very commencement, except there had been radical antagonisms existing through a long series of years? But it may be urged that a large portion of the Southern population are emigrants from the New England States, and consequently of Puritan descent, and that while this very class of slaveholders are notoriously the most cruel and exacting of masters, they stand in the front ranks of secession and are the most deadly enemies of the North. True, but the enmity of this class, wherever it exists, is that of the most sordid, unprincipled self-interest. Gold is their god, and all things else are sacrificed to the unhallowed lust. But this enmity is oftentimes assumed from motives of self-preservation. Objects of suspicion to the Simon-Pure Southerner from the very fact of their nativity, and visited with the most horrible retribution wherever they have shown a leaning toward the land of their birth, they find it necessary to out-herod Herod in order to preserve their social status and the possessions which are their earthly all. Hence, to disarm suspicion, often those have been made to take the more prominent positions in this tragic drama who, did circumstances permit the expression of their true sentiments, would be found to be at heart the most truly loyal citizens of the South. Another class--and this includes more particularly the descendants of Northern emigrants--born and bred among the moral influences of Southern society, imbibing all the ideas and prejudices of their surroundings, lose their identity as effectually as the raindrop is lost in the surging billows of the ocean. Drinking in with their years the prevailing hatred of the very stock from which their own descent is derived, they become part and parcel of the people among whom their lot is cast, and ordinarily run to the farthest extreme of the new nationality. Herein is seen the fallacy of the ancient maxim--_Coelum, non animum mutant qui trans mare currant_. The all-potent influence of self-interest, the overshadowing sway of undisputed dogmas, soon sweep away the lessons and prejudices of earlier years, and effectually transform the foreign born into the citizen of the new clime and nation. Were the population of the South more equally divided between the Northern and Southern born, this would not be the case; but in all the slave-holding States the Cavalier element so overwhelmingly predominates as to crush before it all opposing ideas, prejudices, and opinions.