find it impossible to avoid, nor have they any difficulty in permitting this in another direction. The St. Lawrence is the outlet of the greater part of that region, and the growth of population in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and around the border of the lakes, renders this more prominent every year. Yet the possession of that river by a foreign power has neither checked their progress nor disturbed their peace. And how many

separate powers are there on the Rhine, with its outlet in Holland-how many on the Danube, with its mouths in the hands of Turkey? The only force in the objection lies in the supposition, by the Americans themselves, that they are unable to live in harmony under the same conditions as the people of Europe. If this be so, the cure should be, not in perpetuating such a condition, but in removing the causes that have produced this effect on the national character.

It is true that the severance of the Southern States may diminish for a time the commerce of some districts, but in a few years-but a moment in the lifetime of a nation-that trade will undoubtedly become greater than before. No political change will bar out enterprise and capital from obtaining the lion's share. To end the exploded system of protection, would check for a time the growth of some branches of industry; but nothing can prevent the North from becoming a great manufacturing power-eventually perhaps the greatest of industrial powers. Manufactures

are a question of coal and energy. The Northern States have more coal in one of many fields than exists in the whole of Europe-and of energy assuredly there is no lack. The change would be simply this progress would be retarded for a time for a few years-to be more sure and sound throughout all the future history of the nation.

And against this there would be a political result of the change that appears of inestimable value. The Northerner has been practically excluded from the rule of his own country. Through the Southern party alliance, in many most important districts, the foreign element had come to have the casting vote, the deciding political power. This in New York is with the Irish, in Pennsylvania with the Germans. Large regions in the West are becoming altogether foreign. Can this be a desirable condition in which to maintain the political status of any country? It seems to conflict sorely with that spirit of nationality-so vehement in words, and apparently so indifferent to facts.

This overgrown foreign element has exercised a most injurious influence in the North in several directions. What is there so humiliating to the United States, or so baneful to its people, as the condition into which its press has fallen? But the most violent of these papers those which delude the popular mind and sully the national character are most of them conducted by

foreigners, frequently men who in their own countries would assuredly not have been selected as popular instructors. The American is acutely sensitive to a word of criticism expressed by a foreigner; yet he permits shoals of the lowest order of foreigners to influence the press of the country, and become the political instructors of his people.

The great evil which is apprehended by the North as the result of a separation is undoubtedly the loss of dominion. It has been urged that no reasoning would ever satisfy an Englishman that it might be well to part with India or the other possessions of the empire, and thus come within the dimensions of a third-rate power. But the argument, like so many so many others we have examined, although specious, is not applicable to the facts. The British Islands are small, densely peopled ; the Northern States are vast, and to this day, to a large extent, are rather occupied than inhabited. The one needs room for its people, the other people for its space. The man who owns a great mansion of which half the rooms are empty, and who inhabits but a corner, can hardly be compared with another whose family has grown too large for his modest dwelling. If England, like the Northern States, had been three thousand miles across, we should have made our India at home.

Let us, indeed, see what would still be the extent of the Northern power, assuming that the whole of the slave States depart, and should even take with

them the territories of New Mexico and Arizona, in which slavery exists. There are now nineteen free States, of which the area is 993,684 square miles, and there are six territories which, excluding those named, comprise an area of 1,168,000 miles. Thus the total magnitude of the Northern power would be 2,161,684 square miles. Now the combined dimensions of four of the five great European powers are together 625,000 square miles. Thus the Northern territory would be three times as large as that of four of the great powers of the world together.

There are eight kingdoms of Europe of which the population in 1850 was 20 millions, the same as that of the Northern States. Of these the combined area is 120,000 square miles. Hence the domain of the Northern power would be eighteen times as large as that of eight European kingdoms joined together. Again, France is not considered a small country, and it would be twelve times as large as France. This seems a strange, disordered appetite for mere space, and not a reasonable desire for that degree of magnitude which an independent power ought really to

possess.

There appears an illustration in this of the views already expressed, how far the Union has distorted the standard of dimension. It seems to have thrown a mist, a glare over the public mind, obscuring all realities. Any American will admit that the dimensions of France are ample for a

great power, yet as a Unionist he plunges into the horrors of civil war, because his country with half the population of France would be reduced to twelve times the size. These are dreams of a nation's youth. How few have not had to put away early dreams, and narrow thought to less alluring realities!

Was there in this sufficient cause that men should proceed to destroy each other? At the best, when accepted as a sad and stern necessity, war is but a form of legalized and organized murder. At the best it is pitiable to see the human mind contriving how most effectually to destroy our fellow-men. But civil war, between those of the same tongue, of the same lineage, nay, often of the same household, in this there is indeed wickedness and woe. Nor is it less deplorable when sought by those who profess to be disciples of Him who bid his follower to put up his sword into its sheath, and taught that the inheritance of the earth is to the meek. Nor is it less to be condemned when they are the sons of rebels, who are so bitterly indignant at rebellion-the worshippers of independence, who so detest it when claimed by other voices than their own. Lamentable, the judgment which affirms that after the rebellion is crushed the Union shall issue forth "unchangeable and unchanged." A skilful workman may repair some broken vase the pieces may be cunningly arranged-spread over with a new enamel. But the value is gone. There is now a thing of