time. They wished to realize the liberty of which they had had a
glimpse in 1789 and which the Old Regime had snatched away from
them. The Spirit of Nationality now strengthened their efforts
for independence and liberty and another Spirit came stalking
after both. This was the Social Revolution, which refusing to be
satisfied by a merely political victory boldly preached
Internationalism as a higher ideal than Nationalism. Truly, Time
still devours all his children, and the hysterical desires bred
by half-truths prevent the coming and triumphant reign of Truth.
While these various and mutually clashing motives swept Europe
along during the first half of the nineteenth century, a
different current hurried the United States into the rapids.
Should they continue to exist as one Union binding together
sections with different interests, or should the Union be
dissolved and those sections attempt to lead a separate political
existence? Fortunately, for the preservation of the Union, the
question of slavery was uppermost in one of the sections. Slavery
could not be dismissed as a merely economic question. Many
Americans declared that it was primarily a moral issue. And this
transformed what the Southern section would gladly have limited
to economics into a war for a moral ideal. With the destruction
of slavery in the South the preservation of the Union came as a
matter of course.

The Civil War itself had given a great stimulus to industry, to
the need of providing military equipment and supplies, and of
extending, as rapidly as possible, the railroads which were the
chief means of transportation. When the war ended in 1865, this
expansion went on at an increasing rate. The energy which had
been devoted to military purposes was now directed to commerce