"What are you blubbering for?" said my illustrious friend. "Do you envy that poor acrobat his triumph, or do you imagine that "You are a thundering humbug," said my you yourself could perform those feats bet-revered friend, smiling. I have reason to ter? In the first alternative the sentiment believe that he was pleased, for he permitis unworthy, in the second the vanity is ted me to pay the cab from the terminus to egregious." the Temple.

A BOLD TITLE FOR A BOOK.-A literary | The Time of Trouble, and Six Months in the Jug; advertisement announces the publication of, "This day, in Fcap., 8vo., Price 6s. cloth, Botany Bay, and Other Poems." Then comes the name of the author-a gentleman whose experience of Botany Bay is evidently quite respectable; or else the reader might be disposed to conjecture that the other poems above referred to are mostly writings of a peculiar character, with remarkable titles, as, for instance, The Mill, A Turn at the Crank, The Oakum-Pickers,

WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR?

THE Knickerbocker for July has a timely article “What we are Fighting For." The writer has a hit at a class of persons who are persistently reasoning on the causes and effects of our war for the Union. He is of opinion this is not a time to talk, but

-N. Y. Evening Post.

A TIME TO FIGHT.

Already in the midst of an enthusiasm for war hitherto unknown in the world's history; while grand armies are preparing for a great and what may prove the bloodiest battle on record; while action is the cry which resounds from one end of the country to the other, there are individuals over the land who are busy enumerating causes and results in sermons, essays, lectures, and speeches. We are told (as if the matter required any sagacity) what has led to the present state of things, and we are also informed what is likely to flow from it. "There is," says Solomon, a time for every purpose under heaven." But the present is not the time to discuss the reason why the cause direct or the cause secondary. "All that a man hath will he give for his life;" and when he finds such ample concessions are about to fail he will be very apt to fight-in fact, he will fight. And in that desperate struggle he will pay little attention to the person who stands by preaching a homily over the causes which led to his awkward predicament, or uttering speculations about the upshot of it. Not but what these are all very well in their place, but they are foreign to the immediate matter in hand, which matter is sharp, instant, press ing, and requires to be kept closely in view, and never for a moment obscured by extraneous issues or countercurrents.

SECESSION ABSURD.

authorizing felo de se.) It makes no sort of difference whether or not by the letter of the Constitution that question is definitely settled beyond a cavil. (Yet who can have forgotten the unanswerable argument of Daniel Webster on these points?) The people, to whom as a jury the question of the right of secession has been submitted, for them to determine both the law and the fact, have declared against the right, and immediately prepare to sustain their verdict by force of arms that ultima ratio which overrides all logic and all argument, paying little attention to the set forms and legal dicta. Our Chief Justice lately put on his spectacles, and read the President an opinion about the writ of habeas corpus. He might as well proceed to Fortress Monroe and read the riot act.

THE CASE PUT.

Suppose we had yielded at first to the wishes of the seven seceded states. Suppose satisfactory treaties were made (yet how absurd the supposition!), and all peacefully consummated. Congress meets again. Virginia and North Carolina and, Tennessee are represented there, with other states who symThe session pathized with the seceders. would be a stormy one. Something transpires which does not suit the representatives from those states. They claim to have their way, demand further concessions, and threaten what they would have a right to threaten to join the "Southern Confederacy," and having admitted that right we could not help ourselves. What a humiliating spectacle! A nation suddenly become emasculate and imbecile; a subject for the just contempt and scorn of the whole world. The right to secede granted, there would be nothing left of us. We should become so powerless that, as in the case of the sick lion, every donkey would lift his heel against low intellects were misled by the extraor us. Why, even as it was, the men of shaldinary forbearance of the people into the belief that treason would triumph. mayor of the city of New York-yes, the mayor of this great and mighty emporium, the glory and pride of the whole country, had the audacity to propose it should separate itself from the state and erect itself into a

The

We observe, then, it is a matter distinctly understood that we are fighting to prevent the extinction of this republic. Its extinction; for to disintegrate is to destroy it. No one pretends to deny this. Indeed, it has already been declared in Europe that the "Great Republic" no longer exists. We are fighting to give the lie to this assertion. We are fighting to maintain in its integrity a gov-free city"! Behold the incipient fruits of ernment which the prudence, and sagacity, and wisdom of our fathers established after peaceable separation. years of privations, of trials and extraordinary perils; which was consecrated by their lives and sealed with their blood.

MORAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR. As the character of a man becomes digIt makes no sort of difference now what nified by his pursuits, so the moral tone of statesmen and politicians may argue as to the a nation is elevated by what it undertakes. right of one of these United States to "se- The man who devotes himself unselfishly to cede." (As if a nation ever made provision a noble object becomes thereby ennobled, for its own dissolution, or enacted a statute and a people who stop at no sacrifice in

BUSINESS ASPECTS OF THE WAR.

their country's cause become heroic. It is to their children as reminiscences of our those who battle against difficulties and be- country's great ordeal. come inured to dangers and privations who grow strong and resolute. On the other hand, the enervating calm of commercial prosperity breeds luxurious weakness, effem- However severe, then, the contest is to bear inacy, and corruption in the nation itself. on us, we shall gain new life, new power, new And in this light we ought to welcome dignity in it. But, while it is not well to what our sympathizers call our "hour of underrate the difficulties which we must enadversity." "Adversity!" God be praised j counter, we need not overrate them. If the for it! The nation can only become strong war, as we hope, shall prove a short one, and heroic under hardship and trial and our perplexities will be brief. If long, then desperate extremity. First, we may see business will presently revive on a new basis. a portion of our superfluous wealth depart- Trade will seek new channels, following aling. "Let it go," we exclaim. Then fol- ways the law of demand and supply. The lows the entire loss of fortune: be it so. war will give employment a new direction; Then a near and dear relative is slain in bat- our farmers will reap abundant returns for tle. We consecrate the offering with prayer the products of the fields, and a comparaand supplication, and as each successive sac- tively short time will see affairs working into rifice is made we grow more resolute and regular and active routine. The cities of self-reliant our senses become brighter, the North will have a largely increased trade, our views clearer: the old crust is thrown off, and New York will enter on a period of comand we rise mighty in physical and moral mercial prosperity hitherto unknown in her strength; we look back on our previous history. Who lives a few months will witstate, disgusted at its weakness and insipid-ness this, and also behold the commenceity. We go on, persist, endure, and conquer. ment of a new scene of healthful, vigorous Ah! how we shall love the cause for which progress. The war is not to weaken or imwe have borne so much. How will this new poverish us, it will enrich and make us baptism endear it to all our hearts. The strong. It will deplete the capitalist and children who in our streets go through their mimic performances of defending the capital and putting to flight the rebels who threaten it, learn lessons of patriotism which will not die with them. These will be taught in turn

circulate his wealth among hundreds of thousands. A new energy will prevail. The nation, purged of treason, its insulted majesty vindicated, will resume its grand march, chastened into a divine harmony of action.

WHAT THEY ARE FIGHting for-WHAT THEY HAVE LOST.-The secessionists of the seceding states say that they are fighting for every thing dear to freemen. We don't see that they have gained any thing, but it is very easy to see what they have lost. Among their losses, a contemporary enumerates these:

1. They have lost the liberty of free speech, the dearest right of a freeman. They dare not speak except in one way. The tyranny and cruelties of Caligula and Nero were tender mercies compared with the reign of terror now pervading the seceded states.

2. They have lost the right of voting upon the Constitution under which they live. The voice of the people is hushed, and they are bound hand and foot, and are at the mercy of the few purse-proud aristocrats.

3. Thay have lost at least fifty per cent of the value of their property, and receive in its stead an increased taxation.

4. They have lost their titles to their property, it being subject to confiscation for the support of those whose feet are upon their necks.

5. They have lost their trade and commerce, all kinds of business being completely prostrated.

6. And last, though not least, they have lost their self-respect and civilization. They repudiate their debts, and appropriate other people's property and make a virtue of it.

For opinion's sake, they commit barbarities upon citizens of the United States which the most untutored and inhuman savage would blush to be guilty of.

These are a few of the "liberties" they have lost. What liberties are they now fighting for? And how many rights" have they gained through the agency of secession? Let some secessionist answer-if he can.-Louisville Journal, 22 June.

