h grave opinion was to
let Secession have its way till _Coercion_ would seem to be not only
unconstitutional, but unavailing. Our English kinsfolk also knew that
our prominent diplomatic agents abroad, representing solemn treaty
relations with them of this nation as a unit, under sacred oaths of
loyalty to it, and living on generous grants from its Treasury, were
also in more or less of active sympathy with traitorous schemes. So far,
it must be owned, there was little in the promise of whatever might grow
from these combined enormities to engage the confidence or the good
wishes of true-hearted persons on either side of the water.

But whatever power of mischief lay in this marvellous combination of
evil forces, so malignly working together, the Administration in which
they found their life and whose agencies they employed was soon to yield
up its fearfully desecrated trust. A new order of things, representing
at least the spirit and purpose of that philanthropy and public
righteousness to which our English brethren had for years been prompting
us, was to come in with a new Administration, already constitutionally
recognized, but not as yet put into power. It was asking but little of
intelligent foreigners of our own blood and language, that they should
make due allowance for that recurring period in the terms of our
Government--as easily turned to mischievous influences as is an
interregnum in a monarchy--by which there is a lapse of four months
between the election and the inauguration of our Chief Magistrate. A
retiring functionary may work and plan and provide an immense amount of
disabling, annoying, and damaging experience to be encountered by his
successor. That successor may at a distance, or close at hand, be an
observer of all this influence; but whether it be simply of a partisan
or of a malignant character, he is powerless to resist it, and good
taste and the proprieties of his position seem to suggest that he make
no public recognition of it. Every Chief Magistrate of this Republic,
before its present head, acceded to office with its powers and dignities
and facilities and trusts unimpaired by his predecessor. We have thought
that among the thorns of the pillow on which a certain "old public
functionary" lays his head, as he watches the dismal working of elements
which he had more power than any other to have dispelled, not the
least sharp one must be that which pierces him with the thought of the
differen