The Continental Monthly, Vol I, Issue I, January 1862, page 169 by Various Authors
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political system has been hitherto a sacrifice to Slavery for the time, but also a running up of arrears in favor of Liberty.
'In forming this government, Slavery clutched at the strength of the law; Freedom relied on the inviolable justice of the ages. They have both had, they must have, their reward. That it was and is thus, is apparent from the very clauses under which Slavery claims eminent domain in this country; they are all written as for an institution passing away; the sources of it are sealed up so far as they could be; and all the provisions for it--the crutches by which it should limp as decently as possible to the grave--were so worded that, when Slavery should be buried, no dead letter would stand in the Constitution as its epitaph. It is even so. No historian a thousand years hence could show from that instrument that a single slave was ever held under it.' ... 'Slavery now appeals to arms because Freedom, in her slow but steady progress, has left no informality--no flaw--which can be seized on to reverse the decision she has gained in any higher court.'
The style of this book is remarkable. The wealth of simile which bursts out genially and involuntarily is only paralleled by its strange variety, recalling CARLYLE in pleasant, piquant singularity. Its humor is irresistible; none the less so for being keenly satirical. We regret that our limits forbid copious extracts from these treasures, but do the more earnestly entreat the reader to buy the volume and make himself familiar with it. Whoever our Virginian may be, he is a rising star, well worth observing. We find him at times a gleaming enthusiast,--a man burning with the spirit of the war, involuntarily uttering the most thrilling passages of Scripture,--and again provoking laughter by dry humor and cutting jests. Let the reader in illustration take the following paragraphs in the same sequence in which they occur in the original work.
'"Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!" said dying Julian the apostate. The North may, an