CONTENTS.

FIVE popular errors on national questions.-The Prima facie view.-Guarantees of freedom and nationality peculiar to the North. The raison d'être of the rebellion.-Complex and simple issues.-The "Heaven and Hell amalgamation."The Science of Politics.-Three items of national power.The material unity.-The Man.-The Institution.-Men and principles.-Material and Spiritual force-Mortal poison of materialism.-Incalculable force of a complete nation.-Recognised tests of nationality.-Material Bases.-Organic functions.Unity-Material and Geographical Unity.-Individual value. -Balance of Institutions and principles.-Historical morality and development.-Result. The epic of slavery. Former peace, essential war.-Materialism and Slavery.-The crisis of American Destiny.-Completion of American nationality and freedom.--Southern "Nationality."-Majority against it.Leading principles, associations, and ideas against it.-Equality. -Freedom.-Nationality.-Independence.-Influence of the army. The historical use of the South.-History and Principles of America. Freedom.-Democracy.-Principle.-American Constitution.-Recognition of Slavery.-Effect of "Sovereign State."-Political genius and mobility of the nation.-Elevation and reconstruction of the nation.-Party divisions, reactions, and platforms.-Organic whole of History.-Primary Truths.-General conclusions.

In reasoning upon great national questions there are five errors against which we must guard.

By the first, men exalt the material means and issues, above the moral. They put armies before opinion.

The second, is that they make no allowance for the momentum of ideas, and of passions, in great crises. For the logic, which having committed men to a side, carries them on to lengths they did not intend; for the enthusiasm of great assemblies and a common cause, and the passion that hurls

men on to conclusions. Men who are pledged for life or death, will always destroy or use the men who cannot act with equal energy and decision, on the one side or the other.

The third, is to forget the perspective of events, and allow the present to overshadow the future, without giving to either its true significance.

The fourth, is a false ideal of that complex and marvellous thing - national life. He who knows not somewhat of the organic whole,—of the essential facts of a nation's history, can form no sound theory of political causation,—has no right to any opinion, either on its present or its future, or on the value or relative significance of any particular fact.

But the worst and most childish error of all, would be to suppose that the leading men of a section, however large, of a country with unity of race, language, institutions, boundary, and religion, can, at will, constitute it a kind of Banyan-tree nationality, and wipe out and reverse, even by an agony of volition, the results of the past centuries, or the overruling facts of the present age.

We have no ambition to write for those who

assume, that because the republican experiment" has been attacked,—therefore it has failed, or that because it is being tried, therefore it is condemned.

The American constitution and nation, are to be judged by theory or by result. Men who judge by result must wait for it. But neither theory nor fact can possibly condemn a nation, because it has had once in its life, a three years' rebellion, which after three years is still only a rebellion.

Judged by facts which shew its strength, and con

sidering that it started without Generals, and organisation, against a foe well led and disciplined, we may say that the sheer fighting force, fidelity, and Patriotism, of American Democracy, have done a work not unworthy to compare with the results of even Napoleon's campaigns, and this either in improvement in discipline and Generalship, the number of men under arms, the numbers of rebels put hors de combat, the strategic value of positions gained, or the mighty reach of territory reconquered.

In character and national morality the progress is still greater.

Why then should it be supposed that there can be two American nations, in America ?

Is it an old and common thing on the earth, for a nation of one race, language, Boundary, Institution, and religion, suddenly to fall in twain at the summons of any power or interest whatsoever?

It may be said "There must be some leaven "working in the South that we know not of." We answer, this is but the delusion of those who will not believe that the South is defeated till they know that it is destroyed.

Let those who have studied and learnt the meaning of the word "NATION”—its tenacity and intensity, and who know by precedent, how only one or two of the above named Unities, have defied all disintegrating energies for ages, and at last conquered them-answer, - why the contrary result should happen in America,-and give their reasons.

True, there is a vague idea that North America is "too large for one nation," and people have heard men scoff at the "Heaven-invented constitution of America," till they think themselves entitled

to assume that it does not contain any new invention in Statesmanship,-that it is not calculated to hold together vast conglomerations of men, and thus they make their false subscriptions,-as other honest and God fearing men, without being able even to define that to which they subscribe.

"Lie nods to lie, each falsehood has it brother,

And half the foolish thing reflects the other."

One might have supposed that the obvious and marvellous intensity of the nationality in question, and its obvious and marvellous Territorial Unity, might counteract, even with those who only regard the surface, the idea that "America is too large for one nation." America is larger than other countries !-well, and is not the nationality more intense, and the unity of territory more obvious and complete?

But further, do we not know that the phantom nationality of the South, exactly coincides with the interests of avarice, lust, and oligarchy, that give to the South its desperate purpose, and relentless grasp? The combined energies of Proprietors accustomed to use up the labour and life of slaves, and enabled by their monopoly to charge the balance of the Slave's loss on the rest of the world; of Libertines who had a monopoly in Lust, as well as in Cotton, and want to keep both; of Oligarchs who by the nature of the cotton trade, and the whole nature and necessities of their position, were accustomed to despise and use the common people;

are not all these we ask, more than enough to account for the rebellion?

And finally, were all the precedents and conclu

sions of all the rebellions of the world reversed, is it of no account that America is the country of the common People,-a country which this rebellion would dismember, and a people it would disfranchise; the nation, of which the great writer on Democracy, declares, that they will destroy all attempts at introducing "unequal conditions"? It is a nation of refugees from oligarchies in Europe, and they are scarcely the nation to offer to oligarchy an asylum there.

Many, however, will never learn what is a nation, of which every member possesses his full rights, and a stake in the progress and conservatism of the country, until the lesson is forced upon them by the success of the American nation. That lesson the world wants every way.

To others, it will suffice to remember the guarantees of freedom, of equality of conditions, of municipal rights, and therefore of nationality, which are new and special to America.

Either that part of the American nation, called the South, will retain Slavery, or will relinquish it. If it retain it, without the former monopolies, it will be destroyed by it. If it relinquish it, it abandons the only real barrier and speciality, that can separate between it, and the rest of the nation.

The South finds itself in this dilemma.--Of two things one, Slavery will remain, or cease. If it remain, it will destroy the South, for there will be now no partnership with the free North, to mitigate the natural results, economic, social, or political, of Slavery. If Slavery fail, and fall away, then there will remain no distinctive interest or characteristic, strong enough to encounter the