n, except when his published words or his overt acts are calculated
to interfere with the acknowledged rights or interests of others. This
is, theoretically, the consummation of the greatest possible human
liberty. It provides only for order and justice, and leaves everything
else to the control of individual will and social cooeperation. In the
present war for the Union, the loyal States are by no means contending
for the abrogation of this principle of liberty, but for its extension.
They desire neither to abolish it with reference to the Union, when
exercised through the forms provided in the Constitution, nor to prevent
its operations within the limits of the Southern States themselves.

It is not possible that the great civil conflict now pending could take
place without causing, in the end, an important extension of liberal
principles. These, when they once acquire a firm hold upon any society
possessed of the requisite intelligence, are altogether too strong for
the antagonistic principle of force, because the latter can be nothing
but an authority usurped by the few and exerted against the many; while
the former is the accumulation of the whole power of society wielded for
the benefit of all. Obviously, this affords the only basis broad enough
to sustain a social structure of any stability and permanence.

Under the operation of this voluntary principle--the principle of
voluntary consent and of universal freedom--the conflicting elements of
Southern society will be compelled to adjust themselves to each other
more wisely, and therefore more safely and profitably, than under the
arbitrary system which has hitherto prevailed.

Some of the wealthiest men and the largest slaveholders have already
discerned the necessities of their condition, and are fully prepared to
accept the new order of things, and to make their arrangements for
future operations accordingly. Under the law of liberty, the races, in
their new relations, will soon find their appropriate positions in the
social organization, subject chiefly to the natural influences of
intelligence, morality, industry, and property, but not without the
inevitable pressure and disturbance of traditional prejudice to hinder
and embarrass the operation of the principle of freedom. It is
impossible to prevent this, so long as human nature retains its present
tendency to selfishness and violence. The only alternative is to await
the soothing operation of time, which g