Justice and Mercy, which hold the balances quite evenly, but the hair's weight which oscillates them, uniformly found in Mercy's scale, and how repulsive it is to these righteous and discriminating attributes, to let loose upon the people a wild and furious Avenger that devours alike innocence and guilt? Here too dwell sensibilities and affections so acute, that they fling wide open the doors of the soul to every one who approaches in Misfortune's name, grant the prayer of Sorrow before it is half uttered, and which the small inarticulate wail of infancy instantly melts into tears of most compassionate tenderness; how are these sensitive fibers wrung and tortured when it suddenly flashes upon them, that the loving hand which has only learned to soothe and relieve the miserable, is commissioned by inexorable fate, to break the fourth seal of the Apocalypse, and, "behold a pale horse! and his name who sat on him was Death and Hell followed him; and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword and with hunger and with Death and with the beasts of the earth." Movelessly, movelessly rooted also in this great heart, is a superfine sense of humor, craving hilarity and harmless mirth, and joy-inspiring wit and anecdote, as the only effectual relief to an over anxious spirit and an over-tasked brain, and how reluctantly does

this part of his nature admit to close companionship, the gloomy forebodings, the bitter memories, the dreadful uncertainties, the everlasting shrieks, dirges, vengeful tragedies, and heart-rending atrocities of War.

In addition to the protest of these conservative habits, and amiable emotions, upon his adoption of any radical and thorough-going policy of grappling with the Rebellion, he was also, like many others, held back for a season, by the legal scruples which his reflecting faculties were constantly suggesting. "Beset," as it has been well said, "by fanatics of principle, on one side, who would give no heed to the limitations of his written authority, and by fanatics of party, on the other, who were not only deaf to the obligations of justice, but would hear of no policy large enough for a revolutionary emergency, MR. LINCOLN never forgot, for an instant, that he was a constitutional ruler." The Constitution of the United States which it takes but twenty minutes to read, can be studied for twice twenty years, without exhausting its meaning, or comprehending its vast treasury of express and implied power. Like most of our statesmen the attention of the PRESIDENT, had been exclusively turned to the PEACE side of the instrument, to the provisions which address themselves to conditions of unbroken amity, domestic tranquility,

to the preservation of amicable relations between the States, and to the development, under their auspices, of commerce, industry, manufactures and trade. The powers it grants over internal improvements, over foreign and inter-State commerce, currency, duties and imposts, territories, naturalization, taxation, bankruptcy, as well as the extent of constitutional limitations upon the General Government, and of constitutional prohibitions upon the States, have not only been subjects of constant individual study, but have been illustrated and defined, by a long, luminous and comprehensive series of judicial determinations, which have the same authority and validity as if they were incorporated into the Constitution itself. We can all see, at a glance, how greatly these investigations and decisions have contributed to consolidate the Union and to enlarge and strengthen the influence of the National government. But Courts and individuals have alike ignored the WAR side of the Constitution, or drawn but feebly upon that slumbering element in our system, which holds each revolving planet in complete subjection to the sun.

What are its powers over States which abjure allegiance, and conspire together for its destruction and overthrow, and raise armies, and wage War against it, was, fortunately, a question which no judicial tribunal had been called upon to adjudi

cate, which no curious theorizer had even mooted, and which MR. LINCOLN himself for the first time investigated in the third month of his administration. -that parturiant and groaning May. He then concentrated his attention upon the War powers of our organic law, and found in this terra incognita, unexpected resources which never yet had contributed to the weight, and vigor, and terror of the Federal arm. The elements of strength and power which were hid away, in the weighty clauses, which give to the PRESIDENT and Congress the issues of Peace and War, were dragged to light and employed for the salvation of the Republic.

By the middle of May the doubt and haze which had settled upon the legal relation of the Insurgent States to the Government, began to disappear. On the sixth of that month, the Confederate Congress at Montgomery, declared war against the United States, and MR. LINCOLN'S position, at this time, towards the gigantic peril which threatened our national existence, was described with legal exactness and accuracy, when it was said to him by an eminent civilian-"If the whole unvarnished truth is told you, sir, you are confronted by a de facto Rebellion, and a de facto War, and you are justified in treating it as the one, as the other, and as both." With equal truth it was shortly afterwards said, in the United States Senate, "it is a Rebellion swollen

to the proportions of a War, and it is a War deriving its life from Rebellion. It is no less of a Rebellion because of its full blown grandeur, nor is it less a War because of the traitorous source from whence it draws its life." What are my constitutional resources against this new, strange, and double headed monster? was the first question which MR. LINCOLN put to himself, and this question, grave, severe, and momentous as was ever submitted to human arbitrament, he was called upon, without precedent, without authority, and from his habits of mind without assistance, forthwith to determine by his peculiar process of divination.

The Constitution, does it not? establishes in law and in fact, an independent government. By that act alone, all the belligerent rights, which from time immemorial, by international law belong to independent governments, were instantly conveyed to the new born nation. Yes, yes, they were all ours by the title which secured us a place in the family of nations. In abeyance during peace, they instantly vest with the first act of War, and with full grown vehemence and power surrender themselves to execute our behests, against all of our public enemies whether they rally under the bastard banner of an Insurgent State, or the legitimate flag of a recognized nation.