Year: 1864

Everybody is hunting substitute. We
are all stopping our ncighbors upon the
streets, to ask them to become targets in
our places. Veterans and aliens are the
best folks in the land, in that all coyct
their society, and we citizens ignobly con
tend at home, yet Jealous for the continu-
ance of the war, are clinging to our lives
and our patriotism at the same time. with
ludicrous, almost mournful, personal in
consistency.


Yet will we be saved from the service
in the end, by purchasing present excmp-
ton! No doubt, the Government means
to act honestly; yet all experience shows
that republics arc not nice as to the points
of honor in time OF necessity. We have
no assurance that the war will be finished
up by the men soon to be forced into the
field. The President has not even told
us that he hopes as much. On the con-
trary he has declared, to us and to the
world, that he will not cease to struggle
until the last dollar and the last man will
have been expended. Every day takes us
toward those limits. We shall all be
needed sooner or later. Nobody believes
that the coming conscription is to be the
last. With slow certain strides Fate pres
ses upon us; all society is unconsciously
drifting towards the vortex; man by man
our liie-sands shall dribble through the
glass; for the government cannot keep
its word if it would


Against what does it assure US Ser
vice fer three years or the war; But
only for THIS war. \ foreign trou DE would
toss the remnant Of our lives. en- maSsc.
into the living stream which rolls our pale
race forward to extinction. If we accept
the precedent of this conscription By re-
electing the Administration which estab-
fishes it. we can never complain when the
provost guard arrives ut our doors In our
turn, and marches us away to the long
contention. At the pace of our proceeding
all orr population must soon dwindlc to
one class-that of Office holders; for none
are really secure Of life until they are
bound to the Executive. All our bodies
arc at his disposal now. All human con-
Germs contract to the one question of life
We stand at fearful point in our history
when thus Death is i'll the service of one
man, and he our Master, asking for four
additional years to finish his experiment
No doubt, thousands of good men and
women pray nightly for the President,
and hold to his guidance with steady faith.
But these are mainly weary of strife,
though their temperate blood had grown
hot andreyengeful by the obstinacy OF their
foes 1t is not these who keep us in the
Valley of this Shadow. The curse of our
crisis is the fearful opportunity it has
given to our Executive to attach men OF


influence to his person. Such is the his
tory OF all usurpation. With the power
to coin money out of nothing; with per-
mission to buy all that it wills, from whom
it pleases; with the right to raise any man
from poverty to riches, or shatter the for
t4nes Of millions by sweep of the pen,
who can doubt tlat our President has too
great temptations, to be continued four
years at the head of a people jealous OF
their free representative system?


Observe his influence to-day. Every
third man in the North is growing rich
by his patronage 1t is not human ma
ture to be ungratcful nor to mar its own
prosperity There are bright examples of
disintcrestedneSs In all history, but we
never expect them to come in the gross.


The two-thirds who are disintercsted.
because unpurchascd. must save Us the
imminent peril Of usurpation and mon
archy, which is closer than we think
Oar fathers wisely provided for the per-
pctuation Of repubicanism by limiting the
Executive term of office to four years. If
this was safe policy for peace, it is all the
safer in war, when the opportunity of rev.
olution is 80 much the greater.


This journal, being essentially literary
has nothing to gain i'll any personal cause,
and for that reason means TO do Its duty.
1t goes to thousands OF quiet homes, whose
inmates do not mingle in the din of poll
ties, but who will listen to plain advice
coming through any pure channel. We
adrlonish these not to forget the Republic
in their devotion to the Union! We can
better afford the destruction Of our cditice
than our lives. Freedom is eternal.-
States are of time. We can run new
boundaries every day; but we cannot re
cover our holy charters if we give them
up for doubtful plea Countrymen /,
hold to the Republic . Glory will never
be compensation for the loss Of our grand
free system Mercury.


Pho AcsuinpI IBnrnnsa nG n a yVor.