country to disunion and severance. To save it has already cost us an eye and a hand, and now this unhappy subject must be disposed of, disposed of honestly, conscientiously, with the temper of men who feel that the principle of our government is soon to fail or triumph. If to fail, the cause would seem to be lost forever. What then? Why only a monarchy on our Southern border, insolent provinces on our Northern; Spain strengthened in her position, and recovering her lost ground; Mexico an empire; England audacious and overbearing as of yore, and France joining to fill our waters with mighty naval armaments. We, having witnessed the dismemberment of our country, and possessing no longer a nationality, but broken into fragments, to become the jest and laughingstock of the world, which would point to us and say, 'These people began to build, and were not able to finish!'

How do you fancy the picture? Do you think any morbid delicacy, any fear of giving offense to our 'loyal Southern brethren,' should prevent our examining this slave question? We raise, be it understood, no foregone conclusion, we do not even pronounce on the result of the examination; but examine it we must. Not the President, with his honest desire to preserve every guaranteed right to the South; not the Secretary of State, who unites the qualities of a timid man with those of a radical, and who is therefore by instinct temporizing and 'diplomatic;' not any other member of the cabinet, dare longer attempt to slide over or around it. We observe, we venture on no conclusion in advance. We are not prepared to say, if the South in a body should seek now to return to their allegiance, that they could not hedge in and save their 'institution.' But we should still desire to discuss the subject carefully.

So long as slavery was tolerated as a domestic custom long established and difficult to deal with, it stood in the list of permitted evils which all condemn, yet which it seems impossible to get rid of. But it is one thing to tolerate an evil, quite another to adopt it as a good. And we declare that never in the world's history was there an attempt so shameless and audacious as that to found a government on slavery as a cornerstone! Is it possible to conceive of more ungoverned depravity or a madness more complete?[2]

There have been contests innumerable on the earth. We read of wars for conquest, to avenge national insults, about disputed territory, against revolted provinces, and between dynasties; civil wars, religious wars, wars for the succession, to preserve the balance of power, and so forth. But never before was a war inaugurated to establish slavery as a principle of the government. We can predict no other fate for the leaders in this diabolical plot than discomfiture and defeat. We have an unwavering faith that the Republic will come out of this contest stronger than ever before; that it will become a light to lighten the nations, the hope of the lovers of liberty everywhere. But we will not anticipate.

In periods like the present, circumstances appear to be charged with vital and intelligent properties, working out and solving problems which have disturbed and puzzled the wisest and most astute. At such times impertinent intermeddlers abound, who claim to interpret the oracles, and who would hasten the birth of events by acting as midwife. It is impossible to dispose of or silence such people. We should be careful that we are not misled by their egregious pretensions. The fact is, the whole history of our race should teach us a lesson of profound humility. We do not accomplish half so much for ourselves as is accomplished for us. True, we have something to do. The seed will not grow if it be not planted; but all our skill and cunning can not make it spring up and blossom, and bear fruit in perfection. Neither can man work out events after a plan of his own. He is made, in the grand drama of this world, to work out the designs of the Almighty. We must accept this or accept nothing. In this light how futile are the intemperate ravings of one class, the unreasonable complaints of another, the cunning plots of a third. We see no escape from a threatening danger, we perceive no path out of a labyrinthine maze of evil; when, lo! through some apparently trifling incident, by some slight and insignificant occurrence, the whole order of things is changed, the impending danger vanishes, and we thread the labyrinth with ease.

We believe God will provide us a way out of our present troubles. Only we must do our duty, which is to maintain our common country, our flag, the Republic ENTIRE.

Thus much at present. Where this war is to carry us, what shall be its effect on us as a people, what great changes are in progress, and what may result from them, we will discuss at the proper time, in a future number.

IS PROGRESS A TRUTH?

'Human nature has been the same in all ages.'
'Men are pretty much the same wherever you find them.'

If there be anything in this world from which it would be desirable to see men delivered, it is from a certain small, cheap wisdom which expresses itself in general verdicts on all humanity, and enables the fribbler or dolt who can not see beyond his nose to give an offhand summary of the infinite. There is 'an aping of the devil' in this flippant assumption of our immutability, which strangely combines the pitiful and painful. Oh! if the ne plus ultra which antique Ignorance complacently inscribes on the gates of its world should ever be worn away, let it be replaced by this owlish credo in the unchangeableness of man.

The refutation of these sayings has been the history of humanity, and yet no argument on political or social topics fails to contain them in one form or another. Even now, in the tremendous debate maintained by common logic and 'fist law' between our North and South, we find them enunciated with a clearness and precision unequaled in any state paper, unless we except that in which William the Conqueror coolly styled himself king 'by the right of the sword.' Science, which modestly announces itself as incomplete the nearer it approaches completion, has been assumed to be perfect by those most ignorant of it, in order that its mere observations as to climate and races may be found to prove that as man is, so he was in all ages, and so must be, 'forever and forever as we rove.' Races now vanished in the twilight of time have been boldly declared to be the prototypes of others, now themselves changing into new forms, and we, unconsciously, like the old Hebrew in Heine's Italy, repeat curses over the ancient graves of long-departed foes—ignorant that those curses were long since fulfilled by the unconquerable and terrible laws which ever hurry us onward and upward, from everlasting to everlasting, from the first Darkness to the infinite word of Light.

The assumption that mankind always has been and will be the same, involves the conclusion that the elements of slavery and scoundrelism, of suffering and of disorder, are immutable in essence and in proportion, and that human exertion wastes itself in vain when it aspires to anything save a rank in the upper ten millions. As for the mass,—'tis a great pity,—mais, que voulez vous? It is the fortune of life's war; and then who knows? Perhaps they are as happy in their sphere as anybody. Only see how they dance! And then they drink—gracious goodness, how they swig it off! the gay creatures! Oh,'tis a very fine world, gentlemen, especially if you whitewash it well, and keep up a plenty of Potemkin card cottages along the road which winds through the