In the eleven seceded States there is no apparent difference of opinion among those in authority, or among those accustomed to lead in public affairs. The sentiment of attachment to the old Union has been disappearing rapidly since the secession of South Carolina, until there are now no open avowals of adherence to the government, unless such are made by the mountaineers of Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina. These men are for the present destitute of power. Should our armies penetrate those regions, the inhabitants may essentially aid in the reëstablishment of the government. Still, for the present, we must regard the eleven States as a unit in the rebellion. Thus we are called to note the anomalous fact that the rebels seek a division between a people who speak the same language, occupy a territory which has no marked lines or features of separation, and who have from the first day of their national existence been represented by the same national government. Hence it is plain, whatever may be the immediate result of the contest, that there can be no permanent peace until the territory claimed as the territory of the United States is again subject to one government. This may be the work of a few months, it may be the work of a few years, or it may be the business of a century. Without the reëstablishment of the government over the whole territory of the Union there can be no peace; and without the reëstablishment of that government there can be no prosperity. The armies of the rebel States will march to the great lakes, or the armies of the loyal States will march to the gulf of Mexico. We are therefore involved in a war which does not admit of adjustment by negotiation. In a foreign war, peace might be secured by mutual concessions, and preserved by mutual forbearance. In ordinary civil strife the peace of a state or of an empire might be restored by concessions to the disaffected, by a limitation of the privileges of the few, or an extension of the rights of the many. But none of these expedients meet the exigency in which we find ourselves. The rebels demand the overthrow of the government, the division of the territory of the Union, the destruction of the nation. The question is, _Shall this nation longer exist?_ And why is the question forced upon us? Is there a difference of language? Not greater than is found in single States. Indeed, Louisiana is the only one of the eleven where any appreciable difference exists, and the number of French in that State is less than the number of Germans in Pennsylvania. Nor has nature indicated lines of separation like the St. Lawrence and the lakes on the north and the Rocky Mountains on the west. The lines marked by nature--the Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi River, and the Alleghanies--cut the line proposed by the confederates transversely, and force the suggestion that each section will be put in possession of three halves of different