wer until such time as a civil government can be maintained, and then
for the whole Government of the United States, legislative, judicial,
and executive, to stand by, as the constitutionally appointed guardian,
_and permit_ THE PEOPLE _to elect their own State officers_. Whether the
conventions of the people are called by law of Congress or by
proclamation of the President, would seem to be immaterial, though the
latter seems the least cumbersome method. Thus the rebel States would
pass from rebel forms to constitutional ones, in a legal and formal
manner. Sooner or later this must be done, even if, for a time,
provisional governments are instituted; for no Congressional government
can be an elective government, and hence not a constitutional one,
because the elective principle is necessary to a republican form of
government. But if, under the clause of the Constitution which enjoins
upon the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to
each State, conventions of the people be called to elect their own
officers, they are at once put in possession of their constitutional
rights. And how can a State be _re_admitted to a Union which it has
never left?

The writer has no pet theory to maintain, but is, like the writer in the
_Atlantic_, 'in search of truth;' and the views here expressed are the
result, not merely of closet reflection, but of observation and
experience in the seceded States, while 'marching under the flag and
keeping step to the music of the Union.' If only, through this baptism
of blood, the nation, freed at last from the blighting curse of slavery,
and purified into a better life, shall lift her radiant forehead from
the dust, and, crowned with the diadem of freedom, go on her glorious
way rejoicing, the writer will count his past sufferings and shattered
health only as the small dust in the balance compared with the priceless
blessings of peace, freedom, and national unity, which they may have
contributed, however slightly, to purchase. Only to have contributed,
however little, something for the peace--something for the
glory--something for the permanence, beautiful and bright--of those
institutions which are for America the pride of the past and the hope of
the future, will be a joy through life and a consolation in death.

THE MOUND BUILDER.

INTRODUCTION.

All over Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and other Western States--but
chiefly over these--are the monumental remains of a