ady become aware of this difficulty, and
accordingly propose the abolition of all State lines,--the first step
toward a military despotism; for, if our present system have one
advantage greater than another, it is the neutralization of numberless
individual ambitions by adequate opportunities of provincial
distinction. Even now the merits of the Napoleonic system are put
forward by some of the theorists of Alabama and Mississippi, who
doubtless have as good a stomach to be emperors as ever Bottom had to a
bottle of hay, when his head was temporarily transformed to the likeness
of theirs,--and who, were they subjects of the government that looks so
nice across the Atlantic, would, ere this, have been on their way
to Cayenne, a spot where such red-peppery temperaments would find
themselves at home.

The absurdities with which the telegraphic column of the newspapers has
been daily crowded, since the vagaries of South Carolina finally settled
down into unmistakable insanity, would give us but a poor opinion of the
general intelligence of the country, did we not know that they were due
to the necessities of "Our Own Correspondent." At one time, it is Fort
Sumter that is to be bombarded with floating batteries mounted on rafts
behind a rampart of cotton-bales; at another, it is Mr. Barrett, Mayor
of Washington, announcing his intention that the President-elect shall
be inaugurated, or Mr. Buchanan declaring that he shall cheerfully
assent to it. Indeed! and who gave them any choice in the matter?
Yesterday, it was General Scott who would not abandon the flag which he
had illustrated with the devotion of a lifetime; to-day, it is General
Harney or Commodore Kearney who has concluded to be true to the country
whose livery he has worn and whose bread he has eaten for half a
century; to-morrow, it will be Ensign Stebbins who has been magnanimous
enough not to throw up his commission. What are we to make of the
extraordinary confusion of ideas which such things indicate? In what
other country would it be considered creditable to an officer that he
merely did not turn traitor at the first opportunity? There can be no
doubt of the honor both of the army and navy, and of their loyalty to
their country. They will do their duty, if we do ours in saving them a
country to which they can be loyal.

We have been so long habituated to a kind of local independence in the
management of our affairs, and the Central Government has fortunately