sanguinary alliance of despots, combined to crush the liberties of man, would send its armies to our shores. Under what standard would we rally to preserve our liberty? There would be no Union--without it there would be no strength; and those who, united, could defy the world in arms, divided would be weak and powerless. Such are the ultimate results of disunion. Let us take the first step, and all may be lost forever. That step is nullification by Carolina, then her secession--then, as she truly tells us in her address, 'the separation of South Carolina would inevitably produce a general dissolution of the Union.' And shall Carolina dissolve the Union? No; the liberties of all the States are embarked together, and if one State withdraw her single plank, the national vessel must go down to rise no more, and shipwreck the hopes of mankind. Let us then adjure the people of Carolina, by the ties of our common country and common kindred--by the ruin and disgrace which civil war will bring upon the victors and vanquished--by the untried horrors of those scenes to which disunion must conduct, to repeal her ordinance, and not to force upon us that dread alternative, in which we must support the flag of our country, or surrender our Union and liberty without a struggle: that we cannot, we will not, we dare not, surrender them; and, if forced to draw the sword to defend our liberties, the motto will gleam on every blade: 'The Union shall be preserved.' For were it abandoned, life would not be a blessing, but a curse; and happiest would those be whose eyes were closed in death ere they beheld the horrors of those scenes to which with viewless and rapid strides we seem to hasten. Well, fellow citizens, may our hearts be wrung with sorrow on this occasion, in looking back to what we were, and forward to what we may soon be. Well may the tears unbidden start, for they are the tears that patriots shed over the departing greatness of our once united, but now distracted and unhappy country. THE SIOUX WAR. Compared with the great storm of rebellion which has darkened and overspread our whole national sky, the Indian war on our northwestern frontier has been a little cloud "no bigger than a man's hand;" and yet, compared with similar events in our history, it has scarcely a parallel. From the days of King Philip to the time of Black Hawk, there has hardly been an outbreak so treacherous, so sudden, so bitter, and so bloody, as that which filled the State of Minnesota with sorrow and lamentation, during the past summer and autumn, and the closing scenes of which are even now transpiring. We were beginning to regard the poetry of the palisades as a thing of the past, when, suddenly, our ears were startled by the echo of the warwhoop, and the crack of the rifle, and our hearts appalled by the gleam of the tomahawk and the scalping knife, as they descended in indiscriminate and remorseless slaughter, on defenceless women and children on our border.