604 The Fall of the Confederacy. 
British dominions than the Southern States are a part of 
the Federation. 3 
The South fought for independence; for the noblest 
cause for which woman can weep or man can die. The 
offer of a return to the Union, with the institution of negro 
slavery intact was rejected. Not that the Southern people 
were emancipationists. They were not so far in advance 
of the Confederate administration. But just as the Northern 
people would have sacrified abolitionism to save the Union, 
so would the Southern people have given up negro slavery 
for the sake of independence. If the choice had been pre- 
sented, “ Emancipation of the negro, or submission to the 
North,” the answer would have been all but unanimous, 
“ Away with the institution of negro slavery.” . 
The position was peculiar. The North in intent was 
fighting for the Union, but it derived great moral and 
material strength because it it was also fighting for negro 
emancipation. The South fought for independence, and 
its weakness was, that whilst the people only thought of 
asserting their political rights, which they were induced 
to believe were endangered by continued Union with the 
_ North, the cause of independence was, by the policy of the 
Confederate administration, associated with the defence of 
negro slavery. 
The losses sustained by the Confederacy by the policy of 
non-emancipation were many, vast, and inevitable. There 
was the loss of military power. Slaves could not be 
conscripted, and if negro conscripts were emancipated the 
negro race could not be kept in slavery. It was suggested 
there was no actual military loss because the negroes cul- 
tivated the fields, and all the white men were consequently 
available for the camp. It is not possible to conceive a 
poorer excuse for a gigantic blunder. No system has ever 
been devised by which the whole of the fighting population 
of a state can be enrolled. Besides boys and old men and 
the feeble and decrepit, there will always be a host of 
exempts ample for the purposes of agriculture. So it was 
in the South and in the North, and so it has always been 
in all countries. To exempt an entire section of the com- 
munity, on the ground that the exemption would set free 
the rest of the community for military service, is an act of 
folly for which there was no precedent until it was com- 
mitted by the Confederate administration. In ancient 
times slaves had to fight. In later ages the serfs had to 
follow their liege lords to battle. What would have been 
