Secede, ye Southern States, secede,
   No better plan could be,
If you of niggers would be freed,
   To set your niggers free.
Runaway slaves by federal law
   At present you reclaim;
So from the Union straight withdraw
   And play the Free Soil game.

What, when you've once the knot untied,
   Will bind the Northern men?
And who'll resign to your cow-hide
   The fugitives again?
Absquatulate, then, slick as grease,
   And break up unity,
Or take your president in peace
   And eat your humble pie.

But if your stomachs proud disdain
   That salutary meal
And you, in passion worse than vain,
   Must rend the commonweal,
Then all mankind will jest and scoff
   At people in the case
Of him that hastily cut off
   His nose to spite his face.

Who can say where Secession will stop? That is a question which is raised by Mr. Lincoln, in a part of his inaugural address, directed to enforce upon fools and madmen the necessity of acquiescence by minorities in the decision of majorities. The President tells the frantic portion of his fellow countrymen that:—

"There is no alternative for continuing the Government but acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such a case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will ruin and divide them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such a minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this."

The force of this simple reasoning will be seen by the lunatics to whom it is addressed, during their lucid intervals, if they have any. It may even be hoped that some of them may recover the use of their reflecting faculties so far as to be enabled to follow out President Lincoln's argument, and their own folly, into ultimate consequences and conclusions. Then they will see what is likely to be the end of Secession, for it is not quite true that there is no end to Secession, and the end of Secession will be for the Secessionists an end of everything. Seceders will go on seceding and subseceding, until at last every citizen will secede from every other citizen, and each individual will be a sovereign state in himself, self-government personified, a walking autonomy, a lone star, doing business and supporting itself off its own hook.

"The Southern Secessionists must be admitted to be blessed with at least the philosophical virtue of self-knowledge. They term this new league the 'Confederate States of America'; thus they call themselves by what they doubtless feel to be their right name. They are confederates in the crime of upholding slavery. A correct estimate of their moral position is manifest in that distinctive denomination of theirs, 'Confederate States.' This title is a beautiful antithesis to that of the United States of America. The more doggedly confederate slave mongers combine, the more firmly good republicans should unite."

"We feel," says President Jefferson Davis, in his Message to the Secessional Congress, "that our cause is just and holy." Could not the negroes of the Southern States, if they rose against their masters, say just as much, with at least equal justice, for their own insurrection? The less Mr Davis says about justice and holiness the better, if he does not want to preach a dangerous doctrine, besides being considered a humbug. "Dash holiness, and justice be blanked!" is the consistent language for Mr. Jefferson Davis. "Might is right; we expect to thrash the Northerners; and the Institution of Slavery for ever!"

O Jonathan and Jefferson,
   Come listen to my song;
I can't decide, my word upon,
   Which of you is most wrong.
I do declare I am afraid
   To say which worse behaves,
The North, imposing bonds on Trade,
   Or South, that Man enslaves.

And here you are about to fight,
   And wage intestine war,
Not either of you in the right:
   What simpletons you are!
Too late your madness you will see,
   And when your passion cools,
"Snakes!" you will bellow, "How could we
   Have been such 'tarnal fools!"

One thing is certain; that if you
   Blow out each other's brains,
'Twill be apparent what a few
   Each blockhead's skull contains.
You'll have just nothing for your cost,
   To show, when all is done.
Greatness and glory you'll have lost;
   And not a dollar won.

Oh, joined to us by blood, and by
   The bond of kindred

A Forty hours' bombardment! Great guns throwing
   Their iron hail: shells their mad mines exploding:
Furnaces lighted: shot at red-heat glowing:
   Shore-battr'ies and fort-armament, firing, loading—
War's visible hell let loose for forty hours,
And all her devils free to use their powers—
And yet not one man hit, her flag when Sumter lowers.

"Oh, here's a theme!" quoth Punch, of brag abhorrent,
   "'Twixt promise and performance rare proportion!
This show-cloth, of live lions, giving warrant,
   Masking some mangy, stunted, stuffed abortion:
These gorgeous covers hiding empty dishes,
These whale-like antics among little fishes—
Here is the very stuff to meet my dearest wishes.

What ringing of each change on brag and bluster!
   These figures huge of speech, summed in a zero:
This war-march, ushering in Bombastes' muster:
   This entry of Tom Thumb, armed like a hero.
Of all great cries e'er raised o'er little wool,
Of all big bubbles by fools' breath filled full,
Sure here's the greatest yet, and emptiest, for John Bull!

