Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[562] the masses of even moderate men rushed into the war movement, at the piping of the war party, and at the appeal of the drum and fife. So soon as individuals found the throng tending that way, they rushed enthusiastically into what seemed the popular current; and the very men who but yesterday were loud in condemnation of the aggressive and incendiary purposes of the Republicans, to-day made amends for their tardy Unionism, by a precipitate enlistment in the ranks of the Administration.

It is the first step which costs. The peace party was a peace party no longer. A few consistent men remained, but the party disappeared for a period. Conservatism underwent almost a total eclipse. Opposed to war; averse to the principle of coercion; believing in the superiour efficacy of pacific over belligerent measures for restoring the Union; regretting every blow that was struck and every drop of blood that was shed in the contest, the party of the Constitution, of fraternal Union, of law, of order, and of peace, found itself compelled, first in one step, then in another, then in all, to support the war, to vote men and means for its vigorous prosecution, for sixty days, for ninety days, for the first campaign, and then, on and on, to a successful conclusion. They thought to bide their time, and to employ every opportunity that should offer in the interests of peace; but the opportunity never came; the fury of the war-storm, increasing as it progressed, and engulfing and carrying away everything in its course, swept down all who talked of peace. The vast patronage brought to the Administration made it omnipotent, and enabled it to appeal with effect to the passions alike of the avaricious, the ambitious, the adventurous of all sorts and conditions of men. As the costliness of the war increased, and the number of offices and the profitableness of contracts augmented, so its power in the country grew and waxed more and more irresistible.

We are not inclined to judge the peace party of the North too harshly. The arguments which led them to sanction and sustain the first measures of the Administration were such as could not well be resisted by a party believing in the inviolability of the Union, and the duty of suppressing all attempt at disruption. They were beguiled into the first belligerent measures by the conservative tone and pledges of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward: and they were, moreover, deceived into the belief that prompt and vigorous steps were the surest means of preventing a protracted, expensive, and bloody war. It was these first steps, taken under a sense of duty to the Union, taken, as they thought, really in the interests of peace, that involved them inextricably in the war. They ought to have remembered that all negotiation ends with the first blow and the flow of blood-; that, then, it is a question of force, and no longer one of right and reason; that war is like that cave of bones and carcases in mythology into which led many tracks, but out of it, none.

Much of the apparent unanimity which prevailed in favour of the war