30 JANUARY 1915, Page 36

We are apt, in a hasty review of American history,

to think that slavery was the sole cause which led to the great Civil War of the "sixties." It was the chief cause, no doubt, bat it was not the only one. Other economic and constitutional grievances promoted the cleavage between North and South which finally led to war. The whole Political History of Secession (G. P. Putnam's Sons,15s.net) is admirably and con- cisely set forth by Mr. Daniel Wait Howe, who himself fought on the Union side. He begins with the early concessions to slavery and the commencement of a new political era with the Missouri compromise, and carries his story down to the fateful shots fired on the flag at Sumter, and Douglas's statement that "there can be no neutrals in this war; only patriots or traitors."