John always thought Jonathan, his young brother,
   A little of a bully; said he swaggered:
But in all change of chaff with one another,
   Nor John nor Jonathan was e'er called 'laggard.'
But now, if John mayn't Jonathan style 'coward,'
He may hint Stripes and Stars were better lowered
From that tall height to which, till now, their flag-staff towered."

Punch nibbed his pen, all jubilant, for galling—
   When suddenly a weight weighed down the feather,
And a red liquid, drop by drop, slow falling,
   Came from the nib; and the drops rolled together,
And steamed and smoked and sung—"Not ink, but blood;
Drops now, but soon to swell into a flood,
Perchance e'er Summer's leaf has burst Spring's guarding bud.

Blood by a brother's hand drawn from a brother—
   And they by whom 'tis ta'en, by whom 'tis given,
Are both the children of an English mother;
   Once with that mother, in her wrath, they've striven:
Was't not enough, that parricidal jar,
But they must now meet in fraternal war?
If such strife draw no blood shall England scoff therefore?

If she will laugh, through thee, her chartered wit,
   Use thou no ink wherewith to pen thy scoff:
We'll find a liquor for thy pen more fit—
   We blood drops—see how smartly thou'lt round off
Point, pun and paragraph in this new way:
Till men shall read and laugh, and, laughing, say,
'Well thrust! Punch is in vein: 'tis his red-letter day.'"

The weight sat on my quill: I could not write;
   The red drops lustered to my pen—in vain;
I had my theme—"Brothers that meet in fight,
   Yet shed no blood!"—my jesting mood turned pain.
I thought of all that civil love endears,
That civil strife breaks up and rends and sears,
And lo! the blood-drops in my pen were changed to tears!

And for the hoarse tongues that those bloody gouts
   Had found, or seemed to find, upon my ears
Came up a gentle song in linkèd bouts,
   Of long-drawn sweetness—pity breathed through tears.

      And thus they sang—"'Twas not by chance,
      Still less by fraud or fear,
      That Sumter's battle came and closed,
      Nor cost the world a tear."

Far across Atlantic waters
   Groans in chains a Giant King;
Like to him, whom Ocean's daughters
   Wail around in mournful ring,
In the grand old Grecian strains
Of Prometheus in his chains!

Needs but Fancy's pencil pliant
   Both to paint till both agree;
For King Cotton is a giant,
   As Prometheus claimed to be.
Each gave blessings unto men,
Each dishonour reaped again.

From the gods to sons of clay
   If Prometheus brought the flame,
Who King Cotton can gainsay,
   Should he equal honour claim?
Fire and life to millions giving,
That, without him, had no living.

And if they are one in blessing,
   So in suffering they are one;
   Freeze in frost and scorch in sun:
That, upon his mountain chain,
This, upon his parching plain.

Nor the wild bird's self is wanting—
   Either giant's torment sore;
If Prometheus writhed, while panting
   Heart and lungs the vulture tore,
So Columbia's eagle fierce,
Doth King Cotton's vitals pierce.

On those wings so widely sweeping
   In its poise the bird to keep,
See, if you can see for weeping.
   "North" and "South" are branded deep—
On the beak all reeking red,
On the talons blood-bespread!

But 'tis not

This delightful ebullition of fervent brotherly love has most fittingly appeared in a Philadelphia paper:—

"It may be, in view of all these grave considerations and the sad necessities of the case, that, in order to avoid a war which could only end in our discomfiture, the Administration may be compelled to concede the demands of England, and perhaps release Messrs. Mason and Slidell. God forbid!—but in a crisis like this we must adapt ourselves to stern circumstances, and yield every feeling of pride to maintain our existence. If this contingency should ever arise—and I am only speculating upon a disagreeable possibility—then let us swear, not only to ourselves but our children who come after us, to repay this greedy, insolent, and cowardly Power with the retribution of a just and fearful vengeance. If England in our time of distress makes herself our foe, and offers to be our assassin, we will treat her as a foe when we can do so untrammeled and unmenaced by another enemy."

"Greedy, insolent, and cowardly," these are nice fraternal terms; and what a truly loving spirit is evinced by swearing "fearful vengeance" upon the "assassin," and handing to posterity the keeping of the oath!

No whit less affectionate in feeling is what follows:—

"If we do concede the demands of England, however, it will only be because we desire to crush this rebellion, as a duty we owe to mankind. It will be because we prefer to master the great evil, and do not wish to be alienated from our duty by an international and comparatively unimportant quarrel; it will be because we prefer national salvation to the gratification of any feeling of national pride. It will be a great act of self-denial. But when we come from this rebellion it will be with a magnificent army, educated and organised, and with the sense of this wrong weighing upon them. It will be with a navy competent to meet any navy upon the globe. It will be for us then to remember how England was our enemy in the day of our misfortune, and to make that remembrance a dark and fearful page of her history, and an eternal memory of our own."

