CHAPTER III.
It is said, "There are two sides to every question." In my association with men in the free States I had learned one side of this question; now I was learning the other side, and began to be able to put in intelligible shape to myself those reasonings by which these men justified their action.

They reasoned thus: "War is a state of violence and always involves a trenching upon what we call natural rights; and its decisions depend not so much on who is right or wrong, as on who wields the longest sword and commands the heaviest battalions.

And if in carrying on a war some evil comes to innocent parties, this is only one of its necessary consequences, and is justified by the final result; provided always that the war, as a whole, is right and just.

And in such a strained and unnatural condition of affairs men can not be governed by the same scrupulous regard for others' rights by which they are governed in time of peace.

But the North and South are already practically in a state of war.