The man who ever doubted that the first gun fired by the insurgents would instantly unite the nation against them knew as little of the American people as if he were editor of the London “Times.”  There is no chemical solvent like gunpowder.  Even the Mexican War, utterly opposed to the moral convictions of the majority of Northern men, swept them away in such a current that the very party which opposed it could find no path to the Presidency but for its chief hero.  Had the present outbreak occurred far less favorably than it has, had the discretion of President Lincoln been much less, or that of Mr. Davis much greater, still the unanimity would have been merely a question of time, and the danger of Washington would have reconciled all minor feuds.  The Democratic party would inevitably have embraced the war, when once declared; Douglas would have made speeches for it, Buchanan subscribed money for it, and Butler joined in it; Bennett would still have floated triumphant on the tide of zeal, and Caleb Cushing still have offered to the Government his cavalry company of one.  It is a grace not given to any American party, to stand out long against the enthusiasm of a war.

No doubt the Secession leaders have treated us very handsomely, as to amount of provocation.  It is rare that any great contest begins by a blow so unequivocal as the bombardment of Fort Sumter; and rare in recent days for any set of belligerents to risk the ignominy of privateering.  But, after all, it is the startling social theories announced by the new “government” which form the chief strength of its enemies.  Either slavery is essential to a community, or it must be fatal to it,—­there is no middle ground; and the Secessionists have taken one horn of the dilemma with so delightful a frankness as to leave us no possible escape from taking the other.  Never, in modern days, has there been a conflict in which the contending principles were so clearly antagonistic.  The most bigoted royal house in Europe never dreamed of throwing down the gauntlet for the actual ownership of man by man.  Even Russia never fought for serfdom, and Austria has only enslaved nations, not individuals.  In civil wars, especially, all historic divergences have been trivial compared to ours, so far as concerned the avowed principles of strife.  In the French wars of the Fronde, the only available motto for anybody was the Tout arrive en France, “Anything may happen in France,” which gayly recognized the absurd chaos of the conflict.  In the English civil wars, the contending factions first disagreed upon a shade more or less of royal prerogative, and it took years to stereotype the hostility into the solid forms with which we now associate it.  Even at the end of that contest, no one had ventured to claim such a freedom as our Declaration of Independence asserts, on the one side,—­nor to recognize the possibility of such a barbarism as Jefferson Davis glorifies, on the other.  The more strongly the Secessionists state their cause, the more glaringly it is seen to differ from any cause for which any sane person has taken up arms since the Roman servile wars.  Their leaders may be exhibiting very sublime qualities; all we can say is, as Richardson said of Fielding’s heroes, that their virtues are the vices of a decent man.