tral for several months.
Missouri was saved for the Union by those two resourceful and determined
men, Lyon and Blair. Kansas, though preponderantly Unionist, had
many Confederates along its southern boundary. On the whole the
Union gained greatly throughout the borderlands as the war went on;
and the remaining Confederate hold on the border people was more
than counterbalanced by the Federal hold on those in the western
parts of old Virginia and the eastern parts of Tennessee. Among
the small seafaring population along the Southern coast there were
also some strongly Union men.

Counting out Northern Confederates and Southern Federals as canceling
each other, so far as effective fighting was concerned a comparison
made between the North and South along the line of actual secession
reveals the one real advantage the South enjoyed all through--an
overwhelming party in favor of the war. When once the die was cast
there was certainly not a tenth of the Southern whites who did not
belong to the war party; and the peace party always had to hold
its tongue. The Southerners formed simpler and far more homogeneous
communities of the old long-settled stock, and were more inclined
to act together when once their feelings were profoundly stirred.

The Northern communities, on the other hand, being far more complex
and far less homogeneous, were plagued with peace parties that
grew like human weeds, clogging the springs of action everywhere.
There were immigrants new to the country and therefore not inclined
to take risks for a cause they had not learned to make their own.
There were also naturalized, and even American-born, aliens, aliens
in speech, race, thought, and every way of life. Then there were the
oppositionists of different kinds, who would not support any war
government, however like a perfect coalition it might be. Among these
were some Northerners who did business with the South, especially
the men who financed the cotton and tobacco crops. Others, again,
were those loose-tongued folk who think any vexed question can be
settled by unlimited talk. Next came those "defeatist" cranks who
always think their own side must be wrong, and who are of no more
practical use than the out-and-out "pacifists" who think everybody
wrong except themselves. Finally, there were those slippery folk who
try to evade all public duty, especially when it smacks of danger.
These skulkers flourish best in large and complex populations,
wher