. Subdue the
present rebellion, reinstate the Union, multiply the facilities for
social intercourse and the mutual exchange of products, especially
railroads, wherever there is sufficient promise of a need; and our
country, thus knit together and united, has nothing to fear from the
madness of local factions. Permeate the body politic in all its members
by the nerves, veins, and arteries of a vital circulation, and it
becomes an organized unity which is not susceptible of division into
upper or lower, right or left, except by the destruction of the entire
organism.

But admitting that continental unity is to obtain some day, still the
question as to whether now is or is not the time for it to assume a more
distinct form, brings us by a rational necessity to a brief notice of
the influence of European diplomacy and the contingency of foreign
intervention.

It is very clear that the 'balance of power' system of Europe, and the
continental system which this war is waged on our part to sustain, are
very unlike, if not antagonistic systems. The tone, all through the war,
of a large portion of the British daily press, and of much of her
weightier literature; the intrigues of Napoleon and the outspeaking of
his minions, together with the measures which have been clandestinely
taken by persons of power and influence to advance the interests of
secession, show that there are influential classes in Western Europe,
allied by interest to her fragmentary political organizations, who would
gladly see the United States broken to pieces under the shock of
rebellion. Their sympathies have been with the rebellion all through the
war; and that they have not interfered more actively than they have, is
not to be attributed to their sincere love for justice and neutrality,
but to their own weakness--to the complicated nature of their own
diplomacy, and its critical status just now, when there is danger of
bursting volcanoes in their own midst.

It is a law of history that any political system of some degree of
prevalence seeks to extend itself; indeed, this is a law of all
movement, whether physical, chemical, social, or political. There is a
political leaven which permeates the whole mass, and brings it into the
same condition. It resulted once in the general prevalence of feudalism;
it afterward touched the cities of civilizing Europe, and they became
independent, and leagued together for a common purpose. It operated
again, and govern