In the early part of his correspondence, Mr Seward’s opinions of the policy to be pursued towards the South are much more indulgent than at a later period. “The Union,” he says, on March 22, 1861, “was formed upon popular consent, and must always practically stand on the same basis.” He says, on April 10, that Secession is “a bad enterprise,” and that the Secessionists are “a misguided portion of our fellow-citizens.” But he goes on to say that the President “would not be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs (the citizens of the Southern States), namely, that the Federal Government could not reduce the seceding States to obedience by conquest, even although he were disposed to question that proposition. _But, in fact, the President willingly accepts it as true. Only an imperial or despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the State._ This Federal republican system of ours is, of all forms of government, the very one which is most unfitted for such a labour.” And he goes on to suggest the following paternal method of bringing back the prodigal South, and providing a fatted calf for it:— “The system has within itself adequate peaceful, conservative, and recuperative forces. Firmness on the part of the Government in maintaining and preserving the public institutions and property, and in executing the laws where authority can be exercised without waging war, combined with such measures of justice, moderation, and forbearance as will disarm reasoning opposition, will be sufficient to secure the public safety until returning reflection, concurring with the fearful experience of social evils, the inevitable fruits of faction, shall bring the recusant members cheerfully back into the family, which, after all, must prove their best and happiest, as it undeniably is their most natural, home. The constitution of the United States provides for that return by authorising Congress, on application to be made by a certain majority of the States, to assemble a national convention, in which the organic law can, if it be needful, be revised so as to remove all real obstacles to a reunion, so suitable to the habits of the people, and so eminently conducive to the common safety and welfare.” These be brave words and high sentiments; but their value as an expression of conciliatory policy is a little diminished by the fact that, as the seceding States were then seven out of thirty-four, the concession spoken of, being dependent on the “application to be made by a certain majority of the States” (two-thirds), was an impossibility. And in fact one of the best arguments in favour of Secession is, that the constitution provides no means whereby a minority, or indeed anything but a large majority, of States can obtain a remedy for their grievances, should the interests of the remainder render them adverse.