And in this connection another great evil becomes evident which is in itself a fault of our civilization, and not a defect arising from any fundamental error in our system; an evil which, although always predominant, has been more active in its workings, more injurious in its effects during the present war than ever before. It is the spirit of bitter, uncharitable, and even malicious opposition of the minority to the acts and theories of the party in power, forgetting that no great evil was ever yet effectually counteracted by opposition, which only fans the flame and makes the fire burn hotter. And while no good can be effected by such opposition, its direful effect is to divide the councils of the nation, to paralyze the executive arm in all times of great emergency, to render but half effectual every great national enterprise, to make wavering the national policy, to exasperate political parties more and more against each other, thereby dividing the people and weakening the national life and progress, preventing all concentration of effort and unanimity of purpose, and--worst of all--subjecting the country periodically to the violent shock of opposing systems, according as parties alternate in power, tossing the ship of state in the brief period of a four years' term from one wave of theory to another, and opposing one, only to be hurled back as violently as before. Can it be doubted that such a state of affairs is injurious to prosperity and either political or social advancement? Were the results of every Administration for _good_, there would be less danger; but radical evils cannot but result from the bitter partisanship of the party in power, and when the scale is reversed and the opposite party gains the ascendency, the new Administration has scarcely time to correct the errors of its predecessors and to establish its own theory, ere the popular tide ebbs and flows again in the opposite direction, the ins are out and the outs are in, and again the alternation begins. Certainly party divisions are the life of a republic, from their tendency to counterbalance each other, and periodically reform abuses, thus keeping the vessel in the straight course; yet when those divisions reach the point which we see in our midst to-day, when the avowal of any principle or theory by the one party, however just or beneficial it may seem, is but the signal for the uncompromising hostility and bitter denunciation of the opposition, who seek to make of it a handle to move the giant lever of political power, unmindful of the wants and the urgent necessities of the land--a hostility having for its basis the single fact that the new measures are unfortunately advocated by the opposite party--then such divisions become not only injurious to the body politic, but a foul blot upon the civilization of our day and nation. This is perhaps putting the question in a strong light; but, admitting that we have not yet reached that point, are we not swiftly