he man who realizes the enormous
industrial and recuperative energies of this country.

'What are we to do with one or two million of free blacks?' asks one. A
few years ago, when it was proposed to banish all free persons of color
from Maryland, a cry of alarm went up lest Baltimore alone should be
deprived of fifteen thousand of 'the best servants in the world.' 'How
shall we ever pay for those who may be offered for sale to us, if we
resolve to pay for their slaves all Southerners who may take the oath of
allegiance?' Eight days' expenses of the present war would pay more than
the market price for all the slaves in Maryland! But these objections
are childish. Right against them rises a tremendous, inevitable destiny,
which _must_ crush all before it. So much for 1861.

We would urge no measure in this or any other relation which shall not
have received the fullest endorsement of two thirds of the loyal
American people. As regards all foreign interference, let it never be
forgotten that public opinion after all prevails in all Western Europe,
and that this would long hesitate ere it committed a national reputation
to an endorsement of the Southern Confederacy. It is apparent from the
authentic and shameless avowals of the Southern press that Mr.
SLIDELL, the cut-short ambassador, was authorized to solicit a
French protectorate of LOUIS NAPOLEON,--to such incredible
baseness has slave 'independence' sunk,--and, as we write, much
discussion is waged whether England will take in ill part our arrest of
a man charged with such a monstrous mission! Let England imagine herself
dependent on such a protectorate for her cotton, and the thought may
possibly occur that it would have been better to have sided at once
openly and squarely with the North. But John Bull is strangely changed
in these times, and Yankee protection is inconceivably more awful to him
than the slavery with which he has been for twenty years so much
disgusted.

'The heart it pincheth sore,
But the pocket pinches more.'

And now with the New Year. Amid red-flashing war and wild strivings we
look bravely and hopefully forward into the future, and see amid these
storms blue sky rifts and golden sun gleams. Already strong and
practical advances in education, in political economy, in industry, in
all that is healthier and sounder in life, are beginning to manifest
themselves. This country can be in nothing put back by this struggle, in
no wise weakened o