The seceders owed from the
first their successes not to their superior organization, to
their better preparation, or to the better discipline and
appointment of their armies, but to their very rashness, to their
audacity even, and the hesitancy, cautious and deliberation of
the government. Napoleon owed his successes as general and
civilian far more to the air of power he assumed, and the
conviction he produced of his invincibility in the minds of his
opponents, than to his civil or military strategy and tactics,
admirable as they both were. But the government believed it
wisest to adopt a conciliatory and, in many respects, a
temporizing policy, and to rely more on weakening the
secessionists in their respective States than on strengthening
the hands and hearts of its own staunch and uncompromising
supporters. It must strengthen the Union party in the
insurrectionary States, and as this party hoped to succeed by
political manipulation rather than by military force, the
government must rely rather on a show of military power than on
gaining any decisive battle. As it hoped, or affected to hope,
to suppress the rebellion in the States that seceded through
their loyal citizens, it was obliged to assume that secession was
the work of a faction, of a few ambitious and disappointed
politicians, and that the States were all in the Union, and
continued in the loyal portion of their inhabitants.
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