250 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS

believed that nothing was well done that a man did not do for himself.

In the same way the North, with its seven-league boots of progress, stepped right over the old state lim- its, and forgot them, looking every day more to the Union as the central organ of government, while the South wanted as little governing as possible, and that little done by Virginia, or South Carolina, or Missis- sippi.

How could they long get on together? Both sides loved their country and American ideals. Both sides produced great men, men of power, men of patriotism, who strove with all their might to reconcile the differ- ence between the opposing forces. As we look back now, it seems as if that could and should have been done. But the chasm was too wide and too deep. The South called the North shopkeepers," and said the Northern soul was tainted with the sordid greed of gain — and there was some truth in it. The North called the South "slave-drivers," and said that slavery was a relic of bar- barism, utterly out of date in free America — and there was truth in this also. Bitter words bred bitter feelings, and bitter feelings bitter words again, until it seemed as if there was nothing but bitterness.

Meanwhile the great West was growing. Which should it belong to, North or South ? Whichever won the West w^ould undoubtedly be the controlling power in the na- tion. The struggle was long and complicated. When at

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