Having conquered the aristocracy by its industry, education, religion, and politics--driven it from every position on the great field of American society in an era of peace--the people slowly awoke to the conviction that they must now conquer it on the field of arms. They were slow to come to that conviction. Their ablest leaders were not war-statesmen, and did not comprehend at once the full meaning of the war. They called it a 'conspiracy,' a 'rebellion,' an 'insurrection,' a 'summer madness,' anything but what it was--_the American stave aristocracy in arms to subdue the people of the United States with every other aristocracy on earth wishing it success_. But the people did not refuse the challenge. In April, 1861, they rushed to the capital, saved their Government from immediate capture or dispersion, and then began to prepare, after their way, for--they hardly knew what--to suppress a riot or wage a civil war. In every such conflict as this the aristocracy has a great advantage, especially if it can choose its own time to begin the war. Never was an oligarchy more favored in its preparations than ours. Since 1820 it had contemplated and prepared for this very hour. It had almost unlimited control over fifteen States of the Union. Society was constructed in all these States on a military basis, the laboring class being held in place by the power of the sword. An aristocracy is always preceded by military ambition; for all subordinate orders of its people have acquired the habit of respect for rank and implicit obedience to superiors, so essential to success in war. When the war broke out, the Slave Power was ready. Its arms and ammunition and forts were stolen; its military organizations had been perfected in secret societies; its generals were selected--its president perhaps the best general of all; its military surveys were made, every Southern State mapped, and every strategical point marked; its subordinate officers, in which the real efficiency of an army consists, had been educated in military schools kept by such teachers as Hill and Stonewall Jackson. It had a full crop of cotton as a basis for finance. Its government was practically such a despotism as does not exist in the world. At the sound of the first gun in Charleston, the aristocracy sprang to arms; in a fortnight every strategical point in fifteen States was practically in its possession, and Washington tottered to its fall.