Dr. Channing’s attention was first drawn to the Northern anti-slavery agitation in the year 183-, and there is nowhere on record a more remarkable prophecy than that which he then made of the effect of this agitation upon the people of the South. It is contained in a letter which he then wrote to Mr. Webster, and which has been public ever since the publication of Mr. Webster’s collected works. CHAPTER XIV. 1860—October. GENERAL SCOTT'S “VIEWS.” While during the month of October (1860) President Buchanan was anxiously watching the course of public events, he was surprised by receiving from General Scott, the General-in-chief of the Army, a very extraordinary paper. It was written on the 29th of October, from New York, where the General had his headquarters, and was mailed to the President on the same day. On the 30th the General sent a corrected copy to the Secretary of War, with a supplement. These papers became known as General Scott’s “views.” He lent copies of them to some of his friends, to be read; and although they did not immediately reach the public press, their contents became pretty well known in the South through private channels. From them the following facts were apparent: FIRST.—That before the Presidential election, General Scott anticipated that there would be a secession of one or more of the Southern States, in the event of Mr. Lincoln’s election; and that from the general rashness of the Southern character, there was danger of a “preliminary” seizure of certain Southern forts, which he named. SECOND.—That the secession which General Scott deprecated was one that would produce what he called a “gap in the Union;” that he contemplated, as a choice of evils to be embraced instead of a civil war, the allowance of a division of the Union into four separate confederacies, having contiguous territory; and that he confined the use of force, or a resort to force, on the part of the Federal Government, to the possible case of the secession of some “interior” States, to reestablish the continuity of the Federal territory. This he considered might be regarded as a “correlative right,” balancing the right of secession, which he said might be conceded “in order to save time.” THIRD.—That his provisional remedy, or preliminary caution, viz: The immediate garrisoning of the Southern forts sufficiently to prevent a surprise or _coup de main_, was confined to the possible or probable case of a secession that would make a “gap” in the Union, or break the continuity of the Federal territory. He excluded from the scope of his “provisional remedies” the secession of Texas, or of all the Atlantic States south of the Potomac, as neither would produce a “gap” in the Union.