a feeble foothold in its vicinity during its perilous struggle, will soon wither in the shadow of its greatness and disappear from around it. Foreign nations may exert their sinister authority in the Old World, and plant their peculiar institutions in that congenial soil, with their accustomed success; but no amount of skilful manipulation will preserve these exotics when transplanted in the American soil. The prevailing elements are not suited to their organization; they cannot be naturalized and acclimated. This continent, with its peculiar population and antecedents, has its own political _fauna_ and _flora_, fixed by nature and destiny, which cannot be utterly changed at the will of any human authority. The most wicked and disastrous experiment of the age has been tried upon the grandest scale. It was a bold undertaking to break up the American Union, and to arrest the progress of its benign principles. To the great relief and joy of almost universal humanity, the monstrous attempt is about to result in disgraceful failure. Yet this prodigious enterprise of destruction was initiated under the most favorable circumstances, with the most auspicious promise for its fatal success. The malignant envy of all the instruments of despotism throughout the whole civilized world were brought to bear against us for the accomplishment of a work of stupendous ruin--the annihilation of American nationality, American power, and American freedom. All the bad, restless, retrogressive elements of our own population sought alliance with the foreign enemies of human liberty; and, for the most selfish and detestable of all social and political schemes, attempted to prostrate the paternal government of their country, before the expiration of the first century of its unexampled career. Vast armies of deluded citizens, led by degenerate sons of the republic--ingrates, educated at her own military schools--have impiously defied her lawful authority, and sometimes assailed her with unnatural triumph over her arms; while foreign capital, subsidized by prospective piratical plunder, has filled the ocean with daring cruisers to destroy her commerce, and thus to weaken the right hand of her power. Feathers from the wing of her own eagle have plumed the arrows directed at her heart; while the barb has been steeled and sharpened by the aid of mercenary enemies in distant lands--aid purchased by means of the robberies which have desolated one half the land. Deep and dangerous have been the wounds inflicted on our unhappy country through this shameless combination of traitors at home and enemies of humanity abroad; but she still stands erect, though bleeding, with her great strength yet comparatively undiminished, and with her foot uplifted ready to be planted on the breast of her prostrate foes. She holds aloft the glorious banner, its stars still undimmed, and with her mild but penetrating voice, she still proclaims