n, or rather restoration, is
impossible. Twenty years after the Battle of Culloden, Jacobitism was a
dream; fifty years after, it was a memory; a century after, it was an
antiquarian study.

The real question we are to ask concerning the present rebellion, and
the only one which is of importance, is, What is it based upon? an
eternal or an arbitrary principle? An eternal principle renews itself
till it succeeds,--if not in one century, then in another. An arbitrary
principle makes its fierce fight and then is slain, and men bury it as
soon as they can. The Stuarts represented an arbitrary principle. They
were the impersonation of unconstitutional power. Hereditary right
they had, and the Hanoverians had not. According to Mr. Thackeray, and
according to the strictest fact, we suspect the Georges were no
more personally estimable than the Jameses, and they were far less
kingly-mannered. But they were willing to govern England according to
law, and the Stuarts wore determined to govern according to prerogative.

What is the present issue? It is a contest, when reduced to its ultimate
terms, between free labor and slavery. It is very true that this
secession was planned before slavery considered itself aggrieved,
before abolitionism became a word of war. But the antipathy between
the slaveholder and the payer or receiver of wages was none the less
radical. The systems were just as hostile. We admit that the South can
make out its title of legitimacy. It has a slave population it must take
care of and is bound to take care of till somebody can tell what better
to do with it. It can show a refined condition of its highest society,
which contrasts not unfavorably with the tawdry display and vulgar
ostentation of the _nouveaux riches_ whom sudden success in trade or
invention has made conspicuous at the North. There is a fascination
about the Southern life and character which charms those who do not look
at it too closely into ardent championship. Even Mr. Russell, so long as
he looked into white faces in South Carolina, was fascinated, and only
when he came to look into black faces along the Mississippi found the
disenchantment. The decisive difference is, that the North is purposing
to settle and possess this land according to the law of right, and the
South according to the law of might.

We say, therefore, that the issue of the contest need not be doubtful.
The events of it may be very uncertain, but, from the parallel we