Southern sections. That struggle had been from its inception to
its close, a continuing exhibition, on both sides, of stubborn
devotion to a cause, and its annals had been crowned with
illustrations of the grandest race and personal courage the
history of the world records. Out of a population of thirty
million people, four million men were under arms, from first to
last, and sums of money quite beyond the limit of ordinary
comprehension, were expended in its prosecution. There was
bloodshed without stint. Both sides to the conflict fought for an
idea--on the one side for so-called State Rights and local
self-government--on the other for national autonomy as the surest
guaranty of all rights--personal, local, and general.

The institution of negro slavery, the basis of the productive
industries of the States of the South, which had from the
organization of the Government been a source of friction between
the slave-holding and nonslave-holding sections, and was in fact
the underlying and potent cause of the war, went under in the
strife and was by national edict forever prohibited.

The struggle being ended by the exhaustion of the insurgents, two
conspicuous problems demanding immediate solution were developed:
The status of the now ex-slaves, or freedmen--and the methods to
be adopted for the rehabilitation of the revolted States,
including the status of the revolted States themselves. The sword
had declared that they had no constitutional power to withdraw
from the Union, and the result demonstrated that they had not the
physical power--and therefore that they were in the anomalous
condition of States of though not States technically in the
Union--and hence properly subject to the jurisdiction of the