MANY men of discernment, who had watched the politics of the country for years past, and the gradual but steady moulding of public opinion in the North and South, had long foreseen the approaching storm, that was to test the great question of the stability of the Government and institutions established by our fathers, and many pure patriots of both sections, guided by the light of history in their judgments, foreseeing the fearful consequences that would inevitably follow, sought to avoid. or at least postpone the calamity by concessions and compromises, while others, equally patriotic and sincere, deemed it best to bear the bosom to the storm and suffer the consequences at once, rather than by delay, permit the nation to be bound hand and foot to the car of Southern institutions.
Under the Government of the United States, which Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice-President of the "Southern Confederacy," in November, 1860, pronounced "the most beneficent Government of which history gives us any account," and which Jefferson Davis, the President in the session of 1860-61 said was, "the best Government ever instituted by man, unexceptionably administered, and under which the people have been pros