up slavery if
the growing prosperity of the South should require it; their emissaries
abroad in every _salon_ have been vowing that manumission of their
slaves would soon follow recognition; and it was their rage at failure
after such wretched abasement and unprincipled inconsistency which, very
naturally, provoked the present ire of the South against England and
France. They, the proud, chivalrous Southrons, who had daringly rushed
to battle as slave lords, after eating abundant dirt as prospective
Abolitionists, after promising any thing and every thing for a
recognition, received the cold shoulder. No wonder that ill-will to
England is openly avowed by the Richmond press as one of the reasons for
burning the cotton as the Northern armies advance.

The only basis of peace with the North, as the South declares, is
Disunion; and they do most certainly mean it. No giving up the slave
question, no enforcing of fugitive slave laws; no, not the hanging of
Messrs. Garrison and Phillips, or any other punishment of all
Emancipationists--as clamored for by thousands of trembling
cowards--would be of any avail. It is disunion or nothing--and disunion
they can not have. There shall be no disunion, no settlement of any
thing on _any_ basis but the Union. Richmond papers, after the battle of
Pittsburgh Landing, proposed peace and separation. They do not know us.
The North was never so determined to push on as now; never so eager for
battle or for sacrifices. If the South is in earnest, so are we; if they
have deaths to avenge, so have we; if they cry for war to the knife, so
surely as God lives they can have it in full measure. For thirty years
the blazing straw of Southern insult has been heaped on the Northern
steel; and now that the latter is red-hot, it shall scorch and sear ere
it cools, and they who heated it shall feel it.

We may as well make up our minds to it first as last, that we must at
every effort and at _any_ cost, conquer this rebellion. There is no
alternative. This done, the great question which remains to settle, is,
how shall we manage the conquered provinces? There are fearful obstacles
in the way; great difficulties, such as no one has as yet calmly
realized; difficulties at home and abroad. We have a fierce and
discontented population to keep under; increased expenses in every
department of government; but it is needless to sum them up. The first
and most apparent difficulty is that involved in the form of