But European statesmen, in order to promote the causes of American dissensions, are willing not only to hazard fallacies which do not impose on their own understandings, but to give aid and comfort to iniquities which in Europe have long been antiquated. They thus tolerate chattel slavery, not because they sympathize with it, but because it is an element of disturbance in the growth of American power. Though it has for centuries been outgrown by the nations of Western Europe, and is repugnant to all their ideas and sentiments, they are willing to give it their moral support, provided it will break up the union of the people of the States, or remain as a constantly operating cause of enmity between the sections of a reconstructed Union. They would tolerate Mormonism or Atheism or Diabolism, if they thought it would have a similar effect; but at the same time they would not themselves legalize polygamy, or deny the existence of God, or inaugurate the worship of the Devil. Indeed, while giving slavery a politic sanction, they despise in their hearts the people who are so barbarous as to maintain such an institution; and the Southern rebel or Northern demagogue who thinks his championship of slavery really earns him any European respect is under that kind of delusion which it is always for the interest of the plotter to cultivate in the tool. It was common, a few years ago, to represent the Abolitionist as the dupe or agent of the aristocracies of Europe. It certainly might be supposed that persons who

made this foolish charge were competent at least to see that the present enemy of the unity of the American people is the Pro-slavery fanatic, and that it is on his knavery or stupidity that the ill-wishers to American unity now chiefly rely.

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For the war has compelled these ill-wishers to modify their most cherished theory of democracy in the United States. They thought that the marvellous energy for military combination, developed by a democracy suddenly emancipated from oppression, such as was presented by the French people in the Revolution of 1789, was not the characteristic of a democracy which had grown up under democratic institutions. The first was anarchy plus the dictator; the second was merely " anarchy plus the constable." They had an obstinate prepossession, that, in a settled democracy like ours, the selfishness of the individual was so stimulated that he became incapable of self-sacrifice for the public good. The ease with which the government of the United States has raised men by the million and money by the billion has overturned this theory, and shown that a republic, of which individual liberty and general equality form the animating principles, can still rapidly avail itself of the property and personal service of all the individuals who compose it, and that self-seeking is not more characteristic of a democracy in time of peace than self-sacrifice is characteristic of the same democracy in time of war. The overwhelming and apparently unlimited power of a government thus of

the people and for the people is what the war has demonstrated, and it very naturally excites the fear and jealousy of governments which are based on less firm foundations in the popular mind and heart and will.

It is doubtless true that many candid foreign thinkers favor the disintegration of the American Union because they believe that the consolidation of its power would make it the meddlesome tyrant of the world. They admit that the enterprise, skill, and labor of the people, applied to the unbounded undeveloped resources of the country, will enable them to create wealth very much faster than other nations, and that the population, fed by continual streams of immigration, will also increase with a corresponding rapidity. They admit that, if kept united, a few generations will be sufficient to make them the richest, largest, and most powerful nation in the world. But they also fear that this nation will be an armed and aggressive democracy, deficient in public reason and public conscience, disposed to push unjust claims with insolent pertinacity, and impelled by a spirit of propagandism which will continually disturb the peace of Europe. It is curious that this impression is derived from the actions of the government while it was controlled by the traitors now in rebellion against it, and from the professions of those Northern demagogues who are most in sympathy with European opinion concerning the justice and policy of the war. Mr. Fernando Wood, the most resolute of all the Northern advocates of peace, recommended from his seat

in Congress but a month ago, that a compromise be patched up with the Rebels on the principle of sacrificing the negro, and then that both sections unite to seize Canada, Cuba, and Mexico. The kind of "democracy" which Mr. Jefferson Davis and Mr. Fernando Wood represent is the kind of democracy which has always been the great disturber of our foreign relations, and it is a democracy which will be rendered powerless by the triumph of the national arms. The United States of 1900, with their population of a hundred millions, and their wealth of four hundred and twenty billions, will, we believe, be a power for good, and not for evil. They will be strong enough to make their rights respected everywhere; but they will not force their ideas on other nations at the point of the bayonet; they will not waste their energies in playing the part of the armed propagandist of democratic opinions in Europe; and the contagion of their principles will only be the natural result of the example of peace, prosperity, freedom, and justice, which they will present to the world. In Europe, where power commonly exists only to be abused, this statement would be received with an incredulous smile; but we have no reason to doubt that, among the earnest patriots who are urging on the present war for Liberty and Union to a victorious conclusion, it would be considered the most commonplace of truths.

March, 1865.

RECONSTRUCTION AND NEGRO SUFFRAGE.

THE Submission of the Rebel armies and the occupation of the Rebel territory by the forces of the United States are successes which have been purchased at the cost of the lives of half a million of loyal men and a debt of nearly three thousand millions of dollars; but, according to theories of State Rights now springing anew to life, victory has smitten us with impotence. The war, it seems, was waged for the purpose of forcing the sword out of the Rebels' hands, and forcing into them the ballot. At an enormous waste of treasure and blood we have acquired the territory for which we fought; and lo! it is not ours, but belongs to the people we have been engaged in fighting, in virtue of the Constitution we have been fighting for. The Federal Government is now, it appears, what Wigfall elegantly styled it four years ago, nothing but "the one-horse concern at Washington:" the real power is in the States it has subdued. We are therefore expected to act like the savage, who, after thrashing his Fetich for disappointing his prayers, falls down again and worships it. Our Fetich is State Rights, as perversely misunderstood. The Rebellion would have been soon put down, had it been merely an insurrectionary outbreak