the past, and have now, no actual relevancy to the question at the
South, and might as well be totally spared. It is purely and simply that
the South are in dead earnest to have their own way, unchecked by any
considerations of justice or right, or any other considerations of any
kind whatsoever--less than the positive demonstration of their physical
inability to accomplish their most cherished designs. Even in a
technical way, the question is not most intelligibly stated as one of
the right of secession; it is the bald question of Paramount Allegiance;
it is so understood at the South. The whole action of the South is based
upon a thorough indoctrination into a political dogma never so much as
fairly conceived of at the North as existing anywhere, until events now
developing themselves have revealed it, and which is not now even well
understood among us. Back of this indoctrination again, and the sole
cause of it, is the existence of the institution of slavery; its own
instinct from the first that it had no other ground of defence or hope
of perpetuation but physical force; its fears of invasion and its
obstinate determination to invade.

The supposition has, until quite recently, extensively prevailed in the
Northern mind that slavery is or was regarded at the South as a
necessary evil, borne because it was inherited from the past and because
its removal had become now next to impossible. A certain school of
Northern philanthropists, headed, we believe, by Elihu Burritt, had gone
so far, previous to the war, as to form a society and appeal to the
Northern people for aid to enable their Southern brethren, through such
aid, and finally, perhaps, through the interposition of the General
Government, to rid themselves of this monster evil. This handful of
kindly individuals must soon have discovered, had they come into actual
contact with the prevailing sentiment of the South, that their whole
movement was based upon a misapprehension of that sentiment. Thirty-five
years ago, and before the Northern abolition movement had taken root in
the land, it was a pleasant fiction for the Southern mind to speak
deprecatingly of the blame which they otherwise might seem to incur in
the mind of mankind for adhering to their barbarous institution; to
plead their own conviction of its entire wrongfulness, and to
commiserate themselves for their utter inability to free themselves from
its weight. A certain considerable freedom of discus