot-headed youths, lovers of turmoil, improvident men with more sail than ballast; those who lack prudence both in politics and in business; who show the same poor judgment in giving a vote as in making a bargain; who are as willing to rush into a foolish war as into a foolish business enterprise; who are reckless because, never having much, they can never lose much; in short, that class who, though absolutely unable to manage their own affairs, are by our laws considered quite capable of attending to those of the community, and who whenever a storm arises lose their heads and do their best to wreck the ship. In a word, the course of conduct adopted by the politicians of the country which resulted in the war was intended to win the applause and the votes of a set of men most of whom should not have been allowed to vote at all. Had the business men and the propertied classes alone been consulted the civil war would never have broken out.