Away then with the unseemly cry of 'the Constitution as it is,' 'the Union at it was,' the 'expediency' or 'non-expediency' of employing the war power, the interference or the non-interference of the man and the men established by us to represent us with the military leaders, the finances, or the thousand and one implements of administration, _which they are bound to employ_, not as we, but as they, holding our powers of attorney for a specified and legalized period, in their human wisdom deem best for the common good of the land. Let us have faith in the motives and intentions of our political administration, or if we have lost our faith, let us submit--patiently and with accord. Above all, at a period like this, when the minds of the best men and the truest are oppressed with a sense of the injustice with which a portion of our countrymen regard us, it most behooves us to keep our social and political ranks closed and in order, subject to the will of that commander, disobedience to which is infamy and ruin. No matter with what diversity of tongues and opinions we pursue our individual avocations and aims, we are all pilgrims pressing forward like the followers of Mohammed to the Kebla stone of _our_ faith--Peace founded on Union. What if a party clique utters sentiments adverse to our own on the never ceasing topic of political policy? Is it not the expression of a mind or a hundred minds forming a portion of the great body politic, of which we ourselves are a part, and are they not entitled to their opinion and modes of expressing it, providing it be done with decorum and with a proper respect for the opinions of their adversaries? Why then do we or they employ, through the press and in rhetorical bombast, opprobrious epithets, fit only for the pot-house or the shambles? Shall we men and citizens, each of us a pillar upholding the crowning dome of our nationality, be taught, like vexed and querulous children, the impotence of personal abuse? Why seek to lay upon the head of this Cabinet officer or that, this Senator or that, the responsibility of temporary military defeats, when we are no more able to command and prevent reverses than are they? Or if in our superior wisdom we deem ourselves to be the better able to direct and administer, why do we forget that others among us, inspired by the same love of country, and equally ardent for its safety and advancement, hold exactly contrary opinions? It is not a matter of opinion--it is not a matter for interference, it is simply and only a matter for untiring unflinching confidence and support. We have done our duty as a people, and elected our Administration--let us, in the name of all that is sublime and fundamental in republican principles, support and not perplex them in the hard and complex problem which they are appointed to solve. These are principles, which, however trite, need to be kept before us and practically sustained at a period