It would be difficult to convince the American people that slavery is not 'the skeleton in their closet.' Any one who has encountered for years the pro-slavery spirit; who has watched it through its unscrupulous deviations from rectitude, morally, socially, and politically, will have been dull of comprehension not to have appreciated its atrocious disposition. Its great instrumentality in the management of Southern masses, consists not only of a disregard, but of a positive interdict of the principles of civil liberty, in all matters wherein the prejudicial effects of slavery might directly, or by implication, be disclosed. It is true, people are permitted to adulate slavery—so they are allowed to adulate kings, where kings reign. No one in recent years has been allowed the open expression of opinion or argument as to the bad effect of a pro-slavery policy on the great majority of Southern white population. This would bring the offender within the Southern definition of an 'incendiary,' and the offense would be heinous. The pro-slavery spirit has always demanded sycophancy where its strength was great enough to enforce it, and has ever been ready to invoke the law of force where its theories were contradicted. Even the fundamental law of the South, contained in Southern State Constitutions in favor of the 'freedom of speech, and freedom of the press,' is mere rhetorical flourish, where slavery is concerned. It means that you must adulate slavery if you speak of it; and woe to the man that gives this fundamental law any broader interpretation. In its amiable moods, the pro-slavery spirit is often made to appear the gentleman. In its angry, jealous moods, it is both a ruffian and an assassin. Mr. Sumner, of the Senate, once sat for its picture—twice in his turn he drew it—each portrait was a faithful resemblance.

Had we been exempt from slavery and its influences, it is difficult to conceive what possible pretense could have been raised up for revolution. What position could have been taken showing the necessity of disenthrallment from oppressive government? There would have existed no element of political discontent that could by any possibility have culminated in rebellion, aside from the active, jealous, and unscrupulous influence of slaveholders. Rebellion and treason required the lead and direction of an ambitious and reckless class; a class actuated by gross and selfish passions, in disconnection with sympathy for the masses. It required a class stripped and bereft by habits of thinking of the spirit of political beneficence, devoid of national honor, national pride, and national fidelity. Nothing less unscrupulous would have answered to plot, to carry forward, and to manage the incidents of the attempted dismemberment of the Union. It required something worse in its nature than Benedict Arnold susceptibility. His might have been crime, springing from sudden resentment or imaginary wrong. The other is the result of thirty years' concoction under adroit, hypocritical, and unscrupulous leaders. The slaveholders' rebellion has assumed a magnitude commensurate only with long contemplation of the subject. Making all due allowance for the honorable exceptions, this is substantially the phase of pro-slavery infidelity to the Union.

Were further argument needed to establish this position, it is found in the fact that the seeds of rebellion are wanting in proportion to the absence of slavery. There is no reason to believe that Kentucky or Maryland, without slavery, would have been less loyal than Ohio. In Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, Eastern Tennessee, Western North-Carolina, a small portion of Georgia, and Northern Alabama, the Union cause finds a friend's country. These sections, in the main, contain a population dependent upon its own labor for subsistence. Schooled by diligent industry to habits of perseverance, and learning independence and manhood by relying on itself, it has preserved its patriotism and attachment to the Government under which it was born. It saw no cause of complaint, imaginary or real. Six or seven per cent of slave population has not proved sufficient as a slave interest, to prostrate or corrupt its national fidelity, nor to undermine its national pride. It still retains its representation in Congress against the influences of surrounding treason. There is a cheering satisfaction in the belief that this plateau of civil liberty and freedom, even unassisted, could not have been permanently held in subjection by the myrmidons of rebellion. The secessionists themselves bestow a high compliment to the patriotism of this people, when they complain of its 'idolatrous attachment to the old Government.'

The time has come when the American people, from necessity, must analyze to their root the whole aptitudes and incidents of slavery. They are now obliged to deal with it, unbridled by the check-rein of its apologists. Under the best behavior of slaveholders, the institution could not rise above the point of bare toleration. There is so much inherent in the system that will not bear analysis, so much of collateral mischief, so much tending to overturn and discourage the principles of justice that ought to be interwoven into the relationships of society, that it is impossible for the ingenuous mind to advocate slavery per se. It is not, however, to the bare dominion itself, that the objection is exclusively raised up. It is the inevitable result of that dominion, in connection with the worst cultivated passions of human nature, that the exception is more broadly taken. The dominion of the master over the slave involves in a great measure the necessary dominion over the persons and interests of the balance of society where it exists. The lust of power on the part of slaveholders, and on the part of the privileged classes in Europe, in nature, is the same. The determination through the artificial arrangements of power, to subsist on the toil of others, is the same. The arrogant assumption of the right to maintain as privilege what originated in atrocious wrong, is the same. The disposition to crush by force any attempt to vindicate natural rights, or to modify the status of society under the severity of oppression, is the same; and no tyranny has yet been found so tenacious or objectionable as the tyranny of a class held together by the 'bond of iniquity.' Our forefathers had a just conception of the nature of the case, on one hand, when they interdicted by fundamental law the establishment of any order of nobility. Many of them were sorely distressed at the contemplation of slavery on the other hand, in connection with its probable results upon the national welfare. Our calamity is but the fulfillment of their prophecies. They well knew the nature of the evil we have to deal with.

It is matter of astonishment to most minds that slaveholders should have contemplated the bold venture of subordinating the Democratic principle in government. It will be less astonishing, however, when it is duly considered that it is utterly impossible for Democracy and Slavery to abide long together. The one or the other must ere long have been prostrated under the laws of population, and it is not very likely that the twenty-seven millions and their increase would consent to be subordinated to the policy of three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders. Slavery must exist as the ruling political power, or it can not long exist at all. This the slaveholders well knew; hence the necessity of fortifying itself through some political arrangement against the Democratic power of the masses.

The South-Carolina platform for a new government had close resemblance to the ancient Roman—a patrician order of nobility, founded on the interested motive to uphold slavery; but allowing plebeian representation, to some extent, to the non-slaveholding classes. Others in the South had preference for constitutional monarchy, with a class of privileged legislators, and House of Commons, composing a government of checks and balances, analogous to the English government. Whatever the plan adopted, the leading idea was to institute a government that should be impervious, through one branch, to the future influence of the non-slaveholding majority.

It is difficult to make entirely clear the ambitious motives and mixed apprehensions that have combined to precipitate the Southern slaveholders into rebellion. The defectiveness of the educational system of the South, and the known responsibility of slaveholders for such defect and its consequences; the defect in the industrial policy, and the responsibility of slavery itself for the depressing consequences to the non-slaveholding population, were fearful charges. A knowledge that the causes of depression must soon be brought to the examination of Southern masses, in contrast with a better state of things in the North, filled the minds of slaveholders with jealous and fearful apprehensions toward the non-slaveholding population. They knew that its interests were identified with the Northern educational and industrial policy. They appreciated fully that through these interests, free labor in the South had every motive to affinity with the North, educationally, politically, and industrially. They were astute in the discovery that under the operation of the Democratic principle, free discussion, and fair play of reason, the pro-slavery prestige must soon go down in the South before the greater numerical force of Southern masses. It was, therefore, not only necessary, as supposed, to overturn the power of the masses in the South, but also to make them the instruments of their own overthrow as to political power.

The measurable acquiescence of the non-slaveholding population was indispensable to the revolutionary project. Without it, there was but little numerical force. It was, therefore, of entire consequence to make this population hate the North—to hate the National Government, and to train it for the purposes of rebellion. The press was suborned wherever it could be. The pulpit manifested equal alacrity, in order to keep pace with the workings of the virus of treason. Leading men, assuming to be statesmen and political economists, taxed their ingenuity in the invention of falsehood. The effort of the press and politicians was directed to misrepresenting and disparaging the condition of free labor in the North; whilst the Southern pulpit was religiously engaged in establishing the divinity of slavery. It would require a volume to delineate the arts and hypocrisy resorted to, and the false reasoning employed, to impose upon the masses of white labor South, and to make them contented with their disparaged condition. It is needless to say, the work of imposition was too effectually accomplished. It must be confessed that too much of the non-slaveholding population had been induced to follow the political Iagos of the South, and thus to assist the first act in the plan for its own subversion—separation from the North. The next step in the plan of subversion, the 'abrogation of a government of majorities,' was carefully kept from the public view.

The inquiry naturally arises, as to how or why this design for the arrangement of political power in the Southern Confederacy has been confined within such narrow degrees of disclosure. The answer is plain. A bold proposition to change the principles of their government would have alarmed the people of the South into an intensified opposition. The politicians of South-Carolina, more open and frank in the exposition of their views than other leaders in the South, have been obliged to submit the control of their discretion to the more crafty and subtle influences of other States. Policy required that the contemplated new form of government should be confined to the knowledge of the leading spirits only. It would not bear the hazards of submission to the people as a basis of revolution. Its success depended upon secresy and coupling the adoption of the plan with a sudden denouement after revolution. Any one conversant with the pages of De Bow's Review for the last ten years, and who has watched the drift of argument in reviling the masses, and contemning their connection with government; and accustomed also to the 'accidental droppings' from secessionists in their cups, has had little difficulty in determining the ultimatum in the designs of treason. He will have become convinced that it is nothing less than a warfare against the continuation of Democratic government in the South—that this warfare is stimulated by the fixed belief that a government of majorities must be superseded, in order to perpetuate the institution of slavery.

