THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 201 



which it was controverted on behalf of the 

 North. The same dogma of popular sovereignty 

 served the one cause as the other. The will of 

 the people must prevail. But who were the 

 people? Since democracy became in the later 

 middle age a favorite dogma of radical philos 

 ophy, this question, Who are the people? has 

 been the source of half the political woes of 

 mankind. In 1861 Mr. Lincoln and the North 

 maintained that the people in whom sovereign 

 power inhered was the whole body of inhabit 

 ants of the United States; that no less aggre 

 gate possessed any of the attributes of sover 

 eignty; that this body, expressing its will 

 through a constitutional majority, was supreme 

 as against any individual or group of individ 

 uals in the United States; and that refusal to 

 recognize such supremacy was simply treason. 

 The corroboration of this doctrine in the last 

 analysis was to be found in the dogma that 

 the United States was a nation, and the gov 

 ernment at Washington was a national govern 

 ment. To the contemner of nationality and 

 its representatives was ascribed something of 

 the ineffable depravity that characterized him 

 who sins against the Holy Ghost. 



When the beginning of the war in the United 



