The Real Cause of the U.S. Civil War

Steve Hurlbut to Abraham Lincoln, March 27, 1861


Page 5


From these sources I have no hesitation

in reporting as unquestionably that

Separate Nationality is a fixed fact,

that there is an unanimity of sentiment

which is to my mind astonishing

that there is no attachment to the

Union - that almost everyone of

those very men who in 1832 held

military commissions under secret

orders from Genl. Jackson and were in

fact ready to draw the sword in

civil war for the Nation, are now as

ready to take arms if necessary for

the Southern Confederacy.

Many of them are civil or military

officers now.

There is positively nothing to appeal

to. The sentiment of National Patrio-

tism always feeble in Carolina, has

been extinguished and overridden

by the acknowledged doctrine of the para-

mount allegiance to the state.

False political economy diligently taught

for years has now become an axiom

& merchants and business men believe

and act upon the belief that great

growth of trade and expansion of

material prosperity will & must follow

[8392]

Hurlbut Letter Page 4