Were argument wanting to force this conclusion on the mind, it would be supplied in the established affinity between the emissaries of secession in Europe and the virulent haters of Democratic government there found. The liberalists of England and elsewhere have been sedulously avoided; not so those who would connive to bring Democratic government into disrepute. With these last-mentioned classes, the secessionists have met with a ready sympathy and encouragement, almost as much so, as if treason in America involved directly the stability of privileged power on that continent. The Tories of England, the Legitimists of France, the nauseous ingredients of the House of Hapsburg, the degenerate nobility of Spain, and from that down to the 'German Prince of a five-acre patch,' have been the congenial allies of secession emissaries in Europe. It mattered not to these haters of enfranchised masses how much misery might be inflicted on the American people. They cared little for the anguish of mind that was being every where felt by the supporters of liberalized opinions. They rejoiced at the supposed calamities of that government whose beneficent policy had always been to keep the peace, to avoid the necessity of standing armies, to foster industry and education, and in addition thereto, to encourage the depressed of Europe to come and accept homes and hospitable treatment on the soil of the country. These revilers of Democracy in Europe were long advised with, were consulted beforehand, and knew the plottings of the pro-slavery spirit, in its preparation for rebellion. They were indifferent as to the character or hateful deformity of the agency to be employed, provided it could be made instrumental in breaking the jurisdiction of a government, heretofore more esteemed by the enlightened liberalists of the world than any other that ever existed. Neither the secessionists nor their co-plotters in Europe required seducing or proselyting. They stood on the same level of affinity, the moment the secessionists proposed the overthrow of the Democratic principle. This was the promise, the condition precedent, and this the basis of alliance between the plotters of treason in free America and their coaedjutors abroad. It would be both shallow and useless to charge the origin of sympathy with rebellion projects, expressed by political circles in Europe, to the mercenary motives of commerce, trade, or manufactures. Those were standing on a broad foundation of contented reciprocity, and were the first to dread the tumult that could not fail to prove prejudicial. We shall hunt in vain to find the motive for European sympathy in rebellion, elsewhere than in hatred of Democracy. We shall also search in vain to find the motive for the wide-spread sympathy expressed by the liberalists of Europe in the Union cause, elsewhere than in their attachment to liberalized institutions.

Having glanced at the compound motive for establishing the Southern Confederacy, that is, slavery perpetuation through prostration of the Democratic principle, it may not be amiss to refer to the contemplated management of its politico-economic interests. These were to be built up, of course; but not through a system of diversified industry; for free trade, as is well known, would have the effect to prostrate what little manufacturing had been commenced in the South, and afford a perpetual bar to the success of future undertakings. It was believed that the foul elements North and South, and the illicit traders of the world beside, could be brought together in the business of free trade and smuggling. The immense frontier would render it impossible for the Northern States to protect themselves to much extent from illicit trade, through any preventive service possible to be adopted. The Mexican frontier would be entirely helpless. Thus reasoned Secesh. This was to have been the basis of competition with Northern mechanism. The reasonings of the conspirators were consistent with the merits and morals of the conspiracy. They calculated upon the active cooeperation of the mercenary in the North, and actually believed that the temptation to gain would prove predominant over any efforts the Northern Government could make to protect its revenue policy. They boldly ventured upon the assumption that the influences of illicit traffic would soon become too strong to be resisted, and that in this manner, in conjunction with the agency of 'King Cotton,' the commerce of the North would be transferred to the South.

Another item in Southern political economy was the project of reoepening the African slave-trade. The leaders of the secession programme had made this a prominent feature in starting the rebellion into growth. The various phases which this branch of the question afterward underwent, was owing to the opposition of the Border States. So much were the people of the Border States averse to being brought into competition with slave-breeding in Dahomey, that the original conspirators were obliged to forego, for a time at least, this incident in the motives of the earlier revolutionists.

A government founded on the supremacy of a class, and that class to be composed of slaveholders; a political economy founded on slave labor, free trade, illicit trade, and African kidnapping, were associations that would require great strength and influence to sustain them. The strongest military organization was therefore contemplated. In this, much employment could be given to the non-slaveholding masses, while military qualities of supposed superiority would enable the Southern Confederacy to enter into a successful contest with the North for empire. The potency of 'King Cotton' was to be made the powerful agency with which the rest of the civilized world was to be dragooned into acquiescence. On this delusive dream was built the fabric of that mighty empire, whose history, from its origin to its subversion, is nearly ready to be written.

It must be acknowledged that the leading influences of the rebellion were as sharp-sighted as political vice, or political immorality is ever capable of becoming. Like all other vice, however, it based its reasonings and supposititious strength exclusively on its powers of deception, in conjunction with the iniquitous aptitudes of itself and its coadjutors. It found co-plotters in Mozart Hall, in the stockholders of the African Slave-trade Association, scattered from Maine to Texas, and in its suborned press in New-York, Baltimore, Charleston, and New-Orleans. It had bargained with the politically vitiated portion of the Northern Democracy for assistance, and had received a wicked though fallacious assurance from the Northern kidnappers, to the effect, that the Democracy of the North would neutralize any attempt to oppose secession by force. They had arranged for their diplomatic influence on the other side of the Atlantic, and bargained for the subversion of Democracy in the South. It planned beforehand for arming treason and disarming the Union, and most adroitly were its plans in this respect carried into effect. It had gained over to its side most of the Southern material in the little army and navy of the country, and prepared it for perfidy, in committing devastation or theft on the public property. Thus allied and thus equipped, in the confidence of its pernicious strength, it commenced its warfare on society.

'How much injury can we inflict upon the North? How much of the debts owing to Northern citizens can we confiscate? How much property in the South owned by Northern men can we appropriate? How much can we make Northern commerce suffer by depression of business, privateering, or otherwise? To what extent can we paralyze Northern mechanical industry, subvert Northern trade, and lay it under disabilities? How much can we distress the laboring classes in England, in France, in other countries in Europe, whereby we may compel them to clamor for the intervention of their respective governments against the North, and against its attempts to uphold the Union?' The whole reasoning of the conspirators was based on the supposed power, coupled with the intent and effort to inflict wide-spread and common injury. The scheme and all its contemplated and attempted incidents of management were such as the pro-slavery spirit in politics only could engender.

It required many years of gradual development, in connection with the ultimate culmination of treason, to shake the confidence of the North in the disposition of the people of the South. There was, and could be, no possible intelligent motive for the masses of the South to change their form of government, or to enter into rebellion against it. The arguments of the plotters of treason against a 'government of majorities'—the doctrine of 'State rights,' with the right to secede at the option of a State—the quasi repudiation of the 'white trash,' so called, as an element of political equality, were regarded as the ebullitions of a politically vitiated class who would be willing to overthrow the National Government, but who were supposed to be too few in numbers to taint with poisonous fatality the political mind of the South. It is not established as yet that the Southern political mind in the main has become depraved. It is, however, established, that the leading political influences South have cajoled and terrorized the bulk of the Southern population into apparent acquiescence in treason. It yet remains to be seen what disposition will be disclosed by the Southern people, as soon as protection is guaranteed to them against the tyranny and usurpations of the rebel influence. It is prophesied that there will be found a heart in the bulk of the Southern population; that it will still cling with affection and pride to that government which was their guarantee, and which no power now on earth is competent to shake. It is not against the deluded, the timid, or the helpless of the South that we would make the indictment for political crime. It is the perfidious pro-slavery spirit in politics that we seek to arraign.

The analysis of developed motives in which the slaveholders' rebellion had its origin, must naturally excite the inquiry in the American mind, as to how far the slaveholding element can be trusted. As a political force, we find it sowing the seeds of political discontent. As an anti-democratic element, we find it plotting the overthrow of democratic government. In its efforts to denationalize republican government in America, it has not scrupled to seek aid from, and alliance with, the haters of republican institutions every where. Under such calamitous teachings as it has inflicted, can we longer conclude that it can, from its aptitudes and nature, be converted into an element of national strength? There is a South, and a great South, and would continue to be, were there not a negro or slaveholder sojourning there. The seven millions non-slaveholding population in the Southern States have rights, social and political, based on the motive to maintain republican government. The Constitution of the Union, as the highest principle of fundamental law, guarantees in express terms, to every State, the form of a republican government; and not less by implication, the essential qualities of an actual one. It matters not how much the non-slaveholding population of the South may have been deluded, nor how much it may have been incited, under that delusion, to act as the instrument of its own overthrow. This population is not less the object of just political solicitude than any equal number of people North. That its general education has not been advanced to the appreciative point, is its misfortune. That it has been surrounded by a pro-slavery influence, selfish, arrogant, and contemptuous of the interest of the masses, is equally so. That it has been less favored than its brother-hood of free labor in the North—that it has been placed under disabilities in the comparison, are only additional reasons for increased solicitude for the welfare and future advancement of this portion of Southern population. While it has been imposed upon, and much of it deluded in its motives to action, its actual condition is in reality coupled with every natural incentive to alliance and adhesion to the National Government. It has drunk the bitter cup of calamity in rebellion. It has tasted the dregs of treason that lie at the bottom of political vice, and been victimized by destitution, by the diseases of camp-life, by the casualties of the battle-field, and by the widowhood and orphanage that have followed the train of rebellion. This population is a natural element of national strength, having the same incentives as its brotherhood in the North. Arms will soon remove the blockade to its intercourse with the North, and civil liberty once established, will most likely secure it to the side of national patriotism.

