You lament the inconceivable disasters “inaugurated by the attack on Sumter.”  True enough they may have been inaugurated by that act, but their unconcealed cause lies far back of that, as we have shown.  That was only a raising of the curtain, or rather a forcing of it to be raised by the Abolitionists—­a beginning of the bloody drama.  Who caused the attack?  What meant those human cargoes that approached so close to its walls the day before the battle?  Why did the worthy (?) Lincoln so long deceive the South^rn Commissioners by promise after promise not to make war, but to evacuate the fort, & meet them, as a sensible Pres. would have done, in friendly negotiation for peace?  S.C. was right, and acted nobly in the affair, and was as justifiable therein, as was Anderson in occupying the Fort before he had a reason for doing so, declaring by his overt act that the U.S. forces under him were at enmity with S.C.  But then you say S.C. should have first tried Lincoln before determining to secede.  I think she saw with prophetic vision the end from the beginning.  She took Lincoln at his word—­that itself was oppression & tyranny sufficient to burst asunder the closest ties of Union that could exist in any Country.  You say we sh^d. give everything a fair trial.  I disagree.  If I saw a serpent in my path & it sh^d. attempt to make battle, or declare its hostility by displaying its horrid fangs, do you think I would coolly stand by & give it a fair trial, & test its friendship?  I would be impelled, even had I never seen or heard of such a creature before, to crush it immediately, & so S.C. has sensibly said to the Administration “Serpent, bite a file!” As to your Eulogium on Lincoln I have not much to say.  If he pleases you, well enough, you’re easily satisfied. I take it that he is a disgrace to the Chair he occupies; and to judge from his conversations, he is devoid of all sense of refinement & etiquette; to look at his executive powers as displayed thus far, he had better be a Bey than helmsman of the “Old Ship”; and what of his efforts at speeches?  In the language of Logan, “I appeal to any white man” to say if they would not be a disgrace to many a “Country ’Squire”!  And yet such a man elevated to the highest position in the gift of the American people!  There was a time when the soundest and most learned men of the land were made Presidents, now a man’s capacity for the office seems to depend on the meanness of his intellect & the number of rails he can split in a day.  And so great were his “maul & wedge” propensities that he withheld not his hand from splitting the Tree of Liberty.  But let us inquire upon which side “humanity” stands in this contest.  You complain much of several (local) depredations com^td by South on private boats &c.  I ask, in candor, if it was not in retaliation for like outrages com^td by the North.