Directly opposed to this idea is the organization of the Southern confederacy--the essential and substantial antipodes of our system. The United States stands at the political zenith; the confederate States at the political nadir. The Southern confederacy denies the truth of our system, and asserts that political equality is a fiction and foolishness. To it, indeed, political equality is a stumbling block; for the confederate constitution bases itself openly and unblushingly on the principle of property in man. It has been blasphemously announced that this is the stone which the builders of our government refused, and that it is now become the headstone of the corner of a divinely instituted nation. The blasphemy that hesitated not to declare John Brown equal with Jesus Christ, is hardly worse than this; for John Brown was, at least, an honest fanatic. The traitorous chiefs of the Southern rebellion are neither fanatics nor honest men. They have stifled the voice of conscience, and are bad men. If their scheme of society is true, then our faith in God, and our faith in man as the child of God, are false faiths; 'and we are found false witnesses of God.' For it has been common hitherto to believe in the loftiest capacities of man, as the child of God, and made in the divine image; and this belief has had the sanction of all ages. Cheered and strengthened by such a belief, men have struggled bravely and steadily against priestcraft and kingcraft, against the absolutism of power in every form. The magnificent ideal of a government which the masses of mankind should themselves establish and uphold, has been the quickening life of all republics since time began. It is the noblest of optimisms; and, like religion, has never been without a witness in the human soul, ever inspiring the genius of prophecy and song, ever moving the great instincts of humanity. Science, fathoming all things, gave expression to this instinct and hope and belief of the ages in the principle of political equality as a basis of government. It is, in other words, the science of political self-government. It was reserved for the nineteenth century to develop the idea, for the American nation to illustrate its practical power and its splendid possibilities. The question of man's capacity for self-government in at issue now in the contest between the North and South, and its champion is the North. II. THE IDEA OF NATIONALITY. There is another idea involved in this war; and, unlike the idea of political equality, it is sanctioned by the precedents of all ages and all nations, so as to preclude any possibility that it should now be disputed. It bases itself on that principle of order which is heaven's first law, and so commends itself to men as the fitting first law of society. It is the idea of nationality; in a word, of government. Like the idea of political equality, it also finds its champion in the North.