There is a question of equal magnitude respecting the colored population, not only of the South, but of the whole country. It is involved in the inquiry: Can the colored population be converted into an element of national strength? Physiologically and mentally, the native negro race stands as the middle-man in the five races—the Caucasian and Malay being above, and the American aborigines and the Alforian below. The mixture of blood with the Caucasian in America, places the negro element of the United States at least upon a level with the Malay race in natural powers, and from association, much the superior in practical intelligence. Notwithstanding the crushing laws designed by slaveholders to perpetuate the ignorance and helplessness of the negro, he would improve. Notwithstanding the brutal and studied policy of slaveholders to slander and disparage the negro capacity for improvement, all the arts of lying hypocrisy have occasionally been set at naught by some convincing exhibition of truth, springing from a fair experiment on the colored man's susceptibilities. The white man's dishonoring inclination to strike the helpless—made helpless by brutal laws—has occasionally recoiled in an exposure of the atrocious practice. The late attempt to introduce a bill into the South-Carolina Legislature, providing for the sale of the free negroes of the State into slavery, led to a disclosure worthy of contemplation. The Committee to whom the bill was referred stated that—

'Apart from the consideration that many of the class were good citizens, patterns of industry, sobriety, and irreproachable conduct, there were difficulties of a practical character in the way of those who advocated the bill. The free colored population of Charleston alone pay taxes on $1,561,870 worth of property; and the aggregate taxes reach $27,209.18. What will become of the one and a half millions of property which belongs to them in Charleston alone, to say nothing of their property elsewhere in the State? Can it enter into the mind of any Carolina Legislature to confiscate this property, and pot it in the Treasury? We forbear to consider any thing so full of injustice and wickedness. While we are battling for our rights, liberties, and institutions, can we expect the smiles and countenance of the Arbiter of all events, when we make war on the impotent and unprotected, enslave them against all justice, and rob them of the property acquired by their own honest toil and industry, under your former protection and sense of justice?'[E]

This slight exhibition in the Carolina Legislature presents an epitome of the whole argument of cultivated brutality on the one hand, and of humane sense and rationality on the other. What were the protection and sense of justice here spoken of; and what the sequences flowing from such protection and justice? The whole question is answered in three words: Improvement, following encouragement. What was the 'robbery' proposed by the bill, other than the concomitants of slavery, that have robbed the colored man from generation to generation, not only of his toil, but of every practical motive TO BE A MAN? It would be needless, however, to discuss the question of the colored man's capacity to improve, were it not for considerations that now make it necessary, under national calamity, to take it into truthful account. The white man's cultivation of barbarity under the teachings of slaveholders has hitherto proved an overmatch for the colored man's claims in the abstract. Things and conditions are now changed. The slaveholders' rebellion has softened the obduracy of manufactured prejudice, and necessity has become allied with humanity. Tho pro-slavery spirit in politics is now discovered to be little short of a demon—a snake's egg that hatches treason. The American mind is nearly forced to the conclusion, that as long as colored women are compelled to breed slaves, their white mistresses will continue to breed rebels. Slavery, of course, must yield to the necessity of national security. A remnant may exist for a while, and linger through modifications of a broken and hopeless pro-slavery prestige, the duration depending entirely upon the disposition of slaveholders to become subordinated to law. Perpetuation, however, has become a word that has no meaning in connection with the duration of slavery. The word in that sense has become obsolete; and what shall become of the colored man, and how shall he be treated, is, and is to be, the sequence of the conspiracy to overthrow the jurisdiction of the Government. It being established that the pro-slavery spirit, by nature, is the antagonist of the democratic principle—the antagonist of the interests of the masses, the hot-bed for the cultivation of brutality, devoid of fidelity, and a rebel by practice, it has become an intolerable element of national weakness. We can not avoid the inquiry, now to be made on the basis of humanity: Can the colored man, by proper and just encouragement, be converted into an element of patriotism and national strength?

What is the solution of the riddle as it respects the strength of democratic government? It has heretofore been said by the revilers of the masses in America, that 'for two hundred years the scum, the crime, and poverty of Europe have been cast upon the shores of the Atlantic.' It is immaterial to the question of humanity, whether such has been the seed from which a new nation has been raised up in the wilderness. A few months since, 'Democracy on its trial,' was the favorite theme of democracy-haters in Europe. The indictment against our free institutions was freighted with fearful charges. The government of the Union was a 'delusive Utopia.' 'The people of the North had degenerated into a mob.' 'Society was drifting into the maelstrom of anarchy, and law and order becoming extinct.' A little time, and an apparently unwarlike people had changed into an astonishing organization, disciplined for warfare. Seven hundred thousand bayonets, as if by enchantment, bristled in menace to the slaveholders' rebellion. The navy-yards and arsenals resounded with the clang of hammers, and soon the suddenly created armaments appeared on the waters. Power in finance exhibited by the Government, based on the confidence and patriotism of the people, was no less astonishing. New inventions of warfare changed the scoffings in Europe into alarm for their own security. The trans-Atlantic revilers of republicanism in America have discovered a people who had a heart in them. Patriotism in America is reassured of success by the exhibition of a deep-seated attachment on the part of the Northman to his Government. Seven words suffice to solve the riddle of free democratic strength—THE MASSES CONVERTED INTO BEINGS OF POWER. This is the theory, the basis, the strength of free institutions in America. They have no other foundation. They have nothing else to rely on for enduring support.

Let the Southern rebel attempt to disguise it as he may, the colored man of the South is already a patriot on the side of the Union. He has heard of a people in the North who believed that every human being, by nature, was entitled 'to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' He knows that his oppressor hates this people of the North, and for the sole reason that they entertain this generous sentiment. While the Pharisaic theologian of the Southern pulpit is expounding his Bible-doctrine in justification of kidnapping, and appealing to Heaven for assistance, the colored man turns in disgust at the impiety, and turns into secret places to beseech Omnipotence to favor the success of the national arms. Perhaps there is an interfering Providence already manifest in results. If the plagues of Egypt had been visited on the rebellious States by an overruling Power, they would scarcely have afforded a parallel to the calamity which rebel slaveholders have inflicted on their country. They have exhausted and destroyed much of what the long toil of the colored man South had assisted to raise up. Devastation has followed the train of rebellion. The blood of the first and of the second-born has been the sacrifice on the altar of slavery. The brutal ruffianism of the pro-slavery spirit has far enough disclosed its natural aptitudes to have become disgustingly odious in comparison with the positively better characteristics of the colored man. The rebel himself has taught a lesson to the world, which he can never unteach. The twenty-seven millions of free labor in the Union have learned a lesson through the teachings of slaveholders in rebellion, which they can not forget. This teaching is nothing less than that the colored man is capable, by protection and encouragement, of being converted into a better element of national strength and national prosperity than slaveholders, as such, would ever become.

Could any contemplative mind doubt for a moment the ability of the white population of the Union, if justly disposed, to raise the colored population of the country, in a short time, to the platform of a decent respectability? With unjust prejudice laid aside, and the work of beneficence acquiesced in, no one could reasonably doubt it. Who deserves best at the hands of the nation's power, the oppressor or the oppressed? The one that grasps at the throat of the nation and attempts its overthrow merely to perpetuate his power of oppression, or the other who is crying to humanity for protection? The voice of nature, if undefiled, will answer this question on the side of humanity—if not, NECESSITY WILL.

The democratic theory which seeks to absolve humanity from oppression, is not confined to the resistance of a single despot. It goes in the same degree to a privileged class that arrogates to itself the right to oppress; nor does it stop at the half-way house of mere negative protection. It allows in its onward course the full fruition of 'EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW.' In theory, the law is the sovereign, and we seek to attach such qualities to that sovereign as are compatible with the general good of society. That theory places no man above the law, nor any man below its protection. As soon as the individual in society is raised to the point of negative protection, he is in a measure converted into a being of power. He can then appeal to his sovereign, THE LAW, for the vindication of his rights. Experience is continually demonstrating that men are respected in proportion to their power to command respect. The very existence of slavery requires and demands the brutalization of the governing power that upholds it. Were society absolved from this tyranny, matters would begin to mend. Equalized protection would be the consequence. Protection, not only to the colored man, but protection in an almost equal degree to the non-slaveholding white population, hitherto brought under the ban of disability by a depressing pro-slavery policy.

Until recently, when the colored race in the United States was spoken of in connection with the subject of its release from oppression, it was subjected to the same arguments that kept the white men in slavery in olden times. The arguments of slaveholders were never truthful, and only convenient for themselves. They damaged the slave; they damaged every collateral interest; they damaged the strength of nationality; and more than all, they damaged every humane principle of civilization. The whole reasoning in favor of slaveholding has been a vicious fallacy; and perhaps the time has come, attended by sufficient calamity, to set the American population to thinking and acting in the right direction.

