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which occupied both sections of our people at the commencement of this
rebellion. No two people, connected by so many ties, enjoying such
unlimited freedom of intercourse, so mutually dependent each upon the
other, and occupying a country so utterly incapable of natural
divisions, have ever been known to struggle with each other in so
sanguinary a conflict. All the circumstances of the case have been
unexampled in history. Accordingly the influence of the contest upon
affairs on this continent, and indeed upon human affairs generally, has
been great and disastrous in proportion to the magnitude of the peaceful
works which have been suspended by it, and to the closeness of those
brotherly relations which have heretofore existed between the contending
parties, now violently broken, and perhaps forever destroyed.

Almost the entire industry and commerce of the United States have been
diverted into new and unaccustomed channels. The most active and
enterprising people in the world, in the midst of their varied
occupations, suddenly find all the accustomed channels of business
blocked up and the stream of their productions flowing back upon them in
a disastrous flood, and stagnating in their workshops and storehouses.
They are compelled to find new issues for their enterprise and to make a
complete change in their habits and works. It is not merely in the
cessation of all intercourse between the two vast sections, North and
South, that this mighty transformation has taken place; but an equal
alteration has been suddenly effected in the character of the business
and the nature of the occupations which the people have heretofore
pursued in the loyal States of the Union. Great branches of business,
employing millions of capital, have been utterly annihilated or
indefinitely suspended. Vast amounts of capital have been sunk and
utterly lost in the deep gulf of separation which temporarily divides
the States; or if they are ever to be recovered, it will be only after
the storm shall have completely subsided, when some portions of the
wrecks, which have been scattered in the fearful commotion, may be
thrown safely on to the shores of reunion. It was anticipated,
especially by the rebels themselves, that these incalculable losses,
these tremendous shocks and sudden changes, would utterly overwhelm the
North with ruin and tear her to pieces with faction and disorder. But
this anticipation of accumulated disasters, in which the wis