self-defence; and this may be regarded as one of its
issues.

Every loyal soldier is fighting for the security of our Northern homes;
and the issue resolves itself into this: The resistance of invasion; the
vindication of our manliness as a people; the protection of our own
firesides--else be overrun, outraged, desolated, enslaved by the minions
of a Southern oligarchy, which indulges the insane conceit that it is
born to rule.

* * * * *

Unfortunately for our country, it embraces two distinct forms of
society, of dissimilar, if not of antagonistic character. It is a
heritage from our ancestors; but none the less an evil for its prestige
from the sanctities of time; and we are now reaping its bitter fruits in
the manifold and hideous forms of a great civil war. Taking human nature
as it is, there appears to be no escape from this cruel ordeal. We of
the North claim that we have transcended that type of society whose
vital and informing element is chattel slavery. There is natural and
irrepressible antagonism between the two forms of society; they cannot
subsist in peace and good feeling by the side of each other, and still
less under the same Government. Conflict was inevitable, and it came.

At this stage of the war and of elucidation respecting its cause and
origin, this may be only commonplace, yet necessary to fulness of
statement.

Slavery felt the necessity of efforts to save herself from impending
ruin; she became taunting and aggressive in her manners and acts, and
resorted at length to violence, reminding one of the oft-repeated
proverb, 'Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.' History has
no readings for the comfort of slavery. There is a progress in human
affairs, and the tide of that progress is against her. Threatening
attitudes and impetuous dashes do not appear to come with salvation; and
the promise--of glory for freedom, and doom for her--now is that, as a
turbulent and rebellious power, she will be completely overthrown; a
sudden and deserved judgment, the legitimate consequence of her own
violence and desperation.

This struggle between a progressive and triumphant civilization, on the
one hand, and a crude, unprogressive, and waning one on the other--if
civilization it can be called--is another of the issues of this war. It
is but the ultimate, the closing catastrophe of the 'irrepressible
conflict.'

Involved in this feature of the war, there is muc