not only inherent in the inevitable operation of divine laws, but propelled by half a million of men in arms. Be it that God is on the side of the heaviest column, - there can be no doubt that the heaviest column is now the column of Freedom.

May, 1862.

THE NEW OPPOSITION PARTY.

IN the rapid alternations of opinion produced by the varying incidents of the present war, a few days effect the work of centuries. We may therefore be pardoned for giving an antique coloring to an event of recent occurrence. Accordingly we say, once upon a time (Tuesday, July 1, 1862) a great popular convention of all who loved the Constitution and the Union, and all who hated "niggers," was called in the city of New York. The place of meeting was the Cooper Institute, and among the signers to the call were prominent business and professional men of that great metropolis. At this meeting, that eminently calm and learned jurist, the Honorable W. A. Duer, interrupted the course of an elaborate argument for the constitutional rights of the Southern rebels by a melodramatic exclamation, that, if we hanged the traitors of the country in the order of their guilt, "the next man who marched upon the scaffold after Jefferson Davis would be Charles Sumner."

The professed object of the meeting was to form a party devoted to the support of "the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was." Its practical effect was to give the Confederates and foreign powers a

broad hint that the North was no longer a unit. The coincidence of the meeting with the Federal reverses before Richmond made its professed object all the more ridiculous. The babbling and bawling of the speakers about "the rights of the South," and "the infamous Abolitionists who disgraced Congress," were but faint echoes of the Confederate cannon which had just ceased to carry death into the Union ranks. Both the speeches and the cannon spoke hostility to the National Cause. The number of the dead, wounded, "missing," and demoralized members of the great Army of the Potomac exceeded, on that Tuesday evening, any army which the United States had ever, before the present war, arrayed on any battle-field. Jefferson Davis, on that evening, was safer at Richmond than Abraham Lincoln was at Washington. A well-grounded apprehension, not only for the "Union," but for the safety of loyal States, was felt on that evening all over the North and West. It was, in fact, the darkest hour in the whole annals of the Republic. Even the authorities at Washington feared that the Army of the Potomac was destroyed. This was exactly the time for the Honorable Mr. Wickliffe and the Honorable Mr. Brooks, for the Honorable W. A. Duer and the Honorable Fernando Wood, to delight the citizens of New York with their peculiar eloquence. This was the appropriate occasion to stand up for the persecuted and down-trodden South! This was the grand opportunity to assert the noble principle, that,

by the Constitution, every traitor had the right to be tried by a jury of traitors! This was the time to dishonor all the New England dead! This was the time to denounce the living worthies of New England! Hang Jeff. Davis? Oh, yes! We all know that he is secure behind his triumphant slayers of the real defenders of the Constitution and the Union. Neither hangman nor Major-General can get near him. But Charles Sumner is in our power. We can hang him easily. He has not two or four hundred thousand men at his back. He travels alone and unattended. Do we want a constitutional principle for combining the two men in one act of treason? Here is a calm jurist,- here, gentlemen of the party of the Constitution and the Laws, is the Honorable W. A. Duer. What does he say? Simply this: “ Hang Jeff. Davis and Charles Sumner." Davis we cannot hang, but Sumner we can. Let us take one half of his advice; circumstances prevent us from availing ourselves of the whole. There is, to be sure, no possibility of hanging Charles Sumner under any law known to us, the especial champions of the laws. But what then? Don't you see the Honorable W. A. Duer appeals, in this especial case, to "the higher law" of the mob? Don't you see that he desires to shield Jeff. Davis by weaving around his august person all the fine cobwebs of the Law, while he proposes to have Sumner hanged on "irregular" principles, unknown to the jurisprudence of Marshall and Kent?

But enough for the New York meeting. It was of no importance, except as indicating the existence, and giving a blundering expression to the objects, of one of the most malignant and unpatriotic factions which this country has ever seen. The faction is led by a few cold-blooded politicians universally known as the meanest sycophants of the South and the most impudent bullies of the North; but they have contrived to array on their side a considerable number of honest and well-meaning dupes by a dexterous appeal to conservative prejudice and conservative passion, so that hundreds serve their ends who would feel contaminated by their companionship. Never before has Respectability so blandly consented to become the mere instrument and tool of Rascality. The rogues trust to inaugurate treason and anarchy under the pretence of being the special champions of the Constitution and the Laws. Their real adherents are culled from the most desperate and dishonest portions of our population. They can hardly indite a leading article, or make a stump speech, without showing their proclivities to mob-law. To be sure, if a known traitor is informally arrested, they rave about the violation of the rights of the citizen; but they think Lynch-law is good enough for " Abolitionists." If a General is assailed as being over-prudent and cautious in his operations against the common enemy, they immediately laud him as a Hannibal, a Cæsar, and a Napoleon; they assume to be his special friends and admirers; they adjure him to persevere in