the South, and by assurances that the confederate
leaders are secretly working to this end and aim. 'We got along very
well before the war,' is their constant complaint, 'and we could do as
well again, were it not for the Emancipationists.' Among the lukewarm,
the cowardly, the meanly selfish and avaricious, and the habitual
grumblers, such doctrines are readily made plausible. Those especially,
who measure the propriety of carrying on a war solely by the amount of
success which they desire, and who are incapable of great thoughts and
principles, are easily duped by intriguing villany.

The leaders of these dupes have no faith whatever in restoring the
Union. They have no desire to restore it. Men like Fernando Wood hope
from their very hearts for a complete disintegration--the more thorough,
for them, the better. They could never expect to command the ship, and
so they are willing to wreck her, in the hope of each securing a
fragment. Ruined in character in the eyes of all honest men, their names
a byword for treason, and in most cases for literal crimes, political
outcasts of the stamp who are said to vibrate between the legislature
and the penitentiary, these desperadoes are now working with all their
might to mass the cowardice of the North into a body powerful enough to
do collectively, that for which an individual has in all countries and
in all ages been judged worthy the gallows. But for this war they must
have been confined to representing the dangerous classes of our
cities--the ignorance and vice which finds in them congenial leaders. As
it is, they hope for wider fields and more absolute sway.

There is reason to apprehend that the men who are really true to the
Union do not appreciate the extent to which treason is working among us.
Worse than all, there are many, who, while believing themselves true to
the good cause, are, by constant grumbling and complaint, aiding the
very worst form of disunion. Could we prevail with one prayer upon the
heart of every Federal freeman, it would be to implore him in this hour
of trial not to withold his warmest support from the Administration and
to fall into the common weakness of fault-finding and despairing. Such
enormous wars as this never have been ended in a few months; wars
especially which involve the deepest antagonism of social principles in
existence. And our winnings have been neither few nor light. The
Southern Border States, with little exception, are now ou