The colored people South are better fitted for freedom than is commonly imagined. They are quite well skilled in practical industry, more especially in agricultural pursuits. There are many of them qualified in skilled labor in the coarser mechanic arts. The whole of this population has been trained to diligent labor, under habits of continuous toil. It has acquired patience in performing labor, by the discipline which unremitting labor gives. The colored man South has not been brought up in idleness, or with habits calculated to make him a renegade. Were he permitted to enjoy the fruits of his industry, there can be no doubt of his disposition and patience to toil on. In case his rebel master would not hire him for wages, there would be enough amongst the non-slaveholding population who would. Production in the South, under emancipation of the slaves of rebel masters, would not materially fall off. Give to colored men the fruits of their industry, and many of them would soon set up for themselves. Perhaps in connection with the soil of the South, that yields most abundantly in annual value of product, the rest of the colored population would soon get to emulate the free colored people of Charleston. The law of subsistence would as much compel the South to go on without compulsory labor as it does the North, and there are just as many reasons for it in one section as in the other; that is, just none at all. Under emancipation, there is little doubt that actual production could and would soon be put on the increase, with better distribution of wealth, more widely diffused comforts, and a broader and better public policy. The only things that would be curtailed in their proportions would be slave-breeding, rebel-breeding, and ruffian cultivation.

It may, perhaps, continue to be easier for a time to strike the colored man than to strike off his shackles. There is a mean and low side of humanity, a sort of defiled infirmity, that runs into a disposition to strike the helpless. This is the bravery of ruffianism. There is apt to be a shrinking away from duty, when the contest involves a conflict with arrogant power. This is the cowardice of pusillanimity. The American citizen has been noted for his superior bravery. He has certainly shown himself brave in the battle-field, and more brave and determined than any other nation in the vindication and maintenance of the natural rights of the white man; but he is not done with the business of disenthrallment. His language is the language of liberty. It must not, it will not long continue to be spoken by slaves. This was the meaning of Jefferson, when he penned the text-words of disenthrallment: 'All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' Where is to be found the evidence that these rights have been forfeited? Who dare deny the right of the colored man morally, religiously, or politically, to assert them? It is true, we have hitherto acted in defiance of these acknowledged rights. We have outraged them. We have waged a shameful and shameless warfare against them. The sequences of that warfare are now upon us. The sin is now being atoned for in blood. It has not yet been ordained that the principles of injustice should have permanent duration. If not restrained by humane rationality, they will culminate in convulsion. The light is now breaking upon the heretofore obscured vision of the American people. We can now begin to see with clearness that the colored man's disenthrallment is to become the white man's future security. This would almost seem to be the harmony of divine justice in the affairs of men.

No substantial amelioration in the depressed condition of race or class has yet been brought about in disconnection with the powerful agency of such race or class. Human nature forbids it. The selfish tenacity of advantage, resting on what is misnamed 'vested rights,' but having its foundation in vested wrongs, yields only on compulsion. It is only when the depressed race or class, acting in somewhat intelligent concert, exhibits the disposition to aid in the purposes of protection, that the mercenary power succumbs to necessity. History furnishes no examples to the contrary. It may not be impossible that our own times may make history to corroborate the truth of these premises.

When it is asserted that the colored man is wanting in bravery, and is not endowed with the natural courage to assert and maintain his rights, we are apt to forget that physical bravery is a thing of cultivation. There is not the least evidence that, with military discipline and something to fight for, the colored population of the United States would not prove as brave as the black regiment of the Revolution. With such bravery as that regiment exhibited, the four millions and their prospective increase would require a gigantic force to make profitable slaves of them. Again, there is something beyond the protection from domestic violence that demands consideration, in connection with the military discipline of the colored man. We may reasonably expect that a large colonization in some quarter will soon take place, and be carried forward. Education and military discipline, in addition to knowledge in practical industry, are necessary concomitants to successful colonization. With these qualities, the colored man will cease to feel helpless, and be fitted for enterprise, he will have the confidence to go forward, and the aspirations to impel him. It may be the lot of the colored man to encounter in some foreign land powers and influences quite as barbarous as those he has hitherto encountered in the white man's prejudices. If he is armed for the encounter, he will have little inclination to shrink from it. Every humane consideration clusters to the policy of disenthralling the colored man, and of making him a being of power. Nothing can oppose it but the pro-slavery spirit that seeks to enslave the American mind to barbarism and the colored millions and their increase to perpetual bondage.



WATCHING THE STAG.

[AN UNFINISHED POEM, BY FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN.]

Hela and I lie watching here, Above us the sky and below the mere. long Through distant gorges the-b-l-u-e-moors loom Till the heath looks blue in the endless gloom.

The eagle screams from the misty cliff, With a quivering lamb in his taloned griff. And the echoes leap over hill and hollow, As the old stag bells to the herd to follow.

The purpled heather is wet with mist, Till it shines like a drowned amethyst, And the old, old rocks with furrowed faces Start up like ghosts in the lonely places.

With forefeet crossed, stanch Hela lies Watching my face through her half-closed eyes, -u-s- -B-e-t-w-e-e-n—i-s—i-s—s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d-deer While ^ I pillow my head on the stiffening-s-t-a-g-



LITERARY NOTICES.

BAYARD TAYLOR'S PROSE WRITING'S. Vol. V. A Journey to Central Africa, with a Map and Illustrations by the Author. New-York: G.P. Putnam. Boston: A.K. Loring.

This work deservedly ranks as among the best, if not the best, by Bayard Taylor. The East, as we feel in his poems, was full of the scenes of his widely varied travels, that which most aroused his sympathy and stirred his artistic creative powers, and it is of the East that he speaks most freely and brilliantly. It was in Central Africa that he encountered his most thrilling adventures, and forgot, as we can there only do, the civilization of the Western World. Something we would say of the beautiful typography and paper of this series. If the term mise en scene were as applicable to books as to dramas, it might be truely said of Mr. Putnam's that they appear as well between boards as other works do upon them.

EL DORADO. PROSE WRITINGS OF BAYARD TAYLOR. Vol. IV. New-York: G.P. Putnam. Boston: A.K. Loring. 1862.

Possibly some twenty years hence 'El Dorado' will be regarded as by far the best of Bayard Taylor's works—certain it is that in it he is among the pioneer describers of a land the early accounts of which will be carefully investigated and duly honored. In picturing lands, where others have been noting and sketching before, he is strong indeed who is not driven into mannerism; but in fresh fields and pastures new there is less danger of seeing through thrice-used spectacles. It is this consciousness of being the first that ever burst into their silent seas that made Herodotus and Tudela and Rubriquis and Mandeville so fresh and vigorous—and there is much of the same peculiar inspiration due to first-ness perceptible in this volume, which we cordially commend to all who would be California-learned or simply entertained. Somewhat we must say however of the fine paper, exquisite typography, and two neat steel engravings with which this 'Caxton' edition is made beautiful and most suitable either for a lady's etagere-book-shelf or the most elegant library.

LES MISERABLES. I. FANTINE. BY VICTOR HUGO. Translated by CHARLES E. WILBOUR. New-York: Carleton. Boston: Crosby and Nichols. 1862.

A novel written twenty-five years ago by Victor Hugo is a curiosity. The present was kept in reserve because the sordid publisher, who had a contract for all of Hugo's works, would not give the sum demanded—the author kept raising his price—it was like Nero and the Sybil, or the converse of the conduct of the damsel who annually reduced her terms to Martial:

'Millia viginti quondam me Galla poposcit; Annus abit: bis quina dabis sestertia? dixit.'

Finally the publisher died, the work was printed, and its first section now appears in 'Fantine'—a capital picture of life, manners, customs, in fact of almost every thing in France in 1817. It deals with much suffering, many sorrows, as its title indicates—for it is easier to make sensations out of pains than pleasures, and M. Hugo is preeminently and proverbially 'sensational.' Still it is deeply interesting, extremely well managed in all art-details, and above all things, is extremely humane—as a book by Victor Hugo could hardly fail to be. And as every page bears the impress of a certain characteristic originality of thought and of observation, we may safely predict that 'Fantine' will deservedly prove a success. We like the manner in which Mr. Wilbour has translated it—neither too slavishly nor too freely, but in one word, 'admirably.'

ARTEMUS WARD HIS BOOK. New-York; Carleton. Boston: N. Williams and Company. 1862.

Once in five or six years we have a new humorist—at one time a Jack Downing, then a Doesticks, then again a Phoenix-Derby. Last on the list we have 'Artemus Ward,' as set forth in letters to the Cleveland Plaindealer and Vanity Fair, purporting to come from the proprietor of a 'side-show,' as cheaper, or less than twenty-five cent exhibitions, are called in this country. To say that they are excellent, spirited, and racy—full of strong idioms of language and character, and abounding in novelties in type which are no novelties to those familiar with popular life—would be doing them faint justice. They embody a new and perfectly truthful conception of one of the multitude, and have nothing that is hackneyed in them.

It is a great test of real stuff in a writer when he dashes off, or picks up, phrases which are at once taken up by the people. 'Artemus Ward' has originated many of these, and is perhaps at the present day as much quoted 'in the broad and long' as any man in the country. It is needless to say that all who relish broad eccentric humor will find his Book very well worth reading. We regret that it does not embrace certain other excellent sketches which we know he has written, but trust that these will appear in due time in a second part or in a new edition. The volume before us is very neatly got up, well illustrated, and tastefully bound.

LYRICS FOR FREEDOM AND OTHER POEMS. UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE CONTINENTAL CLUB. New-York: Carleton, 413 Broadway, Boston; Crosby and Nichols.

At a regular meeting of the 'Continental Club,' held at their rooms in New-York, it was resolved and carried that a volume of poems written by certain of the younger members be published 'under its auspices.' As a noted Democratic sheet, the Boston Courier, has declined to notice the volume on the plea that the name of the society from which it sprung suggested too forcibly the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, possibly a favorable mention by us of our young New-York brother-in-literature may seem partial and too en-famille-iar to be fair. Be this as it may, we can not resist the expression of the honest conviction, for which we have many a good indorser, that while it would be a matter of some difficulty to compile a better collection of lyrics from the vast number which the war has thus far called forth, its production by a limited number of a single association is indeed remarkable. There is the right ring and the true feeling perceptible in all of them; earnest enthusiasm flowing bravely on the tide of musical words, and a clear conviction of the justice of our cause springing from liberal and progressive political views. It is enough indeed to say of most of the lyrics that they are written from a principle, and with faith in the necessity of Emancipation, and are not mere war-songs, full of commonplace, as applicable to one cause as another. They are songs of the American war of freedom in 1861, and as such will rank high in our literary history.

THE REJECTED STONE; OR, INSURRECTION VERSUS RESURRECTION IN AMERICA. By a Native of Virginia. Second Edition, Boston: Walker, Wise and Company. 1862.

We are as gratified at the reappearance of this glorious work as we are astonished to learn that it has only reached a second edition. As it is beyond comparison the most remarkable literary result thus far of the war, as it has made a strong sensation in very varied circles, as it is a book which has given rise to anecdotes, and as its wild eloquence, bizarre humor and intense earnestness, have caused it to be read with a relish even by many who dissent from its politics, we had supposed that ere this its sale had reached at least its tenth edition. Meanwhile we commend it to all, assuring them that as a fearless, outspoken work, grasping boldly at the exciting questions of the day, it has not its equal. We should mention that in the present edition we find given the name of its author, the well-known and eloquent Rev. Moncure D. Conway, formerly of Virginia, now of Cincinnati.

OUR FLAG: A Poem in Four Cantos. By T.H. UNDERWOOD. New-York: Carleton. Boston: N. Williams. 1862.

During the past year Mr. Underwood has published several poems of remarkable merit, referring to the war. In the present we have a work of higher ambition, and one which is truly well done. In it the horrors of slavery, the iniquitous abuses to which it so often gives rise—the tortures, vengeances, murders, and fiendish punishments, which in their turn follow the crime—are portrayed with striking truthfulness and real power. The author is evidently no Abolitionist on hear-say—the whole poem gives evidence of practical familiarity with 'the institution,' and the sense of truth has inspired his pen in many passages with wonderful power. The terrible sufferings of an almost white man and slave as here portrayed, his revenge and punishment at the stake, are as moving as they are manifestly true to life. We commend this little pamphlet-poem to every friend of freedom, and sincerely trust that it will attain the large circulation which it deserves.

SKETCHES OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND DECLINE OF SECESSION. With a Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels. By W.G. BROWNLOW, Editor of the Knoxville Whig. Philadelphia: Geo. W. Childs. 1862.

A decided character this 'Parson Brownlow,' and a representative man; truly and bravely American, very Western in his traits; a man fond of fierce argument and tough antagonisms, and not fearing the death either by halter or revolver, which he will probably meet some day, for the sake of Jehovah and his own stern convictions. Not exactly a man of salons and elegant reunions—yet full of real courtesies and gifted with the kind heart of a true hater of wickedness, which flashes into fury at witnessing deeds of cruelty and shame. And he has seen many such—seen what few have done and lived—he has passed through a life's warfare with men of his own grim obstinacy without his own honesty and stern Puritan-like morality. We have followed his course for years—we have met him 'afore-time,' when quite other subjects of quarrel engaged him, and could have prophesied then with tolerable accuracy what part he would play when it came to a question between bayonets and prisons for the truth.

As we have hinted, he is a splendid hater, and a ferocious antagonist, a prince of vituperators and a very vitriol-thrower of savage sarcasms at his enemies and those of humanity. And why should he not be all of this, when we consider that in the stage whereon his part of life is played a more delicate student of all the proprieties would have about the same chances of success as attended the unfortunate cat which ventured without claws among panthers. Measure such men by their moral worth and by the good they do, and do not require of the hard-shell Methodist preacher and tough polemical grappler with Satan in his most bristly and thick-skinned Western incarnations that he display too much delicacy. Those who will read his book may gather from it, beyond the interesting personal and political narrative of which it consists, many useful and curious hints as to the social development of America and of what men the country is truly made. It is a real work—one of value—interesting to all, and very truly one of the monuments of this war and of the scenes which preceded it in Tennessee.



EDITOR'S TABLE

The proclamation of President Lincoln in reference to General Hunter, and the bold measures of the latter calling forth Executive interference, form one of the most interesting episodes of the war of Freedom. Regarded from the high standpoint whence acts are seen as controlled by circumstances and formed by events, the conduct of the one public functionary, as of the other, will appear to the future historian in a very different light from that in which it has been presented by either the radical or democratic journals of the day. He will speak of the one as a military chieftain under the influence of worthy motives, cutting a Gordian knot which the higher and controlling diplomatic and executive superior wished should be cautiously untied. The one has acted with a view to promptly settling a great trouble within his own sphere—the other wisely comprehending that the action was premature, has decisively countered it. By attempting to free the slaves, General Hunter has shown himself a friend of freedom and a man of bold measures; by annulling his acts Mr. Lincoln has availed himself of an excellent opportunity of proving to the South and to the world that he is not, as was said, a sectional or an Abolition President, and that with the strongest sympathies for freedom, he is determined to respect the rights even of enemies, and leave behind him a clear record, as one who did nothing wrongly, and who with keen and wide comprehending glance took in the times as they were, and acted accordingly.

Meanwhile to the most prejudiced vision it is apparent that the great cause of Emancipation has gained vastly by this little struggle between the shepherd and that unruly member of the flock who would dash a little too impetuously ahead of his fellows. The proclamation of President Lincoln contains but cold comfort for the pro-slavery democracy, although they affect to rejoice over it. In vain may they declare, as they did of the celebrated 'remunerating message,' that it is very palatable, and vow that it 'creates fresh hope and gives a new and needed assurance to the conservative men of the nation.' The sour faces of their pro-slavery, Southern-adoring, English-ruled, traitorous friends is an effectual answer to their hypocrisy. We have not forgotten how warmly the Democratic press indorsed the message of January 6th, or how the Democratic multitude kicked against it in public meetings.

Let the Democratic tories of the day who find this message so consolatory, duly weigh the following extract from it:

'I further make known that whether it be competent for me as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether at any time or in any case it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which under my responsibility I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified in leaving to the decisions of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps. On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as follows:

"Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with, any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.'

'The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the Nation to the States and people moat immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of those States, I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue, I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You can not, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking any thing. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past time as in the providence of God it is your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.'

If any one can see in this aught save the clearest sympathy with the gradual advance of Emancipation, he must be indeed gifted with a strange faculty of perversion. If, however, the Democrats indorse the President's recommendation and approve the Executive policy of gradual emancipation for the sake of the white man, why do they continue to abuse so fiercely presses which agree exactly with the Administration, and ask for nothing more than a recognition of the great principle and its realization according to circumstance?

A more contemptible and pitiable political spectacle was never yet presented than that which may now be witnessed in the actions and words of the 'Conservative' Democracy. Driven day by day nearer into their true light of sympathizers at heart with the enemy—upholding the institution for which it fights—obliged to bear the odium of its ancient opposition to protection, disgraced by its enmity to American manufacturing interests—apologizing in a thousand shuffling, petty ways for English arrogance—this wretched fragment of a faction, after assuring the South that the North would not fight, and persuading the North that the South was quite in the right in every thing, now appears as constant meddler and mischief-maker in the great struggle going on, giving to it those elements of darkness, disgrace, and treason which, unfortunately, are always to be found in the greatest struggles for freedom and right, and which, when history is written, give such grounds to the carper, the sophist, and skeptic to ridicule the noblest efforts of humanity. Such are the self-called Conservatives in this great battle—men hindering and impeding the great cause, eagerly grasping at every little premature advance—as in the case of General Hunter's action, to scream out that all will be lost, and exult over its correction by the leading power as though they had gained a victory!

Meanwhile it is a matter of no small import to observe that there has been a vast increase in the mass of indorsement of General Hunter's conduct compared to what there would have been a few months ago. However it interfered with the general policy of the Executive, no one doubts that as a military and local measure it was eminently wise. Sooner or later it will be adopted—meanwhile what has been done has been productive of results which can not be undone. The great cause is the cause of God—and every struggle only aids it onward.

