No one supposes that the impending struggle in the United States will be of this nature. There is no question before the country involving the policy of the government or the interests of the nation. There are no leaders who are the representatives of any principle or idea. The ardor of the contest will be confined to the men whose individual interests are directly or indirectly at stake: the management of the contest will be wholly in their hands, and no security will be felt as to the legality of the result. Whatever display of popular enthusiasm may be made will be chiefly of a factitious nature. Such excitement as may be felt will be to a large extent of the kind which is awakened by a "big show" or an athletic contest. The general mass of the voters will no doubt fall into line in response to signals and cries which, though they have lost their original meaning, still retain a certain efficacy, but a great falling off from the old fervor and discipline will, we venture to think, be almost everywhere apparent. More intelligent persons will either stand aloof with conscious powerlessness or strike feebly and wildly from a sense of embitterment. The energy put forth will indicate disease rather than health; the activity exhibited will be not so much that of a great organism as of the parasites that are preying on it. It cannot be denied that there is in this country a natural tendency toward political stagnation. With the exception of slavery and the questions arising from it--which fill, it is true, a large space in our history, but which must be considered abnormal in their origin--there has never been any great and potent cause of dissension, such as rises periodically in almost every country in Europe, setting class against class, changing the form or character of the government and shaking the foundations of society. In England a gradual revolution has been always going on, and there have been several struggles even in the present century where a popular insurrection loomed in the background and was averted only by concession. Our institutions, on the contrary, have undergone no change and been exposed to no danger in any fundamental point. They were accepted by the whole people, and their stability was a subject of national pride. There were two great parties, each of which scented in every measure projected by the other a design to unsettle the balance between the States and the general government, but both claimed to be the guardians of the Constitution, and their mutual rancor was founded mainly on jealousy. But for the existence of slavery, and the inevitable antagonism provoked by it, there must have been a constant decrease of interest in political questions as it became more apparent that these could not affect the freedom and security which, coupled with the natural advantages of the country, afforded the fullest scope and strongest stimulant to industrial activity. The extinction of slavery