rnals 9 September.

The single question of policy on which General McClellan differs from
Mr. Lincoln, stripped of the conventional phrases in which he drapes
it, is Slavery. He can mean nothing else when he talks of "conciliation
and compromise," of receiving back any State that may choose to return
"with a full guaranty of all its constitutional rights." If it be true
that a rose by any other name will smell as sweet, it is equally true
that there is a certain species of toadstool that would be none the
less disgusting under whatever _alias_. Compromise and conciliation
are both excellent things in their own way, and in the fitting time and
place, but right cannot be compromised without surrendering it, and to
attempt conciliation by showing the white feather ends, not in
reconcilement, but subjection. The combined ignorance of the Seven
Sleepers of Ephesus as to what had been going on while they were in
their cavern would hardly equal that of General McClellan alone as to
the political history of the country. In the few months between Mr.
Lincoln's election and the attack on Fort Sumter we tried conciliation
in every form, carrying it almost to the verge of ignominy. The
Southern leaders would have none of it. They saw in it only a
confession of weakness, and were but the more arrogant in their demand
of all or nothing. Compromise we tried for three quarters of a century,
and it brought us to where we are, for it was only a fine name for
cowardice, and invited aggression. And now that the patient is dying of
this drench of lukewarm water, Doctor Sangrado McClellan gravely
prescribes another gallon. If that fail to finish him, why, give him a
gallon more.

We wish it were as easy to restore General McClellan's army to what it
was before the Peninsular campaign as he seems to think it is to put
the country back where it was at the beginning of the war. The war, it
is true, was undertaken to assert the sovereignty of the Constitution,
but the true cause of quarrel was, not that the South denied the
supremacy of that instrument, but that they claimed the sole right to
interpret it, and to interpret it in a sense hostile to the true ideal
of the country, and the clear interests of the people. But
circumstances have changed, and what was at first a struggle to
maintain the outward form of our government has become a contest to
preserve the life and assert the supreme will of the nation. Even in
April, 1861, underneath th