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lt, hats of beaver, hats of straw, caps, military and civil--an endless variety. 'But the womens' bonnets,' added he, 'are all just alike in shape.' 'No, there are some exceptions,' said I, with a sly glance at the owner of the jockey.' On which the old gentleman laughed again, and was about to reply; when arrival of the train at its destination brought our conversation to a sudden stop, and the motley assemblage, whether crowned with hat or cap, bonnet or 'jockey,' parted company, never to meet again on this side of the Dark River. THE OBSTACLES TO PEACE. A LETTER TO AN ENGLISH FRIEND. MY DEAR SIR:--I have your late letter inquiring, as did several of its predecessors, how soon this terrible Civil War is to end, and why we do not close it at once by consenting to Disunion. These inquiries are natural from your point of view; I have briefly answered them already; but the subject is of vast importance, and we have good reason for our desire that correct views respecting it should prevail among the enlightened and just in Europe. We feel that we are entitled to the earnest and active sympathy of such men as you are in every country and of every creed. We feel that we have unjustly, by artful misrepresentations, been deprived of this, and that we have suffered grievously in consequence. Let me endeavor, then, to restate our position somewhat more fully, and to show wherein and why we impeach the justice of the criticisms to which we have been subjected even by humane and fair-minded Englishmen. I need not, at this late day, prove to you that Slavery is the animating soul of the Rebellion. The fact that no compromise or adjustment of the quarrel was proposed from any quarter during the inception and progress of Secession, which did not relate directly and exclusively to Slavery, is conclusive on this point. Projects for arresting the impending calamity were abundant throughout the winter of 1860-61. Congress was gorged with them; a volunteer 'Peace Congress' was simultaneously held on purpose to arrest the dreaded disruption, and attended by able Delegations from all the Border Slave and most of the Free States, many of the former now fighting in the Rebel ranks; but no one suggested that any conceivable legislation on any subject but Slavery was desired or would be of the least avail. Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, and, perhaps, the ablest man in it, who resist
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