zen years we find the old federal relations resumed
in all their completeness, and the disunion party powerless and
discredited in the very states where once it had wrought such mischief.
Nay more, we even see a curiously disputed presidential election, in
which the votes of the southern states were given almost with unanimity
to one of the candidates, decided quietly by a court of arbitration; and
we see a universal acquiescence in the decision, even in spite of a
general belief that an extraordinary combination of legal subtleties
resulted in adjudging the presidency to the candidate who was not
really elected.

Such has been the result of the first great attempt to break up the
federal union in America. It is not probable that another attempt can
ever be made with anything like an equal chance of success. Here were
eleven states, geographically contiguous, governed by groups of men who
for half a century had pursued a well-defined policy in common, united
among themselves and marked off from most of the other states by a
difference far more deeply rooted in the groundwork of society than any
mere economic difference,--the difference between slave-labour and
free-labour. These eleven states, moreover, held such an economic
relationship with England that they counted upon compelling the naval
power of England to be used in their behalf. And finally it had not yet
been demonstrated that the maintenance of the federal union was
something for which the great mass of the people would cheerfully fight.
Never could the experiment of secession be tried, apparently, under
fairer auspices; yet how tremendous the defeat! It was a defeat that
wrought conviction,--the conviction that no matter how grave the
political questions that may arise hereafter, they must be settled in
accordance with the legal methods the Constitution has provided, and
that no state can be allowed to break the peace. It is the thoroughness
of this conviction that has so greatly facilitated the reinstatement of
the revolted states in their old federal relations; and the good sense
and good faith with which the southern people, in spite of the chagrin
of defeat, have accepted the situation and acted upon it, is something
unprecedented in history, and calls for the warmest sympathy and
admiration on the part of their brethren of the north. The federal
principle in America has passed through this fearful ordeal and come out
stronger than ever; and we trust it