It is evident enough that all questions between North and South must settle themselves, should the war only _go far enough_. When it comes to the struggle for life; to the last most desperate effort on either side for political and personal existence, then people will begin to open their eyes to the fact that the one who conquers must conquer effectually, and hold the vanquished at utter will. Very few among us have as yet realized this extreme case as the nations of the Old World have done a thousand times. We who lived at home, have, looking at the late wars of Europe, imagined that 'the army' might beat or be beaten, but that 'the country' and the mass of its in-dwellers would remain unharmed. We have not seen cities captured, farms laid waste, and experienced the horrors of war. When it comes to that, the case becomes desperate, and nothing is left at last but unconditional victory or defeat. Had we done so, we should have 'gone to extremes.' The South has begun the war, dared its terrors, encountered them, and become desperate. It is win or lose with them. We too, with every loss gather fresh strength. Ere long we shall probably have every man in the Federal Union capable of bearing arms summoned to the field, and that less by Executive command than by an individual sense of duty, _or dread_. Our people have learned very slowly indeed what disasters may befall them in case of defeat, but they are gradually coming to the knowledge, and are displaying a rapidly advancing energy of interest and of action. They have immediate and terrible disasters from hostile armies to repel, and they have to apprehend in the future such a picture of ruin and disorganization as the result of secession as no one can bear to contemplate. We are coming to it, and may as well make up our minds at once to the fact that it is to be a Southern rule in the North or 'Northern' rule over the South--if we may call that 'Northern' which means simply the principles of the Constitution as applied to all States, and of justice as recognized by all nations. He must be blind who can not see that it is to this extreme stage of war to the knife that we are rapidly advancing, and that its result is far more likely to be complete conquest than reconciliation.