d bonds which held them to the Union, than they discarded
the very doctrine which had been their strongest weapon in forcing their
people to revolt: well knowing that no government founded upon such a
basis could stand for a single year; that the upholding of such a
principle was neither more nor less than political suicide. And though
at the commencement of our struggle there were many at the North in
whose minds the dogma had taken deep root, few are found to-day to
uphold the pernicious doctrine, and those few men of more than
questionable loyalty. And not this principle only, but every other which
is inconsistent with republican ideas, antagonistic to the growth of the
giant plant of human freedom, has come to its death at the hands of the
god of war. Great commotions are the test of great ideas, and that
principle either of government or of human action which can withstand
the shock of such an upheaving as the present, and come unharmed through
the war of such conflicting elements, may well claim our support as
founded in eternal truth. The penetrating glance of human intellect,
sharpened by the perilous exigencies of the times, and by the quick
succession of startling events, even as the inventive faculties are said
to be rendered more acute by the presence of danger, at such times sees
clearly the fallacies which perhaps have blinded mankind for years, and
recognizes, with unerring certainty, the misfortunes and disasters of
to-day as the evil effects of theories which aforetime were only
considered capable of good.

And with these theories must inevitably fall their supporters and
promulgators. The men who have persistently misled the public mind and
falsified the experience of the past as well as the deductions of
abstract reasoning, and who, consequently, if not the originators, are
at least the aggravators, of all our misfortunes, need expect no mercy
at the hands of the people. They must share the fate of their doctrines,
and consent to be quietly shelved, buried beyond the hope of a
resurrection: and it is to be hoped that their places will be filled by
good, earnest, and true men, who have proved themselves devoted to the
cause of our country's advancement rather than to that of personal
preferment. In this war, the men of the future must make their record,
and whenever they shall come before the people for the posts of honor
and distinction, they will be judged according as they have to-day
sacrificed per