nt of
principle added the newly acquired lust for blood, any prospect of
conciliation becomes extremely remote. We may hope for it--we may and
should proceed cautiously, so that no possible opportunity of restoring
peace may be lost; but it is of the utmost importance that we be blind
to no facts; and every fact developed as the war advances seems to
indicate that we have to deal with a most intractable, crafty, and
ferocious enemy, whom to trust is to be deceived.

There can be no doubt that the ultimatum of the South is secession or
death. We of the North can not contemplate such a picture with calmness,
and therefore evade it as amiably as we can. We say, it stands to reason
that very few men will burn their own homes and crops, yet every mail
tells us of tremendous suicidal sacrifices of this description. The ruin
and misery which the South is preparing for itself in every way is
incalculable and incredible, and yet there is no diminution of
desperation. The prosperity which made a mock of honest poverty is now,
as by the retributive judgment of God, sinking itself into penury, and
the planter who spoke of the Northern serf as a creature just one remove
above the brute, is himself learning by bitter experience to be a
mud-sill. Verily the cause of the poor and lowly is being avenged. Yet
with all this there is no hint or hope of compromise; repeated defeats
are, so far, of little avail. The Northern Doughfaces tell us over and
over again, that if we will 'only leave the slave question untouched,'
all will yet be right. 'Only spare them the negro, and they, seeing that
we do not intend to interfere with their rights, will eventually settle
down into the Union.' But what is there to guarantee this assertion?
What _proof_ have we that the South can be in this manner conciliated?
None--positively none.

There is nothing which the Southern press, and, so far as we can learn,
the Southern people, have so consistently and thoroughly disavowed since
the war began, as the assertion that a restoration of the Union may be
effected on the basis of undisturbed slavery. They have ridiculed the
Democrats of the North with as great contempt and as bitter sarcasm as
were ever awarded of old to Abolitionists, for continually urging this
worn-out folly; for now that the mask is finally thrown off, they make
no secret of their scorn for their old tools and dupes. Slavery is no
longer the primary object; they are quite willing to give