Virtually all of America’s politicians, North and South, assumed that a citizen owned his state a greater loyalty than he owed to the federal government. Except for a postal service, most people had little connection to the national government; important things like education and roads and crime were handled locally.”

[Allegiance - Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War, David Detzer, Harcourt, Inc., Uncorrected Proof, 2001, p. 13]

……….

At this stage of maturity the sections of the United States were predominately rural and the inhabitants largely yeoman farmers with limited access to areas outside the vision of their fence lines. Thus, it was natural for people to align themselves with those politicians and authorities most familiar to them and to swear allegiance to their state government over that of the far distant central government in Washington as is witnessed in these words written by Captain Sterling T. Turner, former Sheriff of Roane County, Tenn., and later Captain of Company F of the 43rd.

I hope to see every Tennessean rally to the standard with our governor at the head and drive the Northern Vandals from our soil. (Capt. S. T. Turner, Co. F, 43rd Tenn. Inf.)