[To TRY EDITOR OP TRH "SPECTATOR."] SIR; Colonel Vere Wright's
reference to the American civil war• is perhaps a little open to misