ABSTRACT
Prescience is frequently a gift that only hindsight makes tangible, and so it was with the origins of the American Civil War. The early colonizer Captain John Smith had, in 1631, already detected the seed of envy, and the rust of covetousness in the relationship between the Virginia and New England settlements, recognizing that some would have all men advance Virginia to the ruine of New-England. Once the colonies became more established, and especially following the American Revolution, state loyalties were a source of pride and concern in almost equal measure. American patriotism, as Alexis de Tocqueville saw it in the 1830s was still directed to the state and has not passed over to the Union. During the early years of the American republic, predictions of disunion were both common and widespread, so much so, as Linda Kerber has noted, that it was the persistence of union which excited surprise rather than recurring secessionist sentiment.
