States being a mere league of those governments: and that same school was ready and simply massing political power of sufficient volume to propound as a political aphorism, that the normal status of the negro-his political condition-was that of slavery; that the African was a slave per se: and that legislation was necessary to assure to him his freedom.

In reviewing these times that tried men's souls, the corollary is apparent, that the assault upon Sumter or the catastrophe at Bull Run, were not harbingers of the dissolution of Democracy, as was thought: but were heralds of a regeneration and purification of the nation-a divorcement from a latitudinarian morality, and flagitious political practices:-a destruction of the decaying fabric, in order that an enduring structure might take its place:-a lifting up of the nation to a higher moral and political plane.

Our Republic has a predestined limit of life; and it will not become moribund till that limit is attained. It still, as appearances attest, rejoices in the vigor of youth: it has not reached the maturity, much less the senility, of its powers. It doubtless will absorb the entire continent of North America: it probably will contain as great a population as the Flowery Kingdom. It will not decline and fall until it has performed the grandest destiny of any nation whose triumphs and achievements adorn the historic page.

"There exists in moral as well as physical order, a supreme law which assigns to institutions, as to human beings, a fated limit, marked by the term of their utility. Until this providential term has arrived, no opposition prevails; conspiracies, revolts, everything fails, against the irresistible force which maintains what people seek to overthrow but if, on the contrary, a state of things, immovable in appearance, ceases to be useful in the progress of humanity, then neither the empire of traditions, nor courage, nor the memory of a glorious past, can retard by a day, the fall which has been decided by destiny."

XVIII.

LINCOLN AND GRANT.

Boldness is blind: wherefore it is ill in counsel, but good in execution. For in counsel, it is good to see dangers: in execution not to see them, except they be very great. -BACON.

A man of vast dumb faculty; dumb-but fertile, deep: no end of ingenuities in the rough head of him: as much mother-wit there as could be found in whole talking parliaments, spouting themselves away in vocables and eloquent wind.

Big words do not smite like war-clubs,
Boastful breath is not a bow-string,
Taunts are not so sharp as arrows,

Deeds are better things than words are,
Actions mightier than boastings.

--CARLYLE.

-HIAWATHA.

Worthiness is a thing different from the worth or value of a man; and also from his merit or demerit: and consisteth in a particular power or ability for that whereof he is said to be worthy; which particular ability is usually named fitness or aptitude. -HOBBES.

If thou cans't plan a noble deed,

And never flag till it succeed,

Though in the strife thy heart should bleed,

Whatever obstacles contend,

Thine hour will come:-go on, thou soul,

Thou'lt win the prize:-thou'lt reach the goal.
-CHARLES MACKAY.

Among savage tribes, warfare is carried on and maintained chiefly by personal courage and brute force; the tomahawk, war club, arrow and assagai are their chief weapons. Enlightened nations base their warfare upon science, and execute it by art. The science of war is its theory, and is learned from books, or at military schools. The art of war is the application, in the field, of its principles, to the practice, or performance, of war. It frequently occurs that theorists in the science of war cannot apply their studies to

THE GRANT FAMILY, THIRTY-FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE HERO'S DEATH.

the practice of the art of war, in the field; and it also, not infrequently, happens that one not well versed in the theory, may nevertheless be au fait in the art of war in the field. McClellan, Halleck, Meade, and Hardee were excellent students and scholars: the forte of Grant, Sheridan, Thomas, and Schofield was in their execution in the field.

War, strictly as a science, was unknown in Persia, Macedon, Carthage, Greece, Egypt, and Rome. It is a thing of comparatively recent date, to teach the science of war.

The greatest scholar of the science of war, in Europe, was Jomini: the greatest practitioner of the art of war was Napoleon.

There were several better students of the science of war, in France, than the great Emperor: as Augereau, Soult, Lannes, Drouet, Berthier, and Davoust; but there were those who knew less of its science: as Murat, Ney, and Besseires. Frederick the Great knew no theories of the science of warneither did Blucher-nor yet Marlborough. Turenne, Pichegru, Moreau, Archduke Charles, Barclay de Tolly, and Von Moltke were familiar with principles, and likewise au fait in practice.

In this country, there were no scholars in war in the Revolution, except Lee and Lafayette; but in later days Thomas, Hancock, Wright, Lee, Beauregard, and Stonewall Jackson were alike good scholars, and equally good generals in the field.

As a science, war is exact: as an art, it is not; for not only the science of war, but politics, relative courage, efficiency of officers-efficiency of arms-efficiency of projectiles-efficiency of the commissariat, and other circumstances enter into consideration; and each one may prove as formidable a factor as the mere theory of war. The Prussians were victorious, in 1871, not wholly on account of the needle-gun, but also by reason of the villainy of the French army contractors, who mixed sawdust with powder. And in our Mexican war, our nation was victorious, as Houston was at San Jacinto, by