history and its own fair name with such scenes as the French Revolution, and causing the martyred defenders of its sacred majesty to cry out, in bitter agony of disappointment: 'O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!' In fact, the liberty that is valuable is the liberty that is regulated by law; just as the law that is valuable is the law that has the spirit of liberty. This is the American doctrine of constitutional liberty, as it has ever been expounded by our great statesmen and orators; and it commends itself to the sound sense of all reflecting men. In seeking, therefore, to subvert our Constitution, the South attack the principle of liberty, which is the basis of it, and which it guarantees. More than this, they attack the principle of constitutional liberty; for their secession is in virtue of that unchecked liberty which is license, that absolute liberty which is anarchy. They are not contending for the sacred right of revolution. It is treason against that majestic principle to apply it to the cause of the South. They were not oppressed; they were not even controlled by a dominant party opposed to them; their will was almost law, for it made our laws. According to the _theory_ of our Constitution, they possessed equal rights with all other sections of the Union; under the _practice_ of it, and in _fact_, they had gradually come to possess and were actually wielding greater power than all other sections. It is thus seen how vain and absurd is the plea that they were driven into revolution to redress wrongs, or that they revolted and seceded for the purpose of preserving rights. Their rights were neither actually assailed, nor were likely to be assailed. The protest of that eminent statesman of the South who afterward ('oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!') became the second officer of its traitorous government, is conclusive evidence on this point. The Southern rebellion is simply and entirely the effort to secure exclusive control where formerly the South had a joint control. Robert Toombs said, in a conversation, in Georgia, in the winter of 1860-'61: 'We intend, sir, to have a government of our own and we won't have any compromises.' To the same import is the letter of Mason to Davis, in 1856, which has lately seen the light. To one not blinded by prejudice, indeed, the evidences are overwhelming of a long-plotted conspiracy on the part of certain leading politicians, without the knowledge and contrary to the known intentions of the Southern people. The Southern rebellion is simply the attempt to break up a constitutional government, by politicians who had become dissatisfied with the natural and inevitable workings and tendencies of it, even though administered by themselves. It is simply, therefore, the question of anarchy that we have to deal with. Therefore, we say that the North is fighting for the idea of government.