10 THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. crn mind, and the standard of the insurrection was raised Tlie federal power, still passive, allowed the period for compromise, the period for conciliation, and the period for energetic and instantaneous repression to roll by alike unimproved, <>n both sides the States begin to arm for the inevitable strife; but the South has the warriors, the arms, the organization, the will and the passion. TheXorth is impotenteven to provision Port Sumter, and the volunteers raised for three months, as if that was to be the limit of the campaign, get themselves beaten at Bull linn, not through want of courage, for the instances of individual valor were numerous; nor yet through the fault of General McDowell, who commanded them, and whose । dans deserved success, but through the absence of organization and of discipline. After Bull Hun there was no room left for illusions. A great war was before the country. Intoxicated with pride, encouraged by all those who for one or another reason wished ill to the United States, the South it was plain would never again consent to return to the Union until it should have suffered severe reverses. The hopes of its ambitious leaders were more than realized. They had struck a successful vein, and nothing could make them abandon it. At the Xorth, on the other hand, humiliation liml opened all men’s eyes. It was felt that, having on their side, with the superiority of population and wealth, the right and the legality of the question—having the sacred trust of the Constitution to defend against a factions minority, which after all, only took up arms to extend slavery—they would become a b . -word for the world if thev did not resist, They Mt. besides, that if the doctrine of secession were once admitted and sanctioned, it would be susceptible of infinite application; that, from one rupture to another, it would bring about a chaos which must very soon open the way to dcspo-
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