It will not do,
then, to ascribe the secession ordinances to a faction. The
people are never a faction, nor is a faction ever the majority.
There has been a disposition at the North, encouraged by the few
Union men at the South, to regard secession as the work of a few
ambitious and unprincipled leaders, who, by their threats, their
violence, and their overbearing manner, forced the mass of the
people of their respective States into secession against their
convictions and their will. No doubt there were leaders at the
South, as there are in every great movement at the North; no
doubt there were individuals in the seceding States that held
secession wrong in principle, and were conscientiously attached
to the Union; no doubt, also, there were men who adhered to the
Union, not because they disapproved secession, but because they
disliked the men at the head of the movement, or because they
were keen-sighted enough to see that it could not succeed, that
the Union must be the winning side, and that by adhering to it
they would become the great and leading men of their respective
States, which they certainly could not be under secession.
Others sympathized fully with what was called the Southern cause,
held firmly the right of secession, and hated cordially the
Yankees, but doubted either the practicability or the expediency
of secession, and opposed it till resolved on, but, after it was
resolved on, yielded to none in their earnest support of it.
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