The intelligence from the United States is not encouraging, but
is hardly more discouraging than that brought by previous mails. The great fact is, that the prospects of disunion were loudly discussed from one end of the country to the other. The violence of the Southrons had increased, and a nearer approach had been made towards disunion by the Cotton States—a desig- nation now coming into use for the first time. Whether in Washington or in the State capitals, the langucge of Southern politicians was equally fierce, not to say bloodthirsty. South Carolina had struck out of the list of her public holidays the Fourth of July. A strong secession feeling had shown itself in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi ; and a Senator from the Great River State, Brown by name, had openly expressed a wish that some one would assassinate General Houston, because he holds back the turbulent mob of Texas and clings tenaciously to the Union. Then Mr. Cobb, Secretary to the Treasury, had lesigned,
tso
and had gone to Georgia to lead the seceders. In W " hington,
the Southern Senators had met to discuss plans for nthern Confederacy. But on the other hand, the Union men the o/d race, Southerns by birth, but Union men before all, and even the Democrats of the North-west, were striving earnestlyito prevent secession' and to devise articles of peace. There we'e' no signs that the Republicans would give way, and there were many of opinion that seven or eight Southern States would be out of the Union before the middle of January. A dark and tempestuous. Christmas our cousins must have had with the near prospect of revolution before them in the opening year, and a disruption of a noble fabric raised by a band of statesmen whose names are the; brightest stars in American history.
