As we write, there is a panic in Richmond, caused by the discovery that there is a large body of Union men in the city itself, headed by JOHN MINOR BOTTS, who seems to have determined to 'head off' the secession party in its stronghold, 'or die'--he having, since the decease of JOHN TYLER, turned his 'heading off' abilities against JEFF DAVIS. The _Examiner_ mentions, in terror, the confession of the Union prisoners, that there are in Richmond 'thousands of arms concealed, and men enrolled, who would use them on the first approach of the Yankee army.' One of the arrested, a Mr. STEARNS, when led to the prison, surveyed it in a most contemptuous manner, remarking 'If you are going to imprison all the Union men in Richmond, you will have to provide a much larger jail than this.' It is the German residents of Richmond who are said to constitute the majority of these Union men. All honor to our German friends of the South! They have received, thus far, too little credit for their staunch adherence to the principles of freedom. Let them take courage; a day is coming when we shall all be free--free from _every_ form of slavery! _Noch ist die Freiheit nicht verloren_!--'Freedom is not lost as yet.' Some of them remember _that_ song of old. * * * * * A paragraph has recently gone the rounds, which impudently assures the friends of Emancipation that, unless they promptly desist from further interference or agitation, they will speedily build up a Southern party in the North, which will seriously interfere with the prosecution of the war! That is to say, that the majority of the people of the North fully acquiesce in the justice of the main principles held by the South--the only difference of opinion being whether these slavery and slavery-extension doctrines can be practically developed under our federal Union! Yet we, knowing, seeing, feeling, in this war, the enormously evil effects of the slave system on the free men among whom it exists, are expected to endure and legalize _the cause_ which stirred it up! Either the South is right or wrong--there is no escaping the dilemma. Either it was or was not justly goaded by 'abolition' into secession. If the South is _quite_ right in wishing to preserve slavery intact forever, surely those are in the wrong who would make war on it for wishing to secede from a government which tolerates attacks on legalized institutions! What a precious paradox have we here? Yet these virtual justifiers of the South in the great cause of the war, claim to be zealous and forward in punishing that secession which, according to their own views, is constitutional and right!