598 The Fall of the Confederacy. 
to impress foreign nations with the idea that the Confede- 
racy was a de facto Power, and to persuade the North to 
relinquish a terrible and costly struggle. There was a 
great deal said about the North being a trading commu- 
nity, and also about the finances of the North breaking 
down. Did the Confederate administration suppose that 
commerce enervates a people? Are not the English a 
trading people ? Yet they have borne their part in warfare, 
and have not always been free from the greed of territory 
and the love of dominion. So far from commerce ener- 
vating a nation it fosters a spirit of enterprise, and a spirit 
of enterprise begets that endurance which so often triumphs 
over great difficulties and apparently crushing disaster. 
The theory of Northern insolvency stopping the war was 
wild, and at best a two-edged sword that mostly threatened 
the Confederacy. Did the French cease to war when they 
were a bankrupt nation? Did the colonists return to their 
allegiance to the Crown of England when their currency 
was so depreciated as to be practically all but valueless? 
Sometimes, not often, an impoverished exchequer has pre- 
vented a war; but when empire or nationality has been at 
stake war has never been stopped by financial embarrass- 
ment. But setting this aside, the Confederate suggestion 
of Federal financial exhaustion ending the war was exceg¢d- 
ingly curious and ill-advised. The financial resources of 
the North were greater than those of the South, and the 
Confederate treasury was sure to be depleted before the 
Northern treasury. If financial difficulty was to decide the 
issue there was no hope for the Confederacy. In propor- 
tion as the Confederate administration relied on the North 
giving in they underrated their opponents ; and to under- 
rate the strength of an adversary is a dangerous and very 
frequently a fatal blunder. 
Still more unfounded was the hope of Federal disunion. 
To depend on this was to discount the results of victory. 
It was to count on a probable consequence of victory as an 
aid in the fight. If the Confederacy had triumphed the 
further disintegration of the Union was not impossible ; 
and this, by the way, which was so constantly paraded by 
the Confederate press, could only stimulate the North to 
renewed exertions to prevent a disunion that would pro- 
duce further disunion. It is not in the time of war that 
federations fall to pieces, and this the Confederate admi- 
nistration should have considered. Why was it that in the 
Congress and in the press of the United States there was 
