In Virginia the anti-secession sentiment found expression in an act of secession from secession. The western half of that state had scarcely any property interest in slavery and scarcely any sympathy with the institution. The men of that region had accepted the teachings of Thomas Jefferson, and George Wythe, and a score of other Virginian statesmen, to the effect that slavery was a curse which it was their duty to extirpate as soon as might be. The secession of their state seemed to offer them an opportunity. If secession was to be the order of the day, why should not they, as representatives of the western and non-slave-holding half of their state, repudiate secession from the Union by themselves seceding from their seceding state? Upon this hint they acted. They proceeded to set up the state of West Virginia under an autonomy granted by the National Government. It was in direct violation of the Federal Constitution thus to divide a state without its own consent, but the thing was done in war time, and when war is on the rigid letter of the law is very apt to be disregarded in the interest of general results. At any rate the thing was done, and West Virginia has ever since 1863 held her place as one of the states of the Union. Thus were the border states arrayed in the war. Thus was the issue made up. Thus were the lines drawn for the momentous conflict. CHAPTER XVIII THE BLOCKADE--THE CONQUEST OF THE COAST AND THE NEGLECT TO FOLLOW UP THE ADVANTAGE THUS GAINED As soon as the fact was recognized that war existed between the Northern and the Southern states it was quite a matter of course and of common sense that the Federal Government should endeavor to shut in the Confederates by a blockade that should cut them off from all commerce with the outer world. The South was almost exclusively an agricultural country. It had scanty means of supplying itself with any of those articles of manufacture which enable communities to live and to carry on war. It was sadly deficient not only in capacity to create arms, ammunition, and other fighting equipments, but also in factories capable of turning out clothing, shoes, medicines, and the like either for military or for non-military use. For all these things the Confederates depended upon importation, and the obvious policy of the Federal Government was to prevent such importation.