EUROPEAN POWERS AND THE SECESSION QUESTION. 293

EUROPEAN POWERS AND THE SECESSION
QUESTION FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

[Translated for the "National Intelligencer" from
the History of the Secession of the Swiss Cantons,
by an officer of the Federal Army.]

SWITZERLAND.

At the opening of the Federal Congress (Tagsatzung) of Switzerland, on the 5th of July, 1847, the presiding officer, Ulrich Ochsenbein, spoke as follows:

"Confederates, let us firmly and honestly look at the real position of affairs. The most important privileges of mankind are at stake; we are about to enter upon one of those civil conflicts which have threatened the very existence of nations and jeoparded the welfare of man in almost every age." "We can permit, under no plea whatever, foreign interference in our domestic affairs. Switzerland never solicited any foreign power to guarantee the constitutional compact of her twenty-two Cantons. The sovereignty of her government never has been questioned; it was her territory alone which the Allied Powers at Vienna declared inviolable. Should we, nevertheless, be subjected to any infringement of our inalienable rights as a nation, or to the intermeddling of any foreign power in our domestic affairs, we will prove to the world, fellow-confederates, that our arms when raised in defence of our rights are strong; that in such a contest we are powerfully supported by the sympathies of every nation seeking to imitate our polital institutions, and that we will exert our utmost strength and shed our last drop of blood to maintain a nationality won for us by our ancestors on many a hard-contested battle-field, and to transmit unimpaired to our posterity so inestimable an inheritance.”

FRANCE.

On the 2d of July, 1847, the French Pre- mier, Guizot, sent a note to Count Bois le Comte, the French ambassador in Switzerland, wherein the sympathies of the French ministry were clearly foreshadowed as being favorable to the designs of the Swiss secessionists. This position of France had been assumed, as stated by Guizot in his note, upon the ground

therefore, in conjunction with the other Allied Powers of Europe, protested against an interpretation of the Swiss Federal compact which would destroy the individuality of the Cantons thus lead to the total abrogation of the Federal Constitution of Switzerland, and consequently invalidate the treaties made under its provisions."

Previous to the receipt of these official instructions, the French Minister, Bois le Comte, had made a tour throughout Switzerland, endeavoring, as far as possible, to favorably predispose the statesmen of the various Cantons to the policy which France had decided to adopt and was about promulgating. Strassburg furnished the secessionists on exceedingly low terms with ordnance and small arms of every description, whilst the French ministerial organ, the Journal des Debats, made open cause with the secessionists against the Confederacy.

AUSTRIA, RUSSIA, PRUSSIA, AND OTHER OF

THE ALLIED POWERS.

Austria and the other Allied Powers on the Continent participated in the views of France, and they all spoke of and regarded the Secession League as the true sustainers of the Federal Compact and the Federal authorities and majority of Cantons as a mere faction. The Austrian Observer even applied the term "Federal authorities" to the usurping leaders of the secession movement in Switzerland.

to the secessionists of three thousand musThe emperor of Austria made a present kets, besides affording them every facility for procuring arms and ammunition from the arsenal in Milan.

ENGLAND.

As early as 1845 Lord Aberdeen informed land that in the event of a change taking the minister of England resident in Switzerplace, from any cause whatever, in the form the formal sanction of the powers who guarof the Swiss Government, it would require anteed the political status of Switzerland "That the Federal Congress of Switzer- among nations in 1815 in order to make it land had no right to subject a minority of internationally legal. The London Times Cantons to the will of a majority, inasmuch competed with the French and Austrian as all treaties acknowledged Switzerland, not as a centralized power, but as a Confederacy ministerial organs in extolling the Secession of States, who each had reserved as a check League and denouncing the Federal Governupon the Federal Congress their supreme ment and the legal Cantons of the Swiss rights of state sovereignty. That France, Confederacy. The Morning Post went so

Later, however, under the Palmerston ministry, England changed her views, and the English ambassador to Switzerland (Peel) received instructions to assure the Federal authorities that England would not intermeddle in the domestic affairs of Swit-to Count Bois le Comte, the French ambaszerland.