oying themselves,
especially in that particular in which they are most anxious and
determined to succeed. For the security of their slave property and the
peaceful continuance of the institutions which sustain it, it would have
been far better for them had they been thoroughly beaten and effectually
put down at the very beginning of the war. There might then have been a
chance for slavery to escape, at least for a while. Now it must be
admitted there is hardly the vestige of such a chance. It is almost
alike certain that slavery has been shaken to its very foundations in
every State, whether the rebellion shall now either succeed or fail. The
rebels have been wrong in all their calculations. Exactly the reverse of
their aims and expectations will be the reward of their treason. They
sought to overthrow the Government in order to perpetuate slavery; they
have only succeeded in overthrowing slavery, to the certain
strengthening and probable perpetuation of the Government they hate.

The leading rebels, occupying the seats of usurped power in their
ephemeral confederacy, have succeeded in arousing and sustaining a
considerable feeling of nationality and independence among the masses of
their population. Grasping the sceptre of ill-gotten authority with
great boldness, they have wielded it with a corresponding energy. Their
early successes and their protracted resistance, sustained for more than
two years by means of large and formidable armies, organized,
disciplined, and led with great skill, have sufficed to give them credit
and support at home, and much consideration abroad. In the midst of
stirring events, carried away by the first impulse of excitement, the
Southern people have not been in a mood to calculate the consequences of
a long struggle. They have been elated and blinded by their apparent
triumphs; and they, whose crafty purpose all the time has been to make
use of them for the furtherance of their own ambitious projects, have
been careful to preoccupy the minds of the people, and to conceal from
them, by the plausible pretences and superficial successes of the hour,
the certainty of ultimate discomfiture which has awaited them from the
beginning. Occasionally, it is true, there have been indications that
light was beginning to dawn on the popular mind; and in spite of the
complete system of terror and compression which the leaders have
inaugurated and sustained with the utmost determination, and with the
most