he war, for victory or for death;
A soldier's grave, perhaps,--the thought has half-way stopped my breath,
And driven a cloud across the sun;--my boy, it will not be!
The war will soon be over; home again you'll come to me!

He's reenlisted; and I smiled to see him going, too:
There's nothing that becomes him half so well as army-blue.
Only a private in the ranks; but sure I am, indeed,
If all the privates were like him, they 'd scarcely captains need!

And I and Massachusetts share the honor of his birth,--
The grand old State! to me the best in all the peopled earth!
I cannot hold a musket, but I have a son who can;
And I'm proud for Freedom's sake to be the mother of a man!

* * * * *

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

For the first time since the American Presidency was created, the
American people have entered upon a Presidential election in time of
great war. Even the election of 1812 forms no exception to this
assertion, as the second contest with England did not begin until the
summer of that year, when the conditions of the political contest were
already understood, and it was known that Mr. Madison would be
reelected, in spite of the opposition of the Federalists, and
notwithstanding the disaffection of those Democrats who took De Witt
Clinton for their leader. Mr. Madison, indeed, is supposed to have
turned "war man," against his own convictions, in order to conciliate
the "Young Democracy" of 1812, who had resolved upon having a fight with
England,--and in that way to have secured for supporters men who would
have prevented his reelection, had he defied them. The trouble that we
had with France at the close of the last century undoubtedly had some
effect in deciding the fourth Presidential contest adversely to the
Federalists; but though it was illustrated by some excellent naval
fighting, it can hardly be spoken of as a war: certainly, it was not a
great war. The Mexican War had been brought to a triumphant close before
the election of 1848 was opened. Of the nineteen Presidential elections
which the country has known, sixteen were held in times of profound
peace,--as Indian wars went for nothing; and the other three were not
affected as to their decision by the contests we had had with France or
Mexico, or by that with England, which was in its first stage when Mr.
Madison was reelected. Every Presidential election, from that of 1788 to
that of 1860, f