riate but conflicting forms. If we have been
successful in designating the real causes, and tracing their operation
through successive stages, down to the tremendous and calamitous events
of the present day, we may hope to follow these causes, to some extent,
in their further development, and in their necessary action on the
destiny of the nation. We can at least mark the direction of the stream
of affairs as it rolls grandly before us; and while we may not know
precisely through what regions it will take its course, or by what
rapids and over what cataracts it will be hurried and precipitated with
furious and destructive force, we can nevertheless pronounce with
confidence that it will finally make its way, in spite of all
obstructions, to the broad and peaceful ocean of amelioration, into
which all the currents of human action, however turbid, and filled with
wrecks of human work and genius, eventually pour their inevitable
tribute. We can even look through the mists of time which limit mortal
vision, and catch some glimpses of the bloody current, observing where
it disappears in gloom and shadow, only to come forth again in the
distance as a shining river, glistening in the sunlight of peace and
prosperity, and bearing on its bosom the full-freighted ark of a mighty
nation, resting from war, reunited, and reawakened to the animating
sense of a glorious destiny. Though the present generation should be
compelled to struggle and labor, through its whole term of existence,
with immense sacrifice and suffering, such are the elements involved in
the contest, that nothing but good to the nation, which is surely
destined to survive, can come out of it in the end.

The whole history of our country, its origin, the peculiar organization
of our institutions, and their gradual growth and development down to
the present day, seem to have been arranged and ordered for the very
purpose of engendering this contest between slavery and freedom. If this
statement be too strong, we may at least assert that no better
conditions for that purpose could have been devised, by human wisdom at
all events, than those which existed at every stage of our progress,
from the beginning of our existence as a people, to the culmination of
this long-smouldering strife. The germs of freedom and slavery, which we
know were planted in the infancy of our republic, found in the
circumstances surrounding them the most favorable conditions for their
respectiv