ircumvent
the laws of God. It has restored to him in improved, rather than
impaired condition, his due privileges, at a moment when, by his own
acts, the very soil was washed from beneath his feet.

XXIII. A more majestic and wise clemency human history does not
exhibit. The liberal and just conditions that attend it cannot be
disregarded. It protects labor by enforcing the performance of its
duty, and it will assist capital by compelling just contributions to
the demands of the Government. Those who profess allegiance to other
Governments will be required, as the condition of residence in this
State, to acquiesce, without reservation, in the demands presented by
Government as a basis of permanent peace. The non-cultivation of the
soil, without just reason, will be followed by temporary forfeiture to
those who will secure its improvement. Those who have exercised or
are entitled to the rights of citizens of the United States, will
be required to participate in the measures necessary for the
re-establishment of civil government. War can never cease except as
civil governments crush out contest, and secure the supremacy of moral
over physical power. The yellow harvest must wave over the crimson
field of blood, and the representatives of the people displace the
agents of purely military power.

XXIV. The amnesty offered for the past is conditioned upon an
unreserved loyalty for the future, and this condition will be enforced
with an iron hand. Whoever is indifferent or hostile, must choose
between the liberty which foreign lands afford, the poverty of the
Rebel States, and the innumerable and inappreciable blessings which
our Government confers upon its people.

May God preserve the Union of the States!

By order of Major-General Banks.

Official:
GEORGE B. DRAKE,
_Assistant Adjutant-General_.

The two documents have little similarity. Both are appropriate to the
systems they are intended to regulate. It is interesting to compare
their merits at the present time. It will be doubly interesting to
make a similar comparison twenty years hence.

While I was in Natchez, a resident of that city called my attention to
one of the "sad results of this horrid, Yankee war."

"Do you see that young man crossing the street toward ----'s store?"

I looked in the direction indicated, and observed a person whom I
supposed to be twenty-five years of age, and whose face bore the
marks of dissipation. I signified, by a single