them the territories of New Mexico and Arizona, in which slavery exists. There are now nineteen free States, of which the area is 993,684 square miles, and there are six territories which, excluding those named, comprise an area of 1,168,000 miles. Thus the total magnitude of the Northern power would be 2,161,684 square miles. Now the combined dimensions of four of the five great European powers are together 625,000 square miles. Thus the Northern territory would be three times as large as that of four of the great powers of the world together.

There are eight kingdoms of Europe of which the population in 1850 was 20 millions, the same as that of the Northern States. Of these the combined area is 120,000 square miles. Hence the domain of the Northern power would be eighteen times as large as that of eight European kingdoms joined together. Again, France is not considered a small country, and it would be twelve times as large as France. This seems therefore a disordered appetite for mere space, and not a reasonable desire for that degree of magnitude which an independent power ought really to

possess.

There appears an illustration in this of the views already expressed, how far the Union has distorted the standard of dimension. It seems to have thrown a thick mist over the public mind, obscuring all realities. Any American will admit that the dimensions of France are ample for a

great power, yet as a Unionist he plunges into the horrors of civil war, because his country with half the population of France would be reduced to twelve times the size. These are dreams of a nation's youth. How few have not had to put away early dreams, and narrow thought to less alluring realities!

Was there in this sufficient cause that men should proceed to destroy one other? At the best, when accepted as a sad and stern necessity, war is but a form of legalized and organized murder. At the best it is pitiable to see the human mind contriving how most effectually to destroy our fellow-man. But civil war, between those of the same tongue, of the same lineage, nay, often of the same household, is the darkest depth of national crime. Nor is it less deplorable at the hands of those who profess to be disciples of Him who bid his follower to put up his sword into its sheath, and taught that the inheritance of the earth is to the meek. Nor is it less to be condemned when they are the sons of rebels, who are so bitterly indignant at rebellion-the worshippers of independence, who so detest it when claimed by other voices than their own. Lamentable is the judgment which affirms that after the rebellion is crushed the Union shall issue forth "unchangeable and unchanged." A skilful workman may repair some broken vase-the pieces may be cunningly arranged-spread over with a new enamel. But the value is gone. There is now a thing of

cemented fragments-its worth in the power to deceive. When a Union of strong men is broken, no workman's skill can mend it. There is no virtue in the shedding of human blood that will cement that Union again.

In truth no real Union has existed in America. Such can alone be formed of elements that will combine and coalesce; when discordant and repulsive there may be an aggregation-a Union there cannot be. Oil and water may be commingled but they cannot be united. Mutual interests may form a union-reciprocal affection-sympathetic feeling some great and common object of desire or dread. When these have no existence, but in their place are incompatibility and repugnancemen may be connected by the letter of the law, or fettered by resistless force-but to call this a Union is to deny the principle and the essence, and delude ourselves with the sound of a name.

And this loss of territory, regarded as so great an evil as to overshadow every other consideration, is it really an unalloyed evil; may there be no countervailing and still greater good? Is it not a nobler ambition to aim at individual greatness, than to boast of some share in partnership magnitude? The South by the severance renders itself incomplete as a community. It will be left without a navy or marine, with few artisans, little science, no literature. Were the North moving away, this might indeed be urged as a grievance and contested as the excision of part of a system

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essential to the well-being of the rest. But the Northern power remains in full possession of every attribute of a great nation. And those Americans in this country, who though remote from the popular current yet sympathize with its movement— may do well to recollect, as they shrink from this narrowing of former views-that when the British empire was lessened so greatly by the independence of the colonies, there were earnest men in this country who believed and mourned that its glory had departed for ever. For the dark predictions of that period there was some excuse, for they were uttered when looking into the gloom of an unknown future. Now, who does not know that the darkness of that era was followed by a dawn that has widened ever since-not unchequered by transient clouds—yet ever growing clearer and brighter to this very day?

If this has followed a similar event in our case -why may it not also with the North? Had we succeeded in our effort, so similar to their ownhad we subdued and retained the colonies for ten, twenty years more-none can believe that real advantage would have accrued. The expense, the heartburnings, the distrust, the turmoil inevitable afterwards, would have been equally disastrous to both. In every sense, the anticipated evil has proved an actual good. And there are stronger reasons to foresee the same result in the present instance. The colonies exercised on us no influence for evil-enforced no compromises of principle-had

no corrupting effect on public opinion. But slavery, however it may be with those nurtured to quiescence -must needs act poisonously-when injected into the veins and incorporated with the system of communities that are free. Can the event be altogether evil that removes an influence such as this?

In that work in which, under the surface of a playful fancy, such true wisdom may be foundWashington Irving wrote thus: "Happy is that nation which, compact, united, loyal in all its parts and concentrated in its strength, seeks no idle and unprofitable acquisition of ungovernable territory -which, content to be prosperous and happy, has no ambition to be great. It is like a man, well organized in all his system, sound in health, and full of vigour; unencumbered by useless trappings and fixed in an unshaken attitude. But the nation, insatiable of territory, whose domains are scattered, feebly united and weakly organized, is like a senseless miser, sprawling among golden stores, open to every attack, and unable to defend the riches he vainly endeavours to overshadow."

There is something in this that carries conviction to the reason. The time has arrived when the North, by the removal of discordant elements, may really become within itself this "happy nation -compact-united-loyal in all its parts and concentrated in its strength." The very condition thus pictured for his country's good by the ablest of her writers, the choicest spirit of her sons—