than himself.

In narrating the causes which brought about the present state of
things, Mr. Pollard arranges matters to suit his own convenience,
constantly reversing the relations of cause and effect, and forgetting
that the order of events is of every importance in estimating their
moral bearing. The only theoretic reason he gives for Secession is the
desire to escape from the tyranny of a "numerical majority." Yet it was
by precisely such a majority, and that attained by force or fraud, that
the seceding States were taken out of the Union. We entirely agree with
Mr. Pollard that a show of hands is no test of truth; but he seems to
forget that, except under a despotism, a numerical majority of some
sort or other is sure to govern. No man capable of thought, as Mr.
Pollard certainly is, would admit that a majority was any more likely
to be right under a system of limited than under one of universal
suffrage, always provided the said majority did not express his own
opinions. The majority always governs in the long run, because it comes
gradually round to the side of what is just and for the common
interest, and the only dangerous majority is that of a mob unchecked by
the delay for reflection which all constitutional government
interposes. The constitutions of most of the Slave States, so far as
white men are concerned, are of the most intensely democratic type.
Would Mr. Pollard consolidate them all under one strong government, or
does he believe that to be good for a single State which is bad for
many united? It is curious to see, in his own intense antipathy to a
slaveholding aristocracy, how purely American he is in spite of his
theories; and, bitterly hostile as he is to the Davis administration,
he may chance on the reflection that a majority is pretty much the same
thing in one parallel of latitude as another. Of one thing he may be
assured,--that we of the North do not understand by republic a
government of the better and more intelligent class by the worse and
more ignorant, and accordingly are doing our best by education to
abolish the distinction between the two.

The fact that no adequate reasons for Secession have ever been brought
forward, either by the seceding States at the time, or by their
apologists since, can only be explained on the theory that nothing more
than a _coup d'etat_ was intended, which should put the South in
possession of the government. Owing to the wretched policy (if
supineness de