seem
necessary. The recognition of the original national boundaries of
the United States had been extorted from Great Britain by successful
warfare. They had been extended by purchase from France and Spain in
1803 and 1819, and again by war from Mexico in 1848. The United States
stood ready to guarantee their integrity by war against all the rest of
the world; was an ordinance of South Carolina, or the election of a _de
facto_ government within Southern borders, likely to receive different
treatment than was given British troops at Bunker Hill, or Santa Anna's
lancers at Buena Vista? Men forgot that the national boundaries had been
so drawn as to include Vermont before Vermont's admission and without
Vermont's consent; that unofficial propositions to divide Rhode Island
between Connecticut and Massachusetts, to embargo commerce with North
Carolina, and demand her share of the Confederation debt, had in 1789-90
been a sufficient indication that it was easier for a State to get into
the American Union than to get out of it. It was a fact, nevertheless,
that the national power to enforce the integrity of the Union had never
been formally declared; and the mass of men in the South, even though
they denied the expediency, did not deny the right of secession, or
acknowledge the right of coercion by the Federal Government. To reach
the original area of secession with land-forces, it was necessary for
the Federal Government to cross the Border States, whose people in
general were no believers in the right of coercion. The first attempt
to do so extended the secession movement by methods which were far more
openly revolutionary than the original secessions. North Carolina and
Arkansas seceded in orthodox fashion as soon as President Lincoln called
for volunteers after the capture of Fort Sumter. The State governments
of Virginia and Tennessee concluded "military leagues" with the
Confederacy, allowed Confederate troops to take possession of their
States, and then submitted an ordinance of secession to the form of
a popular vote. The State officers of Missouri were chased out of the
State before they could do more than begin this process. In Maryland,
the State government arrayed itself successfully against secession.

In selecting the representative opinions for this period, all the
marked shades of opinion have been respected, both the Union and the
anti-coercion sentiment of the Border States, the extreme secession
spirit of t