* * * * *

The London Times of May 10th contained a long editorial leader on American affairs, beginning in the following manner:

'It will have been noticed as a singular feature of the American quarrel, that no intervention is thought probable or practicable, except in favor of the South. Mediation, in whatever form or under whatever name it is to be offered, is universally taken to imply some movement in behalf of the Confederates. So completely, indeed, are the belligerents themselves impressed with this idea, that the South casts it in our teeth as a scandal and a blunder that no European arbitration has been yet interposed; while the President of the Northern States actually proclaims a day of thanksgiving for the deliverance of the country from 'foreign intervention,' which he identifies with nothing less than 'invasion.' The instincts of the combatants have undoubtedly led them to correct decisions on this point, but the fact is not a little curious. We need not dissemble the truth about certain prepossessions current in Europe. It is beyond denial that, in spite of the slavery question, the Southerners have been rather the favorites, partly as the weaker side, partly as conquerors against odds, and partly because their demand for independence was thought too natural to be resisted at the sword's point by a Government founded on the right of insurrection only. To these merely sentimental and not very cogent considerations was added the more potent and weighty reflection that what the Southerners had done no Power, whether American or European, could succeed in undoing.'

The rest of the article, as the reader may recall, was devoted to sneering at the North and in commending intervention; the whole being characterized by an underhand, venomous, and latent treacherous tone, much more becoming a vindictive and vulgar Oriental than a civilized and Christian European.

A little while before the Times leader appeared, the London Morning Herald had informed the world that

France and England suffer more than neutrals ever suffered from any contest, and both begin to regard the war as interminable and atrocious.'

It is singular that the great majority of the British press and people should dare to talk so glibly of intervention in this our civil war, when we consider what their intermeddling may cost them. Cotton they may or may not get, but no intervention can compel us to buy their goods, and, as we have already pointed out in our columns, the entire loss of the free States market involves a disaster which will be permanent and terrible. Apart from the danger attendant upon insolently threatening a nation amply capable of mustering an army of a million on its own soil—two thirds of them practiced in war—there remains to be considered the utter loss of all American custom. We buy much more than any other nation whatever. Worse than this, for Europe, there would follow Such a development of our home-manufactures as would seriously threaten to drive England and France from a hundred markets. Let them think twice ere they intervene. But the people, it is said, are starving; and it may be, for this is one of the occasional and unavoidable results of England's endeavoring to become the workshop of the world. By over-manufacturing, she has brought it to such a pitch that one fourth of her population live on imported food—such as do not starve outright—for be it remembered that in Great Britain one person in eight is buried at the public expense, while one in every twelve or fourteen is a constant pauper. They are starving at present more than usual, simply because the North is buying less; but to turn away any popular opposition to government, and suppress riots, they and the world are told that the trouble all comes from the closing of Southern ports and the want of cotton! This, too, when published facts show that the stock of goods and cotton on hand far exceeds the demand, and is likely to exceed it for a long time to come. It is not cotton that England or France want, but customers. How are they to obtain these? By exasperating their best buyers beyond all reconciliation? The day that witnesses British or French meddling in our war, sees the inauguration of such hostility to their manufactures as they little dream of. There will be leagues formed to enforce this to the letter. It will be treason to wear an inch of English cloth or of French silk, and what lie will they say to their starving operatives then?

Already within the past year, great advances have been made in manufacturing, especially in silks. A little closing of us up would be the worst experiment for England that she ever yet tried. She may possibly get cotton from the South, but not a customer from the North. You may lead a horse to water, but it is another affair to make him drink. And no one who can recall the prompt resolve not to use English goods, and the beginning of leagues to that effect, of which we lately heard so much, can doubt that in case we hear much more of this impertinence of intervention, the American market would immediately be lost to the insolent meddlers. It is only of late that the free States have shaken off their Democratic, pro-slavery, anti-tariff tyrants, and learned to be free. England has groaned and howled at our freedom; now she goes so far as to threaten; but unless she soon stop that, we shall promptly show her where the strength lies. While we were under a half-Southern, half-British tyranny, we could do nothing. And be it remembered that from the days of the New-York Plebeian, when British gold was spent literally by the million in this country, to strengthen the Democratic party and build up free trade, slavery and English interests always went hand in hand to oppress the interests of American free labor. But we shall soon change all that. It is in our power to chastise British impudence most effectually, and we shall probably soon be called upon to do it, by buying nothing from abroad.

The inhuman, inconsistent, and cynically selfish conduct of England toward the North in this war, whenever we have been threatened by reverses, should not be forgotten. It has been literally devilish in its grossness and meanness. Whatever wickedness the South has been guilty of was at least barefaced and bold. The South had not for years labored to build up an Abolition party in the North, as England did. For well nigh half a century has England howled, wailed, whined, and canted over slavery; but at the first pinch of the pocket, away goes the previous philanthropy, and John Bull stands revealed, the brutal, cruel, treacherous, lying savage that he is at heart, under all his aristocratic feudal trash and gilding. Well, we know him at last, and will remember him. His conduct toward us has put hay on his horns—foenum habet in cornu—and we shall avoid him. Let the manufacturers of America watch this intolerably insolent intervention closely, and lose no opportunity to turn it to their own advantage, that is to say, to the advantage of the whole nation. Let them, by means of journal and pamphlet, profusely scattered, explain to the people the enormous wrong which England is seeking to do us, and the deliberate, we may truthfully say, the official falsehood on which it is based. They have it in their power to make our country literally free—will they hesitate to use that power?

The reliance of England is, by returning to her sweet, stale flatteries, after the establishment of the Confederacy, to be friends as of old with the North. It is, she thinks, easily done. Our servants abroad and their friends are to be a little more favored with levee tickets and access to noble society; a few dozen more of the rank and file will be marched along or 'presented' before her Majesty, and thereby sworn in to endless admiration of all that is Anglican; venerable gentlemen in white waistcoats will make sweet speeches, after public dinners, of the beauty of Union, just as they made them here a year ago, in reference to the South, when the tiger was on the spring. The old see-saw of 'nations united in language and customs—brothers at heart,' will be set to vibrating, and all, as they believe, must jog along merrily as of old. For it is with a very little regularly organized stuff of this kind, turned on or off as from a hydrant, and always in dribbling drops at that, that England has, when necessary, pacified and delighted a great number of Americans, semi-insane to be received on terms of equality by the 'higher classes,' whom they worshiped at heart, while they affected all manner of bold Americanisms to hide the truth. It is time to end all this. We have come to serious and terrible days, and must be free from all such flunkeyism. In our hour of trouble, the English press boldly proclaimed that its sympathy was with the South. Let it be remembered!

* * * * *

In our June number we gave the Kansas John Brown song, for the benefit of those who collect the more curious ballads of the war. We are indebted to Clark's School-Visitor for the following song of the Contrabands, which originated among the latter, and was first sung by them in the hearing of white people at Fortress Monroe, where it was noted down by their chaplain, Rev. L.C. Lockwood. It is to a plaintive and peculiar air, and we may add has been published with it in 'sheet-music style,' with piano-forte accompaniment, by Horace Waters, New-York:

OH! LET MY PEOPLE GO.

THE SONG OF THE CONTRABANDS.

The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go; If not, I'll smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go. Oh! go down, Moses, Away down to Egypt's land, And tell King Pharaoh To let my people go.

No more shall they in bondage toil—Oh! let my people go; Let them come out with Egypt's spoil—Oh! let my people go.

Haste, Moses, till the sea you've crossed—Oh! let my people go; Pharaoh shall in the deep be lost—Oh! let my people go.

The sea before you shall divide—Oh! let my people go; You'll cross dry-shod to the other aide—Oh! let my people go.

Fear not King Pharaoh or his host—Oh! let my people go; For they shall in the sea be lost—Oh! let my people go.

They'll sink like lead, to rise no more—Oh! let my people go; An' you'll hear a shout on the other shore—Oh! let my people go.

The fiery cloud shall lead the way—Oh! let my people go; A light by night and a shade by day—Oh! let my people go.

Jordan shall stand up like a wall—Oh! let my people go; And the wails of Jericho shall fall—Oh! let my people go.

Your foes shall not before you stand—Oh! let my people go; And you'll possess fair Canaan's land—Oh! let my people go.

Oh! let us all from bondage flee—Oh! let my people go; And let us all in Christ be free—Oh! let my people go.

This world's a wilderness of woe—Oh! let my people go; Oh! let us all to glory go—Oh! let my people go. Oh! go down, Moses, Away down to Egypt's land, And tell King Pharaoh To let my people go.

* * * * *

Speaking of the interview some weeks since between M. le Comte Henri de Mercier with the extremely 'honorable' J.P. Benjamin, the secession Secretary of State, the Petersburg (Virginia) Express uses the following elegantly accurate language:

'It is said that these two distinguished functionaries spoke the French dialect altogether, the gallant Frenchman not having yet been enabled to master the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.'

