at desire for legal sanction common to our
race, which expressed itself in loyalty to the Constitution, there was
an instinctive feeling that the very germinating principle of our
nationality was at stake, and that unity of territory was but another
name for unity of idea; nay, was impossible without it, and undesirable
if it were possible. It was not against the Constitution that the
Rebels declared war, but against free institutions; and if they are
beaten, they must submit to the triumph of those institutions. Their
only chance of constitutional victory was at the polls. They rejected
it, though it was in their grasp, and now it is for us, and not them,
to dictate terms. After all the priceless blood they have shed, General
McClellan would say to them, "Come back and rule us." Mr. Lincoln says,
"Come back as equals, with every avenue of power open to you that is
open to us; but the advantage which the slaveholding interest wrung
from the weakness of the fathers your own madness has forfeited to the
sons."

General McClellan tells us that if the war had been conducted "in
accordance with those principles which he took occasion to declare when
in active service, reconciliation would have been easy." We suppose he
refers to his despatch of July 7th, 1862, when, having just
demonstrated his incapacity in the profession for which he had been
educated, he kindly offered to take the civil policy of the country
under his direction, expecting, perhaps, to be more successful in a
task for which he was fitted neither by training nor experience. It is
true he had already been spoken of as a possible candidate for the
Presidency, and that despatch was probably written to be referred to
afterwards as part of the "record" to which he alludes in his recent
letter. Indeed, he could have had no other conceivable object in so
impertinent a proceeding, for, up to that time, the war had been
conducted on the very principles he recommended; nay, was so conducted
for six months longer, till it was demonstrated that reconciliation was
not to be had on those terms, and that victory was incompatible with
them. Mr. Lincoln was forced into what General McClellan calls a
radical policy by the necessity of the case. The Rebels themselves
insisted on convincing him that his choice was between that and
failure. They boasted that slavery was their bulwark and arsenal; that,
while every Northern soldier withdrew so much from the productive
industry