We must not cherish illusions; the chances, of civil war have been increasing for a few weeks past with fearful rapidity.  If Mr. Lincoln has confined himself scrupulously to conservative and defensive measures, there has been, on the contrary, in the actions of the South, a violent precipitation which has surpassed all expectancy.  It is the haste of skilful men, who attempt by a bold stroke to carry off the advantages of a deed accomplished; it is at the same time, and chiefly, perhaps, the haste of men who have nothing to lose, the ringleaders of the present hour.  At the end of resources, the insurgent South has already increased its taxes inordinately; it has killed public and private credit; it has created a disturbed revolutionary condition, intolerable in the end, which no longer permits deliberation, or even reflection.  Will the South pause on such a road?  It is difficult to hope it.  As to the North, its plan of action is very simple, and easily maintained:  suppose even that through impossibility it should give over forcing the rebels back to their duty, who can ever imagine that it would suffer itself to be deprived of the mouths of the Mississippi, or that it would abandon to the rival Confederacy the capital itself of the Union, inclosed within the slave States?  Let us see things as they are:  the maintenance and development of slavery in the South will render the abolitionist proceedings of its neighbor intolerable in its eyes; if it has not been able to endure a contradiction accompanied with infinite circumspection, and tempered by many prudent disclaimers, how will it support this daily torture, a unanimous and well-founded censure, a perpetual denunciation of the infamies which accompany and constitute the “patriarchal institution”?  The North, on its side, will be unable to forget that, by the act of the South, without reason or pretext, the glorious unity of the nation has been broken; that the star-spangled banner has been rent in twain; that the commercial prosperity of America has been shaken at the same time with its greatness.  Let one of those incidents then occur, that are constantly arising, a Southern slave ship stopped on the high seas by the North, a negotiation of the South threatening to introduce Europe into the affairs of the New World, and directly hostilities will break out.

What they will be in the end, I scarcely dare imagine.  If the planters are forced, at present, to mount guard day and night, to prevent the insurrectionary movements that are constantly ready to break out on their estates; if many families are already sending their women and children into safer countries; what will it be when the arrival of the forces of the North shall announce to the slaves that the hour of deliverance has sounded?  It will be in vain to deny it; their arrival will always signify this in the sight of the South.  There are certain facts, the popular interpretation of which ends by being the true interpretation.