What, to begin with, is the French dialect? The Provencal, the Gascon, the Norman, are tolerably prominent French dialects, but which of them is preeminently the dialect we will not decide—nor why the diplomatic gentlemen selected a dialect instead of French itself as a medium of conversation. It is, however, possible that Comte de Mercier having heard of little Benjamin's antecedents, talked to him in argot or thieves' slang. It may be that in the school of Floyd and Benjamin argot is the dialect.

Again, we learn that the gallant Frenchman spoke 'the French dialect' because he has not as yet mastered 'the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.' This is even more puzzling than the dialect-question. Why the Anglo-Saxon idiom? Suppose Count Mercier wished to say that he was sorry that his tobacco had been captured by the foe, why should he couch it in such language as, 'Tha mee ongan hreowan thaet min tobacco on feonda geweald feran sceolde'—which is the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.' We can imagine that thieves' slang would have the place of honor in Secessia, but why the old Anglo-Saxon idiom should be so esteemed, puzzled us for a longtime. At last we hit it. The Southrons have long been told—or told themselves—that they are Normans, while we of the North are Saxon—and hoping to acquire a little Anglo-Saxon intelligence, prudently begin by studying the language which they believe is in common use among our literati.

Seriously, it is not merely to stoop to such small game as the grammar of a secession newspaper that we notice these amusing mistakes. There are many persons-we are sorry to say many clergymen among others—here, even in the free States, who, in attempting to write elegantly, use words very ridiculously. They say 'dialect' and 'idiom' when they mean 'language;' they use 'donate' for 'give;' 'transpired' for 'happened;' 'paper' for 'newspaper,' and describe various events as taking place in 'our midst'—all because they think that these vulgarisms are really more correct than the words or terms in common use.

We wish, however, that Anglo-Saxon—joking apart—were more generally studied. When we remember that the very great majority of good words in English are of Saxon origin, and with them all that is characteristic either in our grammar or modes of expression, it becomes evident that the most certain and shortest method of arriving at a thorough and correct comprehension of English is by the study of its most important element—one which, as a writer has well said, bears the same relation to our mother-tongue as oxygen does to water. It is not fair to speak as some do of the Latin and Saxon wings of the English bird—the bird itself is Saxon—head and tail included. English has been but little benefited by its Latin and Greek additions—the old tongue had excellent synonyms or creative capacity like German—to fully equal every new need of thought.

The reader who has time for study, would do well to obtain the Anglo-Saxon Grammar of Louis Klipstein, published by G.P. Putnam, New-York, which is by far the most practical and easiest work of the kind with which we are acquainted. A few days' study in it will be time well invested by any one desirous of really understanding English. When we reflect that many boys study Latin for years 'because it enables them to understand the structure and derivation of their own language,' while the extremely easy Anglo-Saxon is almost entirely neglected, we smile at the ignorance of the first principles of education which prevails. But we advise the reader who may have a few shillings and a few hours to spare to invest them in a 'KLIPSTEIN,' and know—what very few writers do—something of the roots of English. Our word for it, he will not regret following the advice.

* * * * *

We are indebted to a Dawfuskie Island correspondent for the following details relative to

THE FALL OF PULASKI.

'Come and dine with me next Sunday in Pulaski?' said the commandant of a detachment of the Volunteer Engineer corps located on Tybee Island, one bright morning in the early part of April. As the invitation was given in all sincerity, and the officer who thus spoke was assisting in the erection of the batteries commanding that fort, the question which had so long occupied my mind, as to when the bombardment would begin, was now, I fondly hoped, near its solution. Time and again had rumor fixed the period of that event; but as often were we disappointed. Nor was the day now fixed; at least, if so, it was not communicated to me; but as the coming Friday of that week would be the anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter, the natural inference was, that on the morning of that day, we should witness the opening of the long and anxiously-looked for engagement.

Sad rumors had come to our camp, that eighteen soldiers who had gone out skirmishing within the rebel lines, on Wilmington Island, had been captured, and were prisoners within the walls of Pulaski. How far this event may have hastened the attack, we know not; but on Thursday, the tenth, instead of Friday, the eleventh, the bombardment began, and the thunder of our mortars shook the earth and rent the heavens with their roar. Pulaski returned the fire with a promptness and energy that seemed to bid defiance to our batteries. Throughout the whole day, the storm beat unceasingly upon the doomed fort, raining shot and shell like hail against its walls and upon its ramparts. Solid steel-pointed shot, from columbiads and Parrotts, aimed with a precision that indicated not only great skill but a knowledge of the point of danger in the fort, perforated the walls and buried themselves in the thick and heavy masonry. Once, twice, thrice, four times was the rebel flag shot away; but as often was it replaced. At seven o'clock in the evening, the firing ceased, and there was a lull in the storm, only, however, to be renewed again at midnight, and kept up at regular intervals until sunrise, when the engagement increased in greater vigor than throughout the preceding day.

The morning was clear and beautiful, but not calm. A stiff breeze came from the East, as if to bear the terrific reports of the cannonading to Savannah, whose distant spires and towers gleamed in the sun. Our blockading fleet, with accompanying transports, lay at anchor in Tybee harbor. Here and there a gunboat, firing occasional shots, could be seen moving about in Wilmington sound, while the Unadilla, Hale, and Western World occupied their positions in Wright and Mud rivers. Tatnall's fleet was no where to be seen, and all things in the direction of Savannah seemed as quiet as though that city was peacefully and securely reposing, as in other days, under the broad folds of the American Union.

It was a sad and woful day to the cities of the South, when her rebel princes renounced their allegiance to the government, and raised the traitor arm of rebellion against its authority. Imagined evils, in connection with the Union, were then converted into real ones, and these have been augmented a thousand-fold in the severance from that Union. When the South shall 'come to herself'—if she ever does—like the prodigal son, she will find her condition quite as pitiable, and in rags and wretchedness, she will seek her father's house, willing, no doubt, to occupy a servant's place in the national household. Nor until true and genuine repentance shall come to her, can she hope for a father's forgiveness and a prodigal's reception and restoration.

Boom! boom!! boom!!! as if the last great day of vengeance had come, and you could hear the screeching of a thousand fiends in the air hastening to their destiny, come upon the ear, as Tybee utters her thunders, and pours out her vials of wrath. See that cloud of dust which shoots up like a volcano, and looks as though the whole east side of the fort had fallen in! Bolts of iron, like winged battering-rams, are ploughing fearfully through her belabored side. Before this cloud has passed away, you see, just above it, another, not dark and angry, but in appearance white and spherical as the moon. A shell has exploded, and rained its iron fragments into the fort.

It is now past meridian of the second day. Pulaski still fires her heaviest guns; but at greater intervals. The batteries from Tybee have obtained so exact a range that nearly every shot does execution. At length a breach is made in the vicinity of the magazine. The fate of the fort and all its inmates is now suspended upon a single, well-directed shot. There is but a step between the besieged and death, and as all hope of raising the siege is abandoned, the rebel flag is hauled down, and a white flag of submission waves in its stead. Pulaski falls, and the day is ours. The hope of Georgia is gone. In vain did the citizens of Savannah offer a prize of one hundred thousand dollars for the relief of the fort. Had that sum been increased to a million, it would have been quite as unavailing. The same inevitable doom awaits all the other forts and intrenchments of the rebel confederacy. With some of these, the event may be delayed; but the day of doom will come, and the broad flag of the Union will float over every inch of territory from the hills of the Aroostook to the waters of the Rio Grande.

Just as the fort struck her flag, an incident occurred which was somewhat remarkable. A sloop, which had been at anchor in Tybee harbor, was broken from her moorings by the violence of the wind, and driven by wind and tide, she floated up the Savannah river. With her Union down, she passed immediately in front of Pulaski, and turned into Wright river, where she was run ashore. Twenty minutes earlier, and she would have been blown to atoms by the guns of the fort.

An almost incredible amount of work has been done by our investing army, in accomplishing this glorious result. Rivers and creeks had to be sounded, obstructions removed, roads made through swamps on marshy islands, where our officers and men had to work day and night, often up to their waists in mud and water; heavy Parrotts and columbiads had to be carried by hand across these swamps, and erected on platforms inundated by rising tides; dykes and ditches had to be made, while all the time our men were exposed to the fire of the rebel fleet. When all this was accomplished, and communication was cut off from Pulaski, then the nearest points on Tybee were reached by our forces located on that island, and four or five batteries were planted, which, in turn, have done their work, and the result shows how wise were the plans and how successful was the execution. The stars and stripes now float over Pulaski, and may they never again be polluted by the touch of traitor hands.

* * * * *

Those persons who 'collect' street literature (there be such) may be pleased with the following:

PORTENTOUS PLACARDS.

New-York, May, 1862.

Since the publication of the 'Bill-Poster's Dream,' and of the extracts from Richmond papers containing the prophecies of the handwriting on the wall relative to the accomplice States of America, few things have so generally attracted pedestrian attention in our down-town streets as two enormous placards. The first bore the following legend:

THERE'S A TEMPEST BREWING.

Persons given to cryptical studies were inclined to consider this an esoteric form of advertisement, intended to convey to the initiated the information that A. STORM had gone into the beer business. But conjecture was set at naught by its fellow which appeared at its side on the day after its posting, in this shape:

VIDELICIT

The Prophessor.

