and oaths of fidelity to the Union are null and void in either case. And as the Union is the creation of the sovereign states, and has been nursed into life by them, it is presumptuous for any to deny, however great their veneration may be for it, that the States do not possess a power to abolish the Union, or to renounce it in their individual or united capacity, and any war to coerce or suppress their inherent vitality, or any of them, is not only aggressive, iniquitous, and unjustifiable, but destructive to the liberties of the people, and to life and property. It also makes the President and his supporters in their usurpation and exercise of military power to subdue Southern States justly chargeable with the cost and calamities of the American war, and ought to be held responsible for the mountains of slain it has piled, the abyss of debt it has opened, the interruption and stagnation of commerce which it has created, and the precious alchemy of civilization with its carnival of blessings which it has turned into a wide-spread curse, amidst which human groans from the wounded in battle vibrate on the ear, and the miseries of helpless widows and orphans spread themselves to the view of man. We know not, and care less, what the "American answer" may be to the questions propounded by the Hon. Horace Greeley. Ours, as given above, we claim to be "specific, unambiguous, decisive," and, therefore, however the war terminates, whether in the subjugation of the South, or in the establishment

of its independence, we maintain that no glory can accrue to the Federal arms, since every scar or wound received by a Federal soldier is a dishonour, and every victory won by a Federal army is a defeat. From the beginning until now, it has been a miserable waste of human life and property, to promote the ambitious schemes and wicked projects of unscrupulous and selfish men, and conducted with a malignity and ferocity unexampled in history, although masked with the pretexts of order and liberty, and covered with the sanctity of religion. Yet, strange to say, there are men who claim to be philanthropists who can see nothing in the President of America and his supporters who have brought those terrible calamities on America

-" nothing but a grand simplicity of purpose, and a patriotism which knows no danger, and does not falter;" whilst the late Richard Cobden, in a letter dated Midhurst, April 4, 1864, declared "if it can be shown that as the result of this war four millions of human beings have been elevated from the condition of mere chattels to the rank of free men, it will be an atonement and a consolation for the horrors with which it has been accompanied, such as have never yet been afforded in the annals of human warfare." An atonement to whom? A consolation for whom? Not surely to the friends of order, liberty, or Christianity. "If it can be shown"? Why should this have been necessary as the result of war, either directly or indirectly?

Could not the freedom of the slave have been compassed by appeals to reason and religion within the domains of peaceful argument, and in a manner infinitely more satisfactory to both whites and blacks? Ought we not, therefore, to enter our protests against the doctrine that the good ends of Providence cannot be attained by moral forces, and to pity" War Christians" who hold jubilees in the manner described in the following announcement :-" A circle of young ladies, attired emblematical of the States that endorsed and reinstated the immortal apostle of freedom, Abraham Lincoln, will appear supporting the Goddess of Liberty, who will be represented by a young lady. Emancipation songs will be led by these daughters of liberty,' the audience joining in the choruses;" or, as the greater apostle of freedom, William Loyd Garrison has been doing in Boston recently, where he ascended in grand dramatic form a "pair of steps" formerly used at Charleston, South Carolina, as an auction block for the sale of human beings, but transmitted to Boston by Federal soldiers, since the fall of that city, to be used, not to commemorate the sea of blood through which those steps have been reached, or the Yankee rivets by which the poor slaves in Charleston were made fast before that "prison of hell," as Whittier calls it, "was thrown open."

But to enumerate as follows the results of the war in order to make capital for its continunce and to mask its objects :

:

"1. Emancipation in Western Virginia, 2. Emancipation in Missouri.

3. Emancipation in the District of Columbia 4. Emancipation in Maryland.

5. Slavery abolished and for ever prohibited in all Territories.

6. Kansas admitted as a free State.

7. Provisions made to admit Colorado, Nebraska, and Nevada as free States.

8. Organisation of Idaho, Montana, Dacotah, and Arizona as free Territories.

9. Recognition of the Independence of Hayti and Liberia.

10. Three millions of slaves declared free by Proclamation of the President, January 1, 1863. 11. All fugitive slave laws repealed.

12. Inter-State slave law abolished.

13. Negroes admitted to equal rights in the United States Courts, as parties to suits and as witnesses.

14. Equality of the negro recognised in the public conveyances of the district of Columbia.

15. All rebel states prohibited from returning to the Union with slavery.

16. Free labour established on numerous plantations in South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

17. Schools for the education of freed slaves in South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee, and in Eastern Virginia-where, till within three years, to educate the negro was punishable with death.

18. The wives and children of all slaves employed as freemen in military and other service of the United States made free.

19. All negroes, bond and free, enrolled as part of the military force of the nation.

20. The loyal people of Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Florida, seeking a return to the Union on the basis of freedom to all, and of the abolition and prohibition of slavery.

21. The abolition and prohibition of slavery by an amendment of the Constitution passed in the Senate by two-thirds majority, and by nearly the same in the House. Lost by lack of three or four votes, through the influence of Democratic members.

22. The nation, through its representatives in Baltimore, June 8, made the abolition and prohibition of slavery the basis of the governmental administration for the future.

23. The Federal Government forbidden to employ any man as a slave, in any capacity.

24. One hundred and fifty thousand negroes, mostly freed slaves, in the pay and uniform of the Government as soldiers."

FEDERAL GEMS AND THE WAR.

There are some who profess to look below the scum and refuse which the war in America has brought to the surface of society, and to have made