This is strikingly evident in the history of the present war. The rapid rise, and the culmination of rebellion in act, was preceded by the new annunciation of these doctrines of Calhoun on slavery. We remember well how strange it sounded, and how startling in the General Assembly of only 1856, when slavery was declared an institution not needing to be defended or apologized for, but to be praised and justified as truly an ordinance of God as marriage, or the filial relation. The church had known no such doctrine before, and then spued it out of her mouth, but it was gravely held and fiercely and impudently avowed. It was followed by secession as a logical consequence. It is very remarkable how rapid was the change in public sentiment. This new doctrine of the rightfulness of slavery swept over the whole Southern States in a few months, politicans philanthropists, ministers, suddenly starting up to find that they had been all along in error in thinking that slavery was an evil, and hoping that some day it would be removed, that they had been wrong in speaking of being "opposed to slavery in the abstract," it was abstractly not wrong, but right; they had been mistaken when regretting the circumstances which made emancipation ought not to be desire. This change of sentiment an doctrine was not gradual, but sudden; it went with telegraphic speed. The reason was that events were pressing upon the aristocracy of the South and threatening its destruction. Slavery had ceased to be a dominant power in the Federal legislation, and the social state which rested upon it was trembling to its foundation. There was but one thing to be done, and that was the setting up of a new government, the corner stone of which should be slavery. And this was not accidental or capricious, but simply a necessity The state of society which was sought to be maintained had its origin in slavery, and slavery could not but be put in the foremost place. Alexander Stephens understood both himself and the matter which he had in hand when he told the people, and the world that they had hitherto understand this thing. Before, they had sought to maintain their social state and only tolerate slavery, they had not seen that all depended on it; here was the true corner-stone which former builders had rejected, but which they were now making the head of the corner. The secession was a foregone conclusion long enough before it actually occurred: it was so understood throughout the South by thinking men, and the sudden spread of the new doctrine on slavery was the necessary preparation for it.