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THE FALL OF THE CONFEDERAGYs@ 
A POLITICAL POST MORTEM. 
By JOHN BAKER HOPKINS, 
CHAPTER I.—THE CALL FOR INQUIRY. 
T the outset of this inquiry it is imperative to define 
its objects and limits with the utmost precision. We 
are not about to intrude on the domain of history. We do 
not profess to tell the story of the American war. We 
propose to hold an inquest on the late Confederacy, and if 
possible, to discover the immediate causes of death. We 
shall offer no opinion upon the merits of the quarrel that 
convulsed a continent, and for four years absorbed the at- 
tention of the civilised world. We shall signally fail in 
our object if any one can tell from these pages whether we 
sympathised with the North or with the South. Yet this 
inquiry will not be found dull, or if so, it will be owing to 
our treatment of an event grand enough to distinguish the 
century, and which has had an enormous influence in di- 
recting and revolutionising the affairs of America and of 
Europe. We hope in a few prefatory remarks to demon- 
strate the right and pressing expediency of investigating 
the immediate causes of the fall of the Confederacy. To 
ascertain the truth in this case is essential to the welfare of 
the living, and to declare it is a solemn duty we owe to the 
memory of the dead, to the living, and to posterity. 
In its long secretion, in its discovery, and in its history, 
America isaland of marvels. It is now in hourly com- 
munication with Europe, yet until the fourteenth century 
of the Christian era the existence of what is fitly called the 
New World was unknown and unsuspected. 
America first appeared as a dreamland. The adventurers 
who had approached its shores and seen the isles that sur- 
round it like satellites invented strange stories about this 
their fabled India. It was a land of silver mountains and 
of rivers whose crystal waters rippled over sands of gold. 
The ivory palaces of its kings were studded with countless 
gems, each one outvaluing a prince’s ransom, and flashing 
forth lightnings as they reflected the rays of a torrid sun. 
The trees of prodigious size and exuberant foliage were 
inhabited by birds of gorgeous plumage, whose songs were 
as the songs of seraphs. The climate was so finely tem- 
