Year: 1861

ken by surprise. For years and years it
has hsen discussed North and South it
had been denounced as fraught with dis
union and ruin; and yet the Northern
people had gradually come to accept it.
But the South had spoken so often and so
strongly of disuuion without doing any
thing, that the Northern people had no
real belief that any evil consequence
would ensue they did not understand the
full bearing of their action. At least, let
them understand something of this before
all hope of appeal to them is abandoned.
Well, South Carolina seceded-other
States were preparing to follow her. The
matter was taken up in Congress. Many
Southerners hoped that then, when the
seriousness ofthe questions could no longer
be doubted, something might be DONE
How vainly the hoped the Committees OF
Congress showed. The alternative was
thus forced on the South either of tame
submission or of resistance. They did not
hesitate. They desired to Withdraw in
peace. This war has been forced upon
them. -


1t was unnecessary in the beginning
1t brings ruin to thousands in its prosecu-
ton. 1t will be fruitless of any good. At
it's conclusion the parties will stand apart
exhausted and embittered by it; for every
battle, however won or lost, will have
served but to widen the chasm between
the North and South, and to render more
difficult, if not impossible, any future re-,
construction. Will it be long war, or a
short and mighty one? The Cabinet and
the Northern press has pronounced for the
last. Yet this is little mere than an idle
dream. What could 100000 men do? /
do not think there is general on either
side able to fight $4,000 men. And the
North would need eight or ten such Gen.
erals. Certainly the 10000 men under
Mcdowell, after five hours fighting,
fought on mechanically without any gen.
eralship. The higher officers had COM
pletely lost the guiding reins. On our
side the Southern troops ought to have
been in Washington within forty eight
hours. But the 10000 on the Confeder.
ate side were, l apprehend, too unwieldly
a body for our generals. Did not Bona
parte say. that mot one of his Marsbals
could general $4,000 men in battle !?
-Soult could bring them to the field, and
plrce them properly, but could 60 no fur
ther." But without generals, what could
100000 men do against the South9 By
force of numbers, and at great loss, they
might take city after city. But unless
they left large permanent garrisons, their
authority would die out with the sound of
their drums. Such an army marching
through country covered with forests
and thickets, and occupied by population
hostile to man, and where even school
boys can "bark a squirrel" would be deci-
mated every hundred miles of its progress
by a guerrilla warfare, against which it
could find no protection. This mode of
attacking the South can effect nothing
beyond the loss of life it will entail, An ID
the temporary devastation that will mark
the track of the armies.


But it is probable thai circumstances
would again, as they have done. overrule
the designs of the Washington Cabinet,
and make the war slow, long, and expen-
sive-one to be decided, less by battles
than by the resources and endurance Of the
cembatants. q, a. -


That portion of the former United
States will suffer most in such a contest,
and must finally succumb, which is least
able to dispense with the support it re-
ceived from the other two sections. How
the North can do without our Southern
trade I presume it can judge after three
or four months trial. But it would seem
that the failure to cell 10 the South one
hundred and twenty millions of their man





ufactures each year, the stoppage of so
much Of their shipping interest as was en-
gagged in the two hundred and twenty
millions of our foreign exports and the
return importations, and in our internal
coasting trade, together with ths loss OF
the profits and commissions on 30 vsft a
business, must have very serious effect.
one that see no way of escaping. Truly,
the North has to pay dearly for it whistle
Of Black Republicanism. The North West
depended partially on the South for mar
ket for its productions, and SO far will suf-
fer from the loss of it. 1t must also be
incidentally affected BY commercial en-
barrassments at the North. They will