conquered.  God never punishes men for common-sense, nor did it ever yet blind zeal, though it may prevent zeal from degenerating into sheer madness.  The war, while it has crippled industry, has also kept it alive,—­it has become a great industrial central force, giving work to millions.  Again, in the creation of a debt we shall find such a stimulus to industry as we never before knew.  Taxation, which kills a weak country crippled by feudal laws and nightmared by an extravagant court and nobility, simply induces fresh and vigorous effort to make additional profits in a land of endless resources and of vast territory, where every man is free to work at what he chooses.  Taxation may come before us like a raging lion, but, in the words of BEECHER, we shall find honey in the carcass.  Let us only cheerfully make the best of everything, and uphold the administration and the war with a right good will, and we shall learn as we never did before the extent of the incredible elasticity and recuperative power of the American.

It is evident that the present war will have a beneficial result in making us acquainted with the real nature of this arrogant and peculiar South-land.  It was said that the Crimean struggle did much good by dispelling the cloudy hobgoblin mystery which hung over Russia, and, while it destroyed its prestige as a bugbear, more than compensated for this, by giving it a proper place abreast of civilized nations in the great march of industry and progress.  Just so we are learning that the South is perfectly capable of receiving white labor, that it is not strangely and peculiarly different from the rest of the cis-tropical regions, that the negro is no more its necessity than he is to Spain or Italy, and that, in short, white labor may march in, undisturbed, so soon as industry ceases to be regarded as disgraceful in it.  We have learned the vital necessity of union and identity of feeling between all the States, and found out the folly of suffering petty local state attachments to blind us to the glory of citizenship in a nation, which should cover a continent.  We have learned what the boasted philanthropy of England is worth when put to the test of sacrifice, and also how the British lion can put forth the sharpest and most venomous of feline claws when an opportunity presents itself of ruining a possible rival.  More than this, we have learned to be self-reliant, to take greater and more elevated views of political duty, and to be heroic without being extravagant.  Since we were a republic no one year has witnessed such national and social progress among us as the past.  We have had severe struggles, and we have surmounted them; we have had hard lessons, and we have learned them; we have had trials of pride, and we have profited by them.  And as we contend for principles based in reason and humanity and confirmed by history, it follows that we must inevitably come forth gloriously triumphant, if we but bravely persevere in enforcing those principles.