brium could be attained by the warring States
of our broken Union? Each petty fragment of the discordant mass would
contain within itself the germs of precisely such a struggle as we are
now passing through. For though the Confederate Government may have
ostensibly recognized the actual sovereignty of the separate States
composing it, and thereby pretended to establish the principle of
secession as a right, the war will not have reached its termination
before that doctrine will be practically and effectually destroyed in
the very contest for its assertion. At the moment of its apparent
triumph, secession itself would expire; for so strong a government will
be indispensable to this achievement, and to the maintenance of the new
power, that the very principle which presided at its birth will be
suspended and destroyed by the paramount necessities of its existence
and condition. Any one of the deluded States which might in that case
attempt to assert this right, would soon find, in renewed calamities,
the folly and danger of the theory on which it is founded.

Nothing but the hope of foreign intervention has sustained the cause of
the rebellion until the present time; and the realization of that hope
can alone keep up its vitality, and give it success in the future. The
disparity of strength and numbers in the two sections is decisive of the
whole case, if they be left to conclude the fight themselves. The
question is one of means and men, of resources and endurance; and when
we consider the effects of the blockade, and of the probably action of
the slaves under the policy of the President, or even under the ordinary
progress of the war, no great length of time can be required to bring
the contest to an issue, even if the armies of the Union should not at
once succeed in overwhelming the enemy and taking possession of his
country. In spite of discouraging delays and military blunders, and of
all the waste of life and means which have hitherto marked the conduct
of the war, the great struggle is still progressing rapidly, though
silently, in other fields than those of battle, and with other weapons
than bayonets and artillery. The sinews of war are gradually becoming
shrivelled in the arm of the rebellion. Every bale of cotton locked up
in the ports of the South, or hidden in its thickets and ravines, or
given to the flames by ruthless hands of the guerillas, is so much
strength withheld from the enemy, and, in the vast aggr