n, and implies a corresponding duty of submission, or, if that be
refused, then a necessary right of self-vindication. We are citizens,
when we make laws; we become subjects, when we attempt to break them
after they are made. Lynch-law maybe better than no law in new and
half-organized communities, but we cannot tolerate its application in
the affairs of government. The necessity of suppressing rebellion by
force may be a terrible one, but its consequences, whatever they may
be, do not weigh a feather in comparison with those that would follow
from admitting the principle that there is no social compact binding on
any body of men too numerous to be arrested by a United States marshal.

As we are writing these sentences, the news comes to us that South
Carolina has taken the initiative, and chosen the arbitrament of war.
She has done it because her position was desperate, and because she
hoped thereby to unite the Cotton States by a complicity in blood, as
they are already committed by a unanimity in bravado. Major Anderson
deserves more than ever the thanks of his country for his wise
forbearance. The foxes in Charleston, who have already lost their tails
in the trap of Secession, wished to throw upon him the responsibility
of that second blow which begins a quarrel, and the silence of his guns
has balked them. Nothing would have pleased them so much as to have one
of his thirty-two-pound shot give a taste of real war to the boys who
are playing soldier at Morris's Island. But he has shown the discretion
of a brave man. South Carolina will soon learn how much she has
undervalued the people of the Free States. Because they prefer law to
bowie-knives and revolvers, she has too lightly reckoned on their
caution and timidity. She will find that, though slow to kindle, they
are as slow to yield, and that they are willing to risk their lives for
the defence of law, though not for the breach of it. They are beginning
to question the value of a peace that is forced on them at the point of
the bayonet, and is to be obtained only by an abandonment of rights and
duties.

When we speak of the courage and power of the Free States, we do not
wish to be understood as descending to the vulgar level of meeting brag
with brag. We speak of them only as among the elements to be gravely
considered by the fanatics who may render it necessary for those who
value the continued existence of this Confederacy as it deserves to be
valued to kindl