gravity to that which preceded the attempted secession; and now as then South Carolina takes the lead. But serious as the peril is, we shall pass through it safely. We did not emerge safely from the greater danger, to be overwhelmed by the less. Wisdom and firmness in the highest degree are demanded by the emergency; but wisdom and firmness will control it, and whatever measures may become necessary we may be sure that they will be fraught with no peril to our liberties, or to the stability of our Government. The nervous apprehension exhibited by some people that any grave political disturbance and consequent manifestation of power on the part of the central Government is likely to end in a usurpation, and an enslavement of the American people, may be surely characterized, if not as weak, at least as unwarranted. Think of it coolly for a moment, and see how absurd it is. Any man born and bred in the United States ought to be ashamed to entertain such a notion for a moment. If we look back through the long and weary years of our civil war, we shall find that mistakes were made on the side of the arbitrary exercise of power, from which a few individuals suffered; but indefensible as some of these were, according to the strict letter of the law, we can now see their real harmlessness to the public as clearly as we see the error of those who committed them. At no time have our liberties been in less peril than when the President of the United States had under his absolute command an army larger than that ever actually controlled by any monarch (fables and exaggerations allowed for), and when the warrant of the Secretary of War would have lodged any man in a Federal fortress. We see now the folly of the vaticinations against the endurance of our liberty which were uttered by many foreign wiseacres and some weak-kneed natives. Whatever may come of our present trouble, let us not forget the lessons of our recent experience. In spite of any bugaboo we shall remain a Federal republic and a free people.