the fruitful earth, the sunshine, and the showers - Time had brought them almost to harvest. After day had passed the meridian, cold blue clouds came sailing over the clear sky, bringing the chilly winds out of the chambers of the North; but when the sun passed down the glowing West, the clouds disappeared, the breezes were stilled, all nature was hushed into calm, and the evening star looked out on a scene of profound repose. The husbandman, from his threshold, surveyed the prospect, and dreaded, but could not hinder. Night passed on, and morning came. Hastily and anxiously, he rose and looked forth, when lo! far as eye could reach, over field, and flower, and leaf, the hoarfrost covered the whole face of the earth! And when the sun arose above the eastern hills, he looked down upon harvests and hopes blighted and withered. A single night had passed, and what desolation had been wrought!

As with the harvests of the earth under the majestic powers of nature, so with the spirit and institutions of human society. Time develops and brings to maturity, or blights and destroys.

In the new colonies, (omitting now from our view the despotism of slavery,) civil liberty and freedom of conscience were in large measure secured. Industry and enterprise generally prevailed. The public spirit, having assumed its appropriate organizations, North and South, asserted itself in action. The colonies, vigorous in themselves, were allied also with energies more powerful than those of the material universe. By accepting the disclosures of the sacred oracles, and, in no small degree, proceeding upon them, so far forth, they were brought into line with the divine plans, and their efforts conformed to the genius of the coming ages. In their avowals, at least, of fundamental truth, they became exponents of the immunities, dignities, and rights of man. Standing faithful to God and man, time could only crown them with beauty and glory; but unfaithful to their grand position, and swerving from truth and righteousness, it could bring only blight and desolation.

The career of the country from its origin down to a late period has been one of great outward prosperity. Forests were cut down and agriculture gradually advanced; manufactures sprung up, and commerce was extended. In the mingling of nations, especially at the North, intelligence spread to a degree

elsewhere unknown, and morals and Christian virtue were widely diffused among the people. A native literature arose, the arts and sciences were cultivated, and society struck its roots vigorously into a soil where nature had reigned unmolested since the creation.

In a land of thrift and virtue, the population rapidly increased, and the average duration of life was sensibly prolonged. The oppressed and unfortunate repaired to it from every land. Despite restrictions imposed by the mother country on industry and skill, and losses by the French and Indian and other wars, the Atlantic slope was rapidly occupied with inhabitants. The Revolutionary War retarded progress for a while, but it achieved a fundamental work, and gave new energy to the subsequent advance. It delivered the country from a harassing bondage, elevated the tone of its spirit, mingled the sympathies of its people, and assisted greatly in rearing the edifice of the national Republic - the noblest monument perhaps of man's political wisdom.

The sovereignty of the people and equality of conditions and rights before the law (except to slaves) having been extensively established in the country, the energies of the people and the resources of the territory were developed in an unprecedented manner. The Northeastern States swept across the mountains and reproduced their free institutions and society in the North of the West. Virginia and her Southern sisters established their aristocratic freedom under Republican forms, and their social slavery, in the South of the West. The Louisiana territory was acquired, and, subsequently, Florida and Texas. At length, New Mexico and Upper California were annexed. Thither, and to the Oregon, the tide of population, swelled by streams from the Old World, has since flowed. Swaying the sceptre of its power from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Republic has girded with the broad belt of its domains the entire Continent, and is engaged in establishing its institutions "from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth."

Thus has time developed the elements of power originally landed on the Atlantic coast. Two centuries and a half have thus signally rewarded the toils and sufferings of heroic men,

devoting themselves to exile for liberty's sake, to establish homes, churches, and. free commonwealths in the wilds of America.

It is from the midst of this great society, the product of centuries, that the present enormous rebellion has broken out. Eleven of the thirty-four States have been precipitated into the stupendous vortex. The fell purpose is to break down the government, overthrow the federal Republic, and establish on its ruins another and a semi-barbarous style of civilization. What is the cause, we have asked, of the startling development thus suddenly made?

The inquiries we have instituted have disclosed two kinds of social life transported to the country, and developed in it, both assuming the forms of republicanism, but, in the spirit and structure of society, the one aristocratic and the other democratic. Under the remarkable government of the country, these distinct social developments have been made, side by side the one moulding the character, manners, and spirit of the South, the other shaping the spirit and character of the North; the one concentrating intelligence, wealth, and power in the hands of the few, and keeping the masses of the people under their feet, the other elevating the people by universal education, free suffrage, and equal privileges.

The actual cause of the rebellion is that the aristocratic spirit and power are no longer willing to occupy their just and legal place, under the equitable government of the country. The minority, located at the South, demand supremacy in the land: they claim, as rightful lords, to control the Republic; and, because the claim is not allowed, they have risen to destroy the institutions of the nation. Said Mr. Calhoun, in the year 1812, "That we Southrons are essentially aristocratic, I cannot deny; when we cease to control this nation, through any party obstacle that shall throw us out of that rule and control, we shall then resort to a dissolution of the Union." This saying of the master-mind of the South gives a key to the Southern position of to-day, in perfect agreement with the facts and the flow of American history. To attribute this great conflict to the aggressions of slavery on the one hand, or to irritating discussion and attack on the other, is a narrow and inadequate

view. It is the old question of feudal authority and popular government. It is not with the Southerners as slaveholders merely that the North has to contend in self-defence, but as aristocrats. They assume the air of beings of a superior grade, and regard their adversaries as essentially underlings. They are the Norman lords, their opponents serfs, prone to the soil. With modifications, yet essentially, it is the old controversy begun by Hampden and Pym, and carried on by Vane and Cromwell with their Puritans, on the one side, and Charles and Strafford, Rupert and his Cavaliers, on the other. The same aristocratic form of society, from which the New England fathers fled, which succeeded in vanquishing the rising Republicanism of Old England, and which, from decayed stock, was transferred to the soil of the South, has now treacherously uprisen against the Republican institutions and life established here, and seeks to destroy them. An effort to accomplish this was made in 1832, in connection with the tariff question. But under the vigorous magistracy of President Jackson, and the logic of Webster, the attempt was frustrated; the former of these patriots predicting that the project would not be abandoned, but would next be attempted under cover of the slavery question. And now, the fulness of time has come, the traitorous effort is again made, and the loyal hosts have arisen to meet it.

That the institution of slavery enters as a large and most active element into the conflict, cannot be denied. That despotic system has had long existence and controlling sway in the South, eating out from all classes much of the life of true freedom. It has fully assimilated with the aristocratic spirit and forms, and greatly reinforced their strength. The "auri sacra fames" and lust of power, which it greatly excites, have given such ardor, unity, and proportions to the rebellion, as it could not otherwise have reached. The testimony of Mr. Stephens is conclusive here. He says, in his Savannah speech,

"African slavery, as it exists among us, was the immediate cause of the present revolution. The prevailing ideas entertained by Jefferson, and by most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution, were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle,

socially, morally, and politically. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery is his true natural and moral condition. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, even among us. The negro, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, is become the chief stone of the corner in our new edifice."

Thus a system of oppression, hated of God, and repudiated alike by the Puritan fathers and the founders of the Republic, is to be organized and supported by national power. In this interest, coalescing with the spirit of the South, the Republic is assailed, and it has been resolved that this shall become the distinctive feature and ensign of the authority which shall henceforth sway the land.

The account we have presented of the causes of the great conflict suggests the magnitude and scope of the means necessary to be employed for its termination. The first and absolutely essential thing to be accomplished is, that the rebellion, in its full extent, be suppressed by force of arms. Here are two struggling civilizations, organized and combined under one government. One of them violates the solemn compact and rebels. It does it criminally and perfidiously. Apostatizing from the national faith as proclaimed, it conspires to destroy the achievements and glory of a superior social organization, and to drag down the whole Republic under bondage to the feudal ideas, the graded distinctions, and the oligarchical sway, from which the Puritan fathers escaped in flying from the Old World. Worse than this; thrusting forward as its great weapon of attack the organization of slavery, it demands that that system shall be harnessed on the nation. This refused, perfidy and treason appeal to the God of battles, and refer the case to the arbitrament of arms. So, then, must it be. Let God arise and judge in the earth: let them that hate him flee before him!

There must be at the South an extensive loyal sentiment under durance, which needs to be liberated. A change so great and sudden, from loyalty under the Republic to the utter repudiation of it, cannot have occurred, in so brief a period.