Had the war for the Union been a failure this fair continent on which has been nourished the hopes of the world would have been the arena of two general governments separated by no natural dividing lines and probably at last to be succeeded by contending states and communities. Thus the last condition of free civilization in America would have been more disgraceful than was the situation of the warring principalities of ancient Greece, because we had sinned against a greater light than they possessed. If National monuments are dedicated to commemorate Southern gallantry will not a subtle influence steadily flow out from these reminders of civil war to the effect that assault upon the Nation's existence is an offense so trivial as to be expiated by bravery on the field of battle? Who can tell what crises of peril may in the future break in upon our beloved land? And what if the youth of the North and of the South are, from generation to generation, taught by the influence of public memorials that there is no real distinction between those who fought to save the Nation and those who did all they could "that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall (not) perish from the earth." We present a quotation from the judgment of the Supreme Court, as given by General N. P. Chipman on page 503 of his recent and informing book on Andersonville: "The rebellion out of which the war grew was without any legal sanction. In the eye of the law it had the same properties as if it had been the insurrection of a country or smaller municipal territory as against the State to which it belonged. The proportion and duration of the struggle did not affect its character. Nor was there a rebel government de facto in such a sense as to give any legal efficiency to its acts.... The Union of the States, for all the purposes of the constitution, is as perfect and indissoluble as the union of the integral parts of the States themselves; and nothing but revolutionary violence can in either case destroy the ties which hold the parties together. "For the sake of humanity certain belligerant rights were conceded to the insurgents in arms. But the recognition did not extend to the pretended government of the Confederacy.... The Rebellion was simply an armed resistence of the rightful authority of the sovereign. Such was its character, its rise, progress and downfall." The legal aspects of the case as thus expressed have their great value as indicating facts fundamental to organic National existence and they demonstrate the inherent inconsistency of devoting Federal appropriations to the erection of monuments to the honor of opponents of the Union. This can be but a transient purpose which should and, we believe will be, relinquished.