ation of Satan. On one or the other of
these two scales he was placed by every man in the United States,
according to each citizen's modicum of sense and temper. We say, every
man--because in that war of the Democrats against the Federalists, no
one sought to escape the service. Every able-tongued man was ready to
fight with it, either for Jefferson or against him.

When Jefferson passed away triumphant, toleration set in. His enemies
dropped him to turn upon living prey. They came to acquiesce in him, and
even to quote him when he served their purpose. But the admiration of
his followers did not abate. They canonized him as the apostle of
American democracy, and gave his name to the peculiar form of the
doctrine they professed. For many years the utterances of the master
were conclusive to the common men of the party--better far than the
arguments of any living leader. Of late we have heard less of him. The
right wing of the democracy begin to doubt the expediency of the States'
Rights theory; and with the wrong wing his standing has been injured by
the famous passage on slavery in the 'Notes on Virginia.' The wrong wing
of the Democratic party are the men who cry out for the 'Constitution as
it is, and the Union as it was'--a cry full of sound and often of fury;
but what does it signify? The first gun that was fired at Fort Sumter
shattered the old Union. If peace men and abolitionists, secessionists
and conservatives were to agree together to restore the old Union to the
_status quo ante bellum_, they could not do it. 'When an epoch is
finished,' as Armand Carrel once wrote, 'the mould is broken, it cannot
be made again.' All that can be done is to gather up the fragments, and
to use them wisely in a new construction. An Indian neophyte came one
day to the mission, shouting: 'Moses, Isaiah, Abraham, Christ, John the
Baptist!' When out of breath, the brethren asked him what he meant. 'I
mean a glass of cider.' If the peace party were as frank as the Indian,
they would tell us that their cry signifies place, power, self. The
prodigal sons of the South are to be lured back by promises of pardon,
indemnification, niggers _ad libitum_, before they have satiated
themselves with the husks which seem to have fallen to their portion,
and are willing to confess that they have sinned against heaven and
against their country. The arms of the peace men are open; the best
robe, the ring, the fatted calf are ready. All that is asked