“‘We will give every dollar that we are worth, every child that we have, and our own selves; we will bring all that we are and all that we have, and offer them up freely—but this country shall be one and undivided. We will have one Constitution and one liberty, and that universal.’ The Atlantic shall sound it and the Pacific shall echo it back, deep answering to deep, and it shall reverberate from the Lakes on the North to the unfrozen Gulf on the South—‘One nation, one Constitution, one starry banner!’ Hear it, England!—one country, and indivisible. Hear it, Europe!—one people, and inseparable. One God; one hope; one baptism; one Constitution; one government; one nation; one country; one people—cost what it may, we will have it!” The summer of 1862 was, perhaps, a period of as great discouragement to the North as any during the war. After months of preparation and wearisome delays, with the grandest army that had ever been gathered on this continent, McClellan had made his advance against Richmond, only to entrench, retreat, and at last to be hurled back defeated and shattered. It was when these terrible disasters were beginning to be understood and their true significance appreciated that Mr. Beecher’s editorials in the _Independent_ rose to their highest point of power and influence. They were directed to the people and to the government as occasion demanded, but always with such a grouping of facts, with so clear an appreciation of the situation, and with so great earnestness of appeal and power of denunciation that they must be reckoned among the loyal forces. We give the titles and a few sentences from several of that time, that their general character may be understood. On July 3, 1862, we have one upon “The Great Duty”: “In another column will be found the President’s call for 300,000 more soldiers. These, and as many more if needed, can be raised. The North has not changed her mind. The integrity of this nation, the authority of its Constitution over all its original territory, will be maintained at every hazard and at whatever expense. “It is our duty to the nation and to the family of nations to make a slaveholders’ rebellion so odious and disastrous that it shall stand to all ages like Sodom and Gomorrah. Whatever it may cost in men and money, the North is fully assured that for nothing else can money be so well spent, and for nothing nobler can men live, or, if need be, lay down their lives! “The great duty now is to maintain a united North. No event can be more sure than the victory of this government over the slaveholders’ conspiracy, if the loyal States are united. But if secret feuds or open factions shall divide and paralyze the popular feeling, the cause will fail, or succeed only after long, wasting, and useless expenditures.”