That these are the opinions of most people in America nobody on this side of the Atlantic will believe. But that there are roughs and rowdies in the States, who as they have nothing they can lose by war are always full of bluster and warlike in their talk, this may any one in England very easily conceive. Of course it is to please them that such stuff as we have quoted is stuck in Yankee newspapers; and our sole surprise is that the journals which admit it find it pays them so to do. The rowdies as a rule are not overflushed with wealth and can ill afford to spend their coppers upon literature, which, the chances are, they scarcely would know how to read.

Jonathan, Jonathan, 'ware of the Lion:
   He's patient, he's placable, slow to take fire:
There are tricks which in safety a puppy might try on,
   But from dogs of his own size they waken his ire.

With your bounce and your bunkum you've pelted him often,
   Good humoured he laughed as the missiles flew by,
Hard words you've employed, which he ne'er bid you soften,
   As knowing your tallest of talk all my eye.

When you blustered he still was content with pooh-poohing,
   When you flared up he just let the shavings burn out:
He knew you were fonder of talking than doing,
   And Lions for trifles don't put themselves out.

But beware how you tempt even leonine patience,
   Or presume the old strength has forsaken his paw:
He's proud to admit you and he are relations,
   But even relations may take too much law.

If there's one thing he values, 'tis right of asylum;
   Safe who rests 'neath the guard of the Lion must be:
In that shelter the hard-hunted fugitive whilome
   Must be able to sleep the deep sleep of the free.

Then think twice, and think well, ere from guard of the Lion
   Those who seek his protection you try to withdraw:
Though Stowell and Wheaten and Kent you rely on,
   There are points on which Lions won't listen to jaw.

Remember in time the old tale of the showman,
   Who his head in the mouth of the Lion would sheath,
Till with lengthened impunity, bold as a Roman,
   He seemed to forget that the Lion had teeth.

But the time came at last, when all risks madly scorning,
   He went just too far down that road rough and red,
When, with only one wag of his tail for a warning,
   Snap went Leo's jaws, and off went Barnum's head!

"Them there nasty good-for-nothing Yankees!" cried old Mrs. Durden,
"Worrits me to that degree, it makes my life almost a burden.
Board our mail and seize our passengers, the ribbles! Goodness, gracious!
Like their imperence to be sure; 'tis that what makes 'em so owdacious.

"What next now I wonder, Captain?" Answer Captain Skipper made,
"Well Ma'am, our next move, I fancy, will be breaking their blockade."
"Blockhead! Ah!" exclaimed the lady. "Truer word was never spoken.
Drat the blockheads, all says I; may every head on 'em be broken!"

We Yankees ain't given to brag;
   John Bull, we expect, has no notion
Of going to war; but his flag
   If he does, we shall sweep from the ocean
And when the old vagabond lies
   In a state of teetotal prostration,
Old Ireland in glory will rise,
   Independence to win as a nation.

Our breadstuffs from England kept back,
   The sequel must be destitution.
Her famishing millions, in lack
   Of food, will force on revolution.
Victoria will have to retire;
   Aristocracy, friends of Secession
Will be hurled down, and trod in the mire;
   No more for to practise oppression.

Rebellion we'll bring to an end,
   The slaves 'mongst our heroes dividing,
Or arms to the niggers we'll lend,
   To give their darned masters a hiding.
Work up all our cotton at home,
   Let not one more bale be exported,
Have the world at our feet, like old Rome,
   By the kings of the airth as was courted.

Want money? I reckon not we;
   A national debt we'll create,
Twice as heavy as yourn, which will be,
   For Samsons like we air, no weight.
On Government bonds we shall borrow
   Any money in Europe with ease.
Why London and Paris, to-morrow
   Will lend us as much as we please.

Foreign goods we shall purchase with paper,
   Which let foreign usurers hold;
The British may swagger and vapour,
   At home whilst we keep all our gold.
As Belmont to Seward has written,
   Any stock may in Europe be "placed,"
And the chance, if the Rothschilds ain't bitten,
   Will be by the Barings embraced

We've twice before whipped all creation,
   We've now got to whip it again.
We air a remarkable nation
   Of modest, but resolute men.
John Bull, then, allow us to kick you,
   And don't go resenting the act,
Or into a cocked hat we'll lick you,
   Yes, Sir-ree, you old hoss, that's a fact.