ogist of "De Bow's Review" tells us, the Southern States were
settled, and from which they derive a close entail of chivalric
characteristics, to the exclusion of the vulgar Saxons of the North,
such is by no means the case. For the first time in history the
deliberate treachery of a general is deemed worthy of a civic ovation,
and Virginia has the honor of being the first State claiming to be
civilized that has decreed the honors of a triumph to a cabinet officer
who had contrived to gild a treason that did not endanger his life with
a peculation that could not further damage his reputation. Rebellion,
even in a bad cause, may have its romantic side; treason, which had not
been such but for being on the losing side, may challenge admiration;
but nothing can sweeten larceny or disinfect perjury. A rebellion
inaugurated with theft, and which has effected its entry into national
fortresses, not over broken walls, but by breaches of trust, should
take Jonathan Wild for its patron saint, with the run of Mr. Buchanan's
cabinet for a choice of sponsors,--godfathers we should not dare to call
them.

Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Speech was of the kind usually called "firm, but
conciliatory,"--a policy doubtful in troublous times, since it commonly
argues weakness, and more than doubtful in a crisis like ours, since it
left the course which the Administration meant to take ambiguous, and,
while it weakened the Government by exciting the distrust of all
who wished for vigorous measures, really strengthened the enemy by
encouraging the conspirators in the Border States. There might be a
question as to whether this or that attitude were expedient for the
Republican Party; there could be none as to the only safe and dignified
one for the Government of the Nation. Treason was as much treason in the
beginning of March as in the middle of April; and it seems certain now,
as it seemed probable to many then, that the country would have sooner
rallied to the support of the Government, if the Government had shown an
earlier confidence in the loyalty of the people. Though the President
talked of "repossessing" the stolen forts, arsenals, and custom-houses,
yet close upon this declaration followed the disheartening intelligence
that the Cabinet were discussing the propriety of evacuating not only
Fort Sumter, which was of no strategic importance, but Fort Pickens,
which was the key to the Gulf of Mexico, and to abandon which was almost
to acknowl