It is with no pleasant feelings that we thus commend counter-revolution. It is the worst of war that it drives us to such considerations. But what is to be done when our existence as a nation is at stake, and when we are opposed by a remorseless foe which would gladly ruin us irretrievably? There is no halting half-way. It was these endless scruples which interfered with the prevention of the war under the imbecile or traitorous Buchanan; it is lingering scruple and timidity which still inspires in thousands of cowardly hearts a dislike to face the grim danger and prevent it. * * * * * WESTWARD! How the pink-hued morning clouds Go sailing into the west! And the pearl-white breath of noon, Or the mists round the silver moon, In silent, sheeny crowds Go sailing into the west! The glowing, fire-eyed sun In glory dies in the west; And the bird with dreamy crest, And soft, sun-loving breast, When throbbing day is done, Floats slowly into the west. Oh, everything lovely and fair Is floating into the west. 'Tis an unknown land, where our hopes must go, And all things beautiful, fluttering slow; Our joys all wait for us there,-- Far out in the dim blue west. * * * * * IS COTTON OUR KING? BY A COTTON-SPINNER. No falsehood has been so persistently adhered to by the Southern planters and their advocates, and so successfully forced upon the credulity of the North, as the statement that white men can not perform field labor in the cotton States, coupled with the equally false assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism, and ceases to be an industrious laborer. It is one of the chief points of weakness in a bad cause, that, although a _single_ advocate may succeed in rendering it plausible, _many_ are certain to present utterly irreconcilable arguments. An impartial man, examining De Bow's _Review_ for a series of years, would arrive at conclusions in regard to the economy of slave labor, and the necessity of colored laborers in the Southern States, the very reverse of what the writers have intended to enforce.