And now, from our stand-point of the Peace,--from 1783,--let us give a parting glance at the ground over which we have passed. We see thirteen Colonies, united by interest, divided by habits, association, and tradition, engaging in a doubtful contest with one of the most powerful and energetic nations which the world had ever seen; we see them begin, as men always do, with very imperfect conceptions of the time it would last, the lengths to which it would carry them, or the sacrifices it would impose; we see them boldly adopting some measures, timidly shrinking from others,--reasoning justly about some things, reasoning falsely about things equally important,--endowed at times with singular foresight, visited at times by incomprehensible blindness: boatmen on a mighty river, strong themselves and resolute and skilful, plying their oars manfully from first to last, but borne onward by a current which no human science could measure, no human strength could resist. They knew that the resources of the country were exhaustless; and they threw themselves upon those resources in the only way by which they could reach them. Their bills of credit were the offspring of enthusiasm and faith. The enthusiasm grew chill, the faith failed. With a little more enthusiasm, the people would cheerfully have submitted to taxation; with a little more faith, the Congress would have taxed them. In the end, the people paid for the shortcomings of their enthusiasm by seventy millions of indirect taxation,--taxation through depreciation; the Congress paid for the shortcomings of their faith by the loss of confidence and respect. The war left them with a Federal debt of seventy million dollars, and State debts of nearly twenty-six millions. Could this have been avoided? Could they have done otherwise? It is easy, when the battle is won, to tell how victory might have been bought cheaper,--when the campaign is ended, to show what might perhaps have brought it to an earlier and more glorious close. It is easy for us, with the whole field before us, to see that from the beginning, from the very first start, although the formula was _Taxation_, the principle was _Independence_; but before we venture to pass sentence, ought we not to pause and weigh well our judgment and our words,--we who, in the fiercer contest through which we are passing, have so long failed to see, that, while the formula is _Secession_, the principle is _Slavery_? THROUGH-TICKETS TO SAN FRANCISCO: A PROPHECY.