provokingly calm.
General Cushing, infringing the patent-right of the late Mr. James, the
novelist, has seen a solitary horseman on the edge of the horizon. The
exegesis of the vision has been various, some thinking that it means a
Military Despot,--though in that case the force of cavalry would seem
to be inadequate,--and others the Pony Express. If it had been one
rider on two horses, the application would have been more general and
less obscure. In fact, the old cry of Disunion has lost its terrors, if
it ever had any, at the North. The South itself seems to have become
alarmed at its own scarecrow, and speakers there are beginning to
assure their hearers that the election of Mr. Lincoln will do them no
harm. We entirely agree with them, for it will save them from
themselves.

To believe any organized attempt by the Republican party to disturb the
existing internal policy of the Southern States possible presupposes a
manifest absurdity. Before anything of the kind could take place, the
country must be in a state of forcible revolution. But there is no
premonitory symptom of any such convulsion, unless we except Mr.
Yancey, and that gentleman's throwing a solitary somerset will hardly
turn the continent head over heels. The administration of Mr. Lincoln
will be conservative, because no government is ever intentionally
otherwise, and because power never knowingly undermines the foundation
on which it rests. All that the Free States demand is that influence in
the councils of the nation to which they are justly entitled by their
population, wealth, and intelligence. That these elements of prosperity
have increased more rapidly among them than in communities otherwise
organized, with greater advantages of soil, climate, and mineral
productions, is certainly no argument that they are incapable of the
duties of efficient and prudent administration, however strong a one it
may be for their endeavoring to secure for the Territories the single
superiority that has made themselves what they are. The object of the
Republican party is not the abolition of African slavery, but the utter
extirpation of dogmas which are the logical sequence of attempts to
establish its righteousness and wisdom, and which would serve equally
well to justify the enslavement of every white man unable to protect
himself. They believe that slavery is a wrong morally, a mistake
politically, and a misfortune practically, wherever it exists; that it
has