the wicked, traitorous attempt to overturn the Government, which they know received its highest and controlling impulse from the Puritan ideas of that portion of the country. In the material world, nothing is plainer than the fact embodied in the old adage, 'Straws show which way the wind blows.' In the realm of moral and social law, however, the indications, just as palpable, of the direction in which the current of public sentiment is setting, are usually ignored or pass unobserved at the time being; and not till great events have called attention to the causes that produced them, do these indications take all the prominence due to them. These minor symptoms I have noticed, of the dislike of New England in the Southern mind, have been plainly to be seen in all the doings and sayings of their public men of this generation at least, to go no further back, and in the utterances of the press throughout the South. Flings, innuendoes, sarcasms, condescensions, insults, have been heaped upon the Yankees, by the representatives of the slave power, in the National Congress, in the State Legislatures, in their public speeches, and by the minions of the press, until it would seem as if they must have fallen on dead ears, so little fever they have stirred in the blood of the North. Still, if anyone supposes that the ostensible causes of dislike are the real ones, he is mistaken. Does any man of them all, of these leaders, I mean, suppose for one instant that the Yankee negro-trader, overseer, peddler, lucre-loving tradesman, slaver, slave catcher, subservient politician, or mouthing, dirt-swallowing pulpit huckster, is a true representative of the influence and ideas of New England? Or that the present Copperhead Democracy of that section is the real exponent of the genuine spirit of the Puritan Democracy? Certainly not. They are shrewd men, of great discernment, and in their way brave and chivalrous, and I verily do not wonder if they would not have these renegade Yankees even as slaves. No! the actual cause of their hatred is the silent, all-pervading influence of the free institutions of New England, which derive their power and efficacy from the universal means of education there enjoyed. Shut up the schoolhouses, and burn the schoolbooks in New England, to-day, and let these free institutions become a dead letter thereby, and the Yankees would be as good as anybody in their eyes, because the sword which their intelligence keeps ever suspended over the head of slavery would be effectually laid to rust in its scabbard. Is it not a pitiful, a disgusting sight, that men are found, Northern men, New-England Yankees even, to kneel before the slaveocrats still, after the load of scorn and contumely already heaped upon them, and humbly cry, 'More—give us more contempt—our backs are made to bear the burden!'

God pity such creatures!

And these are the men who advocate a confederation of States with New England left out to shift for herself! New England left out? Fools! to think it possible. Knaves! to deem it desirable, if it were possible. As well banish the Creator from the universe He has made—the sun from the system he warms and enlightens! Not until you have destroyed the essence, the inner spirit of the Government which of all the governments in the world secures 'the greatest good to the greatest number;' not until Freedom is dead and laid in her final grave; not until the temple of knowledge is barred and double barred; not until all your common schools are closed, your free presses manacled, your free Bible suppressed, your right of free speech and free inquiry smothered to death; not until your ships have gone down in the waters, and the hammer rests in your shipyards, and your railroads cease to open a way in the wilderness made straight for the entrance of the most advanced civilization; not until the race of Yankee capitalists is extinct, and enterprise, thrift, industry, nerve, moral courage, the intellectual conquest of the material world become traditional, will that be possible. No! I thank God, that the record of New England is so sure and indelible that nothing can root her out of this land, not even if her whole geographical area were forever submerged by the waters of the ocean that girts her round in barren majesty. Ideas, principles, can never die or be effaced. They shall survive the wreck of matter, and the final catastrophe of the universe. And her empire is that of ideas. Small as she is, she wields the power of the very foremost ideas of the highest civilization of the world. These ideas have at last held at bay the so long encroaching slave principles which were so strangely left to grow alongside with them by the early framers of the Government, and who doubts which is to conquer? The struggle may be a long one, a costly one, and freedom may at last barely escape with her life. But so sure as humanity sweeps onward; so sure as the average progress of the race is never retrograde; so sure as right bears in its bosom the seeds of eternal life, and wrong the seeds of eternal death; so sure as God sits on His throne and the heavens do rule,' the free ideas of New England will yet bear sway over this continent, and, in their moral force at least, mould and remodel the governments of the world. If not preserved intact by the men of this generation, then by others will this ultimate result be reached. God is not confined in His agencies. He sets up one, and puts down another, and the generation that is found worthy to build the temple for Him to dwell in, to preserve and perfect the beautiful heritage He has provided for His freedmen, His redeemed and enfranchised people out of all the nations in which they have been held in mental and political bondage, shall have the honor and privilege, be sure. And think not, O ye men to whom is committed this high trust, that it will be a small thing to leave this birthright unto others; for as no people were ever before so distinguished in having this holiest ark of the covenant of freedom in their midst, so the grave of infamy into which ye shall be cast, if the Philistines dispossess you of it, shall be bottomless. There is no resurrection for the people who should betray such a cause, freighted as it is with the hopes and future destiny of the struggling races of the earth.

And O ye other men (would ye were men!) who are in league with traitors, ay, who are even worse than they, to do this accursed thing, know that this pit is yawning for you. Down—down—deeper—deeper—pressed to perdition by the curses of those who are to come after you, whom you wronged so remorselessly.

In that terrific vision of hell, seen by the poet Dante, those who had betrayed country, freedom, were visited by the most awful sufferings, pursued by the most vengeful fiends, and pushed to the most dire extremity of woe. Among the pale, haunted, shrieking shades flitting through that limbo of horrors, they were conspicuous in punishment. And if remorse is in reality the undying worm, the quenchless fire of that future state which recompenses for the deeds of this, surely the traitor to this good, free Government will be made to experience its unmeasured horrors. The salvation of our country, then, and its position and influence as one of the family of nations, depend on its return to, and its enforcing of, those fundamental principles of freedom, moral right, and justice which underlie our system, and for the most part form our superstructure. Ours is the moral lever that is to move the world, if we will have it so. If we lose our moral prestige we are nothing. We have the best Government in the world, but it has, since the time of the fathers, for the most part, been the worst administered. Instead of being made to