Puncanhed, who was the first to call my attention to the placard, did so with the following statement:

''Tan't spelt right—and why couldn't the feller just as well use the 'good old English' word viz., as 'videlicit?''

The query was unanswerable. But having some doubt as to the first word in the Greek line, by using which instead of the article 'O, the writer has shown not merely unconsciousness of the Greek particle, but ignorance of a particle of Greek, I put the first Hibernian who passed to the test of reading the sentence, which I am forced to say the indignant Milesian scornfully declined. I submit the whole question to the researches of your readers. HEMIPLEGIUS.

Nay—we know not. 'The Professor' at the Breakfast-Table we do indeed know, and it is no unwonted thing for us to meet him in Tremont street, merry and wise as ever. But we have never seen him or any other Professor 'driven to the wall' in any way whatever; and albeit we suspect him of a knowledge of whist, we have beheld him pla-carded. We pass.

* * * * *

Do we say too much when we call the following poem truly beautiful?

WITH FLOWERS.

MAY MORNING, 1862.

Reject them not! they come to plead for me; When you are cold, 'tis winter in my heart; Till you are kind, 'sweet May' 'twill never be, And if you smile, summer will ne'er depart!

'My heart is weary,—waiting for the May,' So sad and weary; will you give it rest? Not love, but rest: it is not much to say: 'Poor, tired child! once more be thou my guest.'

Forgive my wild and wayward words, forgive! "We are dying of our thirst—'my heart and I!' Without love's sunshine, who can care to live? And when love shines, oh I who can bear to die?

'Ah! this love!' 'There is not much of it in life,' says Heine; but that little alone makes life tolerable. Rest, perturbed spirit, rest! In another land, there is love enough for all.

CHIVALRY

By R. Wolcott; Tenth Regiment

Not long ago I happened to be one of a number of fair ladies and brave men assembled at what is called a 'surprise-party.' It was my fortune to be the attendant cavalier, for the time, of a damsel of romantic disposition, and, I fear, of somewhat impaired digestive powers. And she was lamenting, not boisterously, but in a subdued, conversational manner, that the good old days were gone, 'the days of Chivalry,' when my lady had her nice little boo-dwah (for the life of me, I didn't know whether that was something nice to eat or to wear; but I have since learned that it is something French, and spelt, b-o-u-d-o-i-r,) and was waited upon by handsome pages, and took her airing on a dappled-gray palfrey, attended by trusty and obsequious grooms; when Sir Knight, followed by his sturdy henchmen, rode forth in gay and gaudy attire, with glittering helmet and cuirass, and entered the lists, and bravely fought for his fair lady's fame. She spoke with fervid eloquence, and with a glibness that betrayed a very recent perusal of the tournament-scene in Ivanhoe. I was about to reply, and say something in behalf of modern chivalry; but just then a gentleman claimed her hand for a quadrille that was forming, and my remarks were cut short.

If my readers will bear with me, I will attempt to tell them what I was going to say to my romantic young friend. The days of chivalry are not gone. Let me remark that this assertion does not apply to the blatant, nigger-driving article that whilom flourished in Dixie, for that is about 'played out,' though they still rant and prate about the 'flower of chivalry.' At Fort Lafayette, there is an herbarium of choice specimens (rather faded and seedy) of that curious 'yarb;' and at the old Alton Penitentiary, and at Camp Douglas, Chicago, there are collections, not so choice and a great deal more seedy. Though Simon—not he of other notoriety, but another man—Simon Bolivar Buckner, a sweet-scented pink of Southern chivalry; though he must have his little fling at us, and call General Grant 'ungenerous and unchivalrous,' it does not strike me with stunning force that he, ingrate that he is, and traitor to the government that educated him, is exactly the one to teach us what chivalry is, or how it ought to treat vanquished rebels. No, the days of chivalry are not gone. While the base counterfeit that has so often been thrust upon us by Southern braggadocios, and indorsed by Northern sneaks and doughfaces, has been detected, and, thank God! is being thrown out as fast as shot and shell can knock it out, there never was a greater abundance of the genuine metal than there is now and here in this land of ours.

Not alone in war and warlike deeds does modern chivalry show itself. There is a chivalry in religion, that, in spite of the howlings of creed-worshipers, dares to throw off the shackles of antiquated and intolerant dogmas, and believe and teach the religion of humanity, of 'peace on earth and good-will to men.' It is the chivalry in religion that has smitten and is daily smiting with its gleaming lance the host of old prejudices, letting in upon us the glorious golden sunshine, allowing us to revel in it and to see this world as it is, joyous and beautiful. True, some of the old superstitions that burned the witches linger in the path, like grim dragons, to frighten us. But they are weak and toothless, and are fast losing their terrors; and the spirit of chivalry in religion is marching on, and smiting them one by one, and one by one they fall. But while men are emancipating themselves from the ancient errors, it is sad to see that the same bugbears that infested the path of our great grandparents in the pinafore period of their existence, are brought to bear upon our children. Especially in Sabbath-school literature is this manifest. Impossible patterns of piety and propriety are set before a stout, healthy boy, and he, in the flush of his lusty life, is taught to believe that the only road to paradise lies through some pulmonary affection. For the sake of all these dear little ones, and for the sake of the Master who loved them so well, do let them have some more natural and healthy mental and moral food!

And this leads me to speak of literature in general. And have we not a chivalry here that is working a revolution? And who is the bravest knight in the field? Who but our own genial Meister Karl-Mace Sloper? Isn't it glorious though, the way he rides into the lists, and with his diamond-pointed lance pricks the tender skins of the lackadaisical poetasters and lachrymose prosy-scribblers of our day! Again, O gallant leader! smite them again. And fall in, ye who wield the pen! Let the bugles sound the charge, and let our literature be cleared of Laura Matildas and Martin Firecracker Splutters forever!

We approach now a topic that was once nauseating in the extreme, but which is now robbed of many of its disagreeable features—medicine. Let it be understood in the beginning, disciple of Hahnemann, I am not upholding you and your pellets of sugar; by no means. But there have been some knights of the pill-box who, without rushing into folly, have leaped the barriers of ignorance and ancient custom that kept them in an atmosphere odorous of villainous drugs and combinations of drugs, and, untrammeled by old traditions, have sought and are seeking milder means of mitigating our bodily ills. All honor to them. They have driven away the old doctor of our childhood, whose most pleasant smile resembled the amiable leer that a cannibal might be supposed to bestow upon a plump missionary. The old curmudgeon, with his huge bottles of mixtures and his immense boulders—I beg pardon, I should say, boluses of nastiness—has vanished like a surly ghost at the approach of daylight, and in his stead we have a gentleman, placid and self-poised, with a velvet touch and a face beaming with cheerful smiles. And if they have not made the measles a luxury, they have given us a syrup that children are said to cry for.

In the industrial arts, too, there is a spirit of chivalry that is marching bravely on, overthrowing old notions. What knight of the olden time ever did as much for his ladye fayre as he did for all womanity who wrought out the problem of the sewing-machine? How many aching hands and eyes and hearts has that little instrument, with its musical click-click, click-click, relieved! No more songs of the shirt, no more wearying of hands and curving of spines over the inner vestments of mankind. We have changed all that. And every stroke of the pioneer's ax, as he fells the mighty forest-trees, is a blow struck by the honest and earnest chivalry of labor, battling with wild nature, carving a way for civilization's triumphal march. And the cheery whistle of the plowboy, as he drives his team a-field; the ring of the hammer on the anvil; the clatter of the busy loom; the scream of the locomotive, as it sweeps over the land, plunging through the mountains and dashing out across the prairies—all these are the clarion-notes of modern chivalry's bugles, ringing through the world in joyous and triumphant tones.

And this war—who shall tell; what historic pen can record its grand and glorious chivalry? Is not every one, from the pale young student, fresh from the breast of Alma Mater, to the large-handed and larger-hearted rustic, with the hay-seed yet in his hair, and the rugged bod-carrier, redolent of sweat and brick-dust—are not all these, who have come forth from the field and the workshop, the office and the lecture-room, to defend the dear old flag, true and gallant knights? There is a boy out there in the woods, on picket, slowly pacing his lonely beat, with the tender-eyed stars for company. And as the silent hours pass by, slowly he turns the leaves of memory's record, lingering over its cherished pictures, the home-scenes, the fond father and mother, the dear sister, and the dearer some-one-else's sister. The snapping of a twig startles him, and hastily brushing away a tear—fond memory's tribute—he instantly closes the book, and stands, with every sense on the alert, unflinching, though he knows that each moment may be his last, only remembering that it is his duty to be faithful, watch well, and fire low. And though this boy, fair-haired and beardless, may not have passed the stern ordeal of the battle's fierce shock, though his heart softens at the thought of his far-off home in the North, yet his young soul is that of a hero, brave and chivalrous, and in due time his spurs will be nobly won. Yes, this war is bringing out the grand, heroic traits of our American character, traits that years of rapid, busy, money-getting life have thrown into the background, till it really did seem that we were altogether sordid and selfish.