e limits of
possibility. They have only begun to discover how narrow these limits
are to them. Unexpected obstacles have arisen on every side, and the
soaring purposes of the rebellion have vainly beaten their bruised and
wearied wings against the solid walls which circumscribe them within the
humble limits of their present uncertain hopes and expectations. The
Federal Government, on the other hand, has not changed its purpose, as
avowed in the beginning, to restore the national authority, in its unity
and integrity, over the whole country. The prospect of accomplishing
this end has grown brighter from the beginning. We have passed through
almost all phases of party excitement; faction has tried its perilous
experiments upon the national temper; divisions have been industriously
fomented; and for a time discord has threatened seriously to weaken us.
But the patriotism of the people has finally prevailed, and the question
may now be considered settled. The people not less than the Government
are fully committed to the grand purpose of putting down the rebellion
and restoring the Union. Nor does this work, immense as it is, seem to
be disproportioned to the national means and energies. The people
believe themselves competent to the mighty task, and with this patriotic
confidence, the undertaking is already more than half accomplished. The
enemy has not the power to defeat our purpose. By our own unhappy
divisions, we might possibly defeat ourselves; but with a united and
determined people, there is not the slightest room for doubt.

The war continues to be carried on solely in the disaffected region.
Threats of transferring the seat of the contest to the loyal States have
constantly been made, and are now renewed with an energy of assertion
equal to the longing desires with which the straitened rebels look upon
the fat fields and the groaning storehouses of the Northern States.
Their futile threats do indeed express their wishes or their disordered
imaginations, rather than their actual intentions or their possible
achievements. If they could transfer the war to Pennsylvania and Ohio,
or even to Kentucky and Maryland, a new aspect would be given to the
controversy, and different results might well be anticipated. But the
time for such enterprises on the part of the rebels, if it ever
existed, has evidently passed by, and is not likely to return. One of
the strongest indications of the ultimate result of the war has been th