And this divergence about slavery was but one point of difference among several. The question of tariff--the duties to be paid on goods entering American ports--was another. There were Protectionists and Free-traders then and there, as there are here and now. There were States in the South that claimed the right to "nullify," as it was called, in respect of goods brought to their ports, the Act of Congress which imposed the duties. The nullifaction claim--the claim to "make nothing of" the Act--was disallowed; and thence arose more bitterness. [Sidenote: The War of Secession] So the embers of discontent went smouldering until active war broke out between the two sections in 1861; and it broke out over a difference, which was not actually a difference over slaves or tariffs although it originated in those questions. The point on which it broke out was this: that the Southern States claimed for themselves the right to secede, to cut themselves off, from the Union. That is why the war is called {213} the War of Secession. They even called themselves by a distinctive name, not the "United," but the "Confederate" States. The North resisted, and refused them the right to break away and govern themselves as they wished. It was, perhaps we may think, a singular position to be taken by those United States which had lately fought so well and triumphantly to gain their own independent right to self-governance, but almost certainly it is a good thing for mankind that they did take that attitude. Had the attempted "secession" succeeded, the States of North America might have been as disunited as the States of South America; and so might never have stood, as they do, a strong force for peace in the world. The War of Secession was waged with varying fortune, at first rather favouring the South, though always it was the South which, as the chief battlefield, had to endure the worst of the misery. It was a particularly cruel war in the divisions that it caused between friends and even between families. There were moments when the cause of the North was in great danger; but the North was able to dispose of rather larger forces and perhaps of a tougher type of soldiery, although the endurance and the aptitude for strategy and fighting seem to have been remarkable on both sides among armies of which only a small minority were soldiers by profession and training. The Northern advantages were compensated by the very remarkable military ability for war of the Southern leaders. The sympathies of Europe and of England generally were rather with the South than with the North, and England gave some just cause of offence to the North by allowing the South to fit out privateering vessels in British ports.