understand this, go to-day to a great battle-field of that conflict and
hear the Northern generals and the Southern generals rehearse the story
of the Civil War, and you will understand the magnanimity of the
Northern leader and the argument of the Southern soldier. History has
destroyed the old delusion that secession was a conspiracy, organized by
a few malignant leaders. All historians to-day, Northern and Southern
alike, concede that it was a great popular uprising of the Southern
people.

Indeed, it was not altogether a contest between Northern blood on the
one side, and Southern blood on the other.

Twenty-one of the Southern generals who fought for the Rebellion were
born in New York and New England. Eighty distinguished Confederate
officers were born north of Mason and Dixon's line, were graduates of
West Point, yet these Northern soldiers rejected Webster's argument for
the Union, and accepted Calhoun's theory of State sovereignty. On the
other hand, many of our greatest Union leaders were Southern men by
birth and education, but as Southerners they rejected Calhoun's
philosophy, and accepted Webster's. Virginia gave us the
commander-in-chief of our army, Gen. Winfield Scott; gave us George H.
Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga. The South gave us Farragut, our
greatest admiral. Twelve of the commanders of our battle-ships that
captured the Mississippi River and made it possible for Lincoln to say,
"Once more the Father of Waters goes unvexed to the sea," were Southern
men. The South also, through Kentucky, gave us the great President,
Abraham Lincoln. It was, therefore, in large measure, a philosophic
contest. The Union forces were the disciples of Daniel Webster, whose
spirit invisible rode upon the wings of the wind, and whose arm bore the
gorgeous ensign, on which were written the words, "Liberty _and_ Union."
On the other hand, the Confederate forces were made up of the disciples
of John C. Calhoun, who followed a banner on which the great citizen of
South Carolina had inscribed these words, "Sovereignty is natural and
inalienable; government is secondary and artificial and can be changed
at the will of the people." In terms of cannon and gun, Grant and Lee
were the leaders of the two opposing armies, but fundamentally the two
armies were led by Daniel Webster on the one side and John C. Calhoun on
the other.

Further, Calhoun's influence explains the attitude of the
non-slaveholding South towards secessio