Their manner of life made them at once thoroughly loyal and
extremely insubordinate. They combined the sincerest patriotism with an
energetic and selfish individualism; and they failed wholly to realize
any discrepancy between these two dominant elements in their life. They
were to love their country, but they were to work for themselves; and
nothing wrong could happen to their country, provided they preserved its
institutions and continued to enjoy its opportunities. Their failure to
grasp the idea that the Federal Union would not take care of itself,
prevented them from taking disunionist ideas seriously, and encouraged
them to provoke a crisis, which, subsequently, their fundamental loyalty
to the Union prevented from becoming disastrous. They expected their
country to drift to a safe harbor in the Promised Land, whereas the
inexorable end of a drifting ship is either the rocks or the shoals.
In their opposition to the consolidation of the national organization,
the pioneers believed that they were defending the citadel of their
democratic creed.
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