servants are found among the fugitives.

Putting abolition aside, let us examine the condition of the North's
"second charger"--battle-horse--Restoration of the Union at any cost.
The question of the right of the Southern States to secede has been
discussed till every European ear must be weary of the theme; so we will
let the justice of the case alone, and only look at the wild
improbability of any such result being achieved. In the North, of
course, there is a strong peace-party; in the South I do not think that
any man would venture to suggest to his nearest friend any compromise
short of the acknowledgment of the Confederacy as an independent nation.
It is an utter mistake to suppose that, if the Emancipatory Proclamation
were revoked, the road towards peace would be smoothed materially: it
might have a good effect in displaying a spirit of conciliation on the
part of the Federal Government--nothing more. The wedges that will keep
the South apart from the North, forever, were moulded and sharpened long
before they were driven home. For years far-seeing men, especially on
the Border States, had provided, in their financial and domestic
arrangements, for a certain disunion: not for the first time in history
has an aristocracy grown up in the centre of a democracy, and, while the
world shall last, such a state of things can never long endure without a
collision, involving temporary subjugation or permanent disruption.

The New Englander sees this just as plainly as the Virginian, and both
have an equal pride in thinking that Cavalier and Roundhead are fighting
the old battle once more. Disputes about tariffs and falsified
compromises have only been specious pretexts for indulging in a spirit
of antagonism, which was then scarcely dissembled, and can never be
glossed over again. But the Federal Government are not only pursuing a
_mirage_, in trying to enforce a Union which could scarcely be
maintained if all the South country lay depopulated and desolate: they
are risking, every day, more perilously, the cohesion of the States that
still cling to the old Commonwealth. The Black Republican tendency to
put down all political opposition with the armed hand, or with the
_lettre de cachet_, is perpetually conflicting with the State rights,
which many true-hearted Americans value no less highly than their
allegiance to the Union. The Democrats are almost strong enough to defy
their opponents, even while the latter are in po