termined to sacrifice
everything but its existence to the demolition of this bloody god, is of
itself an evidence of the purity of our civilization. We have not been
dead to the principles of truth and justice involved in this question;
we have been but biding our time, plainly seeing and carefully noting
the direful effects of slavery upon our social organization, and
'heaping up wrath against the day of wrath.' And now, with the blessing
of God upon our efforts, the present war will not cease until the death
blow is given to the accursed institution with all its attendant evils.
We, as a people, are fully aroused and sternly determined henceforth to
let nothing stand in the way of our social advancement, however
time-honored and cherished may have been the obstacle. And when these
evils have all been swept away, as they assuredly will be, we shall
stand forth among the nations in all the glory of a pure and enlightened
civilization, and challenge the world to produce a nobler record, to
point out a happier, more prosperous, more truly progressive people.

With the close of the present war will arise another important question,
bearing not less strongly than that of slavery upon our ultimate
civilization. The slaveholding States are to be, in a measure,
repeopled. The tide of immigration which has so long and so steadily
streamed toward the West will be for some time diverted to the fertile
plantations of the South. Not only the soldiers of the North, to whom
the war has opened what has hitherto been to them almost a _terra
incognita_, will seek new homes within the sunny climes; but the flood
of foreign immigration, which, upon the vindication of our national
integrity and power, will quickly double itself in comparison with that
of former years, and sweep toward this new and inviting field; and the
distinctive feature of Southern society--of so-called 'Southern
chivalry'--will soon be swallowed up in the torrent. And what then shall
we have to fill its place? The crude ideas of foreign tyros in the
school of freedom, the conflicting religious, social, and political
theories of European revolutionists, the antagonistic policies of a
hundred different nationalities. All this, in connection with the
difficulties arising from the freeing of so large an African population,
will prove a severe trial to our national civilization, and call for the
exercise of the profoundest wisdom, the most careful discrimination, and
the m