is waiting for you there. But my position is
different; I have many things to arrange here before I can join you. I want
to see the looms at work on the plantation; and am going down next week
with Uncle Eric, to consult with the overseer about several changes which I
desire made concerning the negroes. When all this is accomplished, I too
shall come into the hospitals."

"About what time may I expect you?"

"Not until you see me; but at the earliest practicable day."

"Your uncle objects very strenuously to such a plan, does he not?"

"He will acquiesce at the proper time. Take care! you are making your
bandages too wide."

"A long dark vista stretches before the Confederacy. I cannot, like many
persons, feel sanguine of a speedy termination of the war."

"Yes--a vista lined with the bloody graves of her best sons; but beyond
glimmers Freedom--Independence."

"But do you still cling to a belief in the possibility of Republican forms
of Government? This is a question which constantly disquiets me."

"My faith in that possibility is unshaken. We shall yet teach the world
that self-government is feasible."

"But in Europe, where the subject is eagerly canvassed, the impression
obtains that, in the great fundamental principle of our government, will be
found the germ of its dissolution. This war is waged to establish the right
of Secession, and the doctrine that 'all just governments rest on the
consent of the governed.' With such a precedent, it would be worse than
stultification to object to the secession of any State or States now
constituting the Confederacy, who at a future day may choose to withdraw
from the present compact. Granting our independence, which Europe regards
as a foregone conclusion, what assurance have you (say they, gloating, in
anticipation over the prospect) that, so soon as the common dangers of war,
which for a time cemented you so closely, are over, entire disintegration
will not ensue, and all your boasts end in some dozen anarchical
pseudo-republics, like those of South America and Mexico?"

"That is an evil which our legislators must guard against by timely
provision. We are now, thank God! a thoroughly homogeneous people, with no
antagonistic systems of labour necessitating conflicting interests. As
States, we are completely identified in commerce and agriculture, and no
differences need arise. Purified from all connection with the North, and
with no vestige of the mischievous eleme