t
remains to be said that the President had no choice. He might look
wistfully for what variety of courses lay open to him: every line but
one was closed up with fire. This one, too, bristled with danger,
but through it was the sole safety. The measure he has adopted was
imperative. It is wonderful to see the unseasonable senility of what is
called the Peace party, through all its masks, blinding their eyes to
the main feature of the war, namely, its inevitableness. The war existed
long before the cannonade of Sumter, and could not be postponed. It
might have begun otherwise or elsewhere, but war was in the minds and
bones of the combatants, it was written on the iron leaf, and you
might as easily dodge gravitation. If we had consented to a peaceable
secession of the Rebels, the divided sentiment of the Border States made
peaceable secession impossible, the insatiable temper of the South made
it impossible, and the slaves on the border, wherever the border might
be, were an incessant fuel to rekindle the fire. Give the Confederacy
New Orleans, Charleston, and Richmond, and they would have demanded St.
Louis and Baltimore. Give them these, and they would have insisted on
Washington. Give them Washington, and they would have assumed the army
and navy, and, through these, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. It
looks as if the battle-field would have been at least as large in that
event as it is now. The war was formidable, but could not be avoided.
The war was and is an immense mischief, but brought with it the immense
benefit of drawing a line, and rallying the Free States to fix it
impassably,--preventing the whole force of Southern connection and
influence throughout the North from distracting every city with endless
confusion, detaching that force and reducing it to handfuls, and, in the
progress of hostilities, disinfecting us of our habitual proclivity,
through the affection of trade, and the traditions of the Democratic
party, to follow Southern leading.

These necessities which have dictated the conduct of the Federal
Government are overlooked, especially by our foreign critics.
The popular statement of the opponents of the war abroad is the
impossibility of our success. "If you could add," say they, "to your
strength the whole army of England, of France, and of Austria, you
could not coerce eight millions of people to come under this Government
against their will." This is an odd thing for an Englishman, a
French