The Civil War begun in 1861 had for years its premonitions even in so retired a portion of the United States as East Tennessee then was; but they were not understood by the wisest of observers. The increased alarm among friends of the institution of slavery for its safety, would alone have been ominous; for strong fear of losing possessions tempts to rash and violent means of relief. There were other signs of coming evils:--the growing desire, especially of politicians in the South who were extremists, not only to preserve slavery within its existing limits but to fortify its perpetuity by extending its area; and also the widened direction of an intense and long-cherished animosity against abolitionists, so as to include in it all “Yankees” or “the North” in general. These sectional sentiments were not shared by the great body of East Tennesseeans. The large majority of them were not slave-holders. Cotton was not grown in the region, except that a very few farmers had small “patches” for domestic use. Even where slaves were owned, “the peculiar institution” most often wore a homely aspect. The negroes after a patriarchal fashion, were part of one household--the white and black children played together without fastidious reserve, and mutual kindly affections prevailed throughout the whole family. In 1860 the slaves were about one-tenth only of the population, and in over one-third of the counties less than one-seventeenth. The unlikeness of the mountainous region which is located centrally in the Atlantic States, to that of the planting States, is positive, and the dissimilarity in social and other conditions between their respective inhabitants could scarcely have escaped the observation of sagacious minds at the period named, when contemplating the political future. It may have been not without reference to possible coming emergencies, and to the promotion of sympathy with sectional sentiments among these mountaineers that one of the “Southern Commercial Conventions” which were feeders to disunion, was held in 1857 at the central town of East Tennessee. For its population then was only something over four thousand and its commercial vitality was small. Conspicuously apparent in the deliberations of that Convention was a spirit of sectional zeal, which once fairly excited and diffused, might easily upon opportunity or need be turned into a political dissolving temper. It would be interesting to know how many of those who were prominent in that and other “Southern Commercial Conventions” were also not long afterwards, active in the work of secession. Of the _lawyers_ who figured in the Knoxville mercantile assembly was a Virginia “Hotspur.” A few years later he told the South Carolinians who stood ready, if possible, to dissolve the Union; “strike a blow and Virginia will go out!” The blow was struck, Fort Sumter fell, and Virginia went out.