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require the utmost caution to keep from an explosion that may yet convulse not only these two countries, but the civilized world.

HOW LONG WILL OUR REBELLION CONTINUE?-No wise man will venture to guess; but from its origin we have had but one opinion respecting its aims and its utter desperation. It is the death-struggle of a slaveholding aristocracy to fortify, perpetuate, and extend their sway through slavery as the basis of their power, over our whole country, and ultimately over this continent. A more desperate game was never attempted since Satan fell; and it was easy to foresee that such men as the leaders, staking everything on the issue, and continually working with a halter about their necks, would push the conflict, if they could only keep their hold upon their deluded followers, almost literally to the last man and the last dollar. Before reaching such a climax of desperation, there is yet a long way; and we are prepared to see the struggle become more and more desperate and furious, till the rebel States shall all be exhausted of men and money to carry it on, or the people, opening their eyes at length to the despotic madness of their leaders, shall abandon them to their fate, and thus return themselves to loyalty, peace and prosperity.

WHAT DO PEACEMEN THINK NOW?-We think just as we did before this Rebellion. We have neither abandoned nor essentially modified our views. The terrible experience through which our country and the world are now passing, serves only to illustrate and confirm the positions we took long ago. We know too well how difficult it is just now to press the claims of Peace upon a people situated as ours have been, and will continue to be throughout this revolt of the slavocracy; but when it is all over, and men come to look calmly back upon it, we shall be much mistaken if the result is not such an overwhelming enforcement of our views as this continent at least has never witnessed. Our cause bides its time; but, sooner or later, that time will surely come, and vindicate its claims to the hearty, efficient support of all that love God, their country, and the world.

WANTS OF OUR CAUSE.-We trust our friends will bear in mind the necessities of our cause in this hour of its sorest trial. The terrible expe rience through which our country is now passing, we regard as enforcing more strongly than ever its claims upon its old and tried friends. We think it ought, by all means, to be kept alive; and we have ourselves resolved, as a clear and imperative dictate of duty, to continue its operations as far as and especially to issue its Periodical as heretofore. We should be sadly recreant to our trust if we did not do thus much at least; but in doing even this, we need more than ever the aid of its more intelligent, reliable supporters. We can attempt no more than they give us the means of doing. Whatever you can give, whether more or less, in this emergency, will be very timely; and, as we cannot call upon you for it in person, we hope you will forward it by mail to the Am. Peace Society, Boston.

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THE

ADVOCATE OF PEACE.

MARCH AND APRIL, 1863.

THE DESPERATION OF OUR REBELLION.

We find in passing events no reason to change our original views of this rebellion as a desperate effort of slaveholders to secure the permanent domination of slavery over our country and over this continent. Such, from the first, have we conceived to be its real aim and scope; but its true character has been strangely misconceived abroad, and but imperfectly understood by the mass of our own people, either North or South. Even now it is not half known by any except its own leaders; and most men will not believe such stupendous iniquity possible until the terrible reality is forced upon them. It is a huge deception. It has made dupes of almost every one except the slave and the abolitionist; and we fear that even they, like all the rest of us, have yet much to learn respecting the magnitude of its schemes, and the utter desperation of its spirit.

The proofs of such desperation are ample and decisive. This rebellion is no mushroom, no growth of a night, but a deadly Upas, deliberately planted long ago, and nurtured ever with ceaseless vigilance and care. For more than half a century had the master-spirits of the slaveocracy been preparing the way for the terrible reality that has at length burst upon us. It is no idle boast of theirs, now openly made, that they have always ruled us in the interest of slavery; and just as soon as they found they could do so no longer, they applied at once the match to the train designed to overthrow and crush the government itself. They had to educate an entire generation for the deed.

Everywhere they inculcated the two doctrines, that slavery is an expedíent, Christian institution, which the South ought to uphold and extend; and that the eitizen owes his first duty, his paramount allegiance, not to his whole country, or its supreme government, but to his particular State. Here we find the root and substance of all the disloy alty now in our land; and the virus of this two-fold heresy the rebel leaders took infinite pains long ago to inject into every vein and artery of southern society. Scarce a man that did not come to be inoculated with it. It became everywhere the popular creed and rallying-cry. It made every man in theory a rebel, and prepared him, whenever the temptation should come, for active treason. It turned the whole South into one vast nursery of treason. The fireside and the school, the bar and the bench, the pulpit and the press, all taught, encouraged, abetted it as the highest duty.

Such was the origin of the rebellion. All this was done before its leaders would venture upon their guilty and perilous work; nor did they pass the Rubicon until they had taken the utmost precaution to secure in their own hands all the main-springs of political, social and religious influence throughout the South. They courted especially the church; and it was under the full sanction of her leading ministers and laymen that the rebellion first unfurled its black and bloody banner. However recklessly bold it may now seem, it most carefully endeavored from the start to guard itself in every possible way against failure. We doubt whether there is in all rebeldom a single college or school, pulpit or press, bank or railway, ballot-box or jury-box, any considerable source of power, which the leaders did not early make sure of getting and keeping in their own hands. It subordinates everything to its purpose. There never was a despotism more complete or more effective for the moment. All the millions of the South, with all their resources, it holds fast in its iron grasp; and as long as the leaders can keep this grasp upon them, just so long will they continue the rebellion. There is no other limit to its continuance. To them it is a question of life or death; and, if not deserted by the people, they may almost literally fight to the last man, and the last dollar.' They have themselves staked everything on the issue; and continually working with a halter about their necks, we are quite prepared to see them push the struggle with an energy, ferocity and desperation rarely, if ever, equalled in the world's history. Already is it bad enough in all conscience; but if deception, fraud or force can lure or lash the masses up to it, the Alarics of this rebellion may prolong it for twenty years more, with atrocities far greater than any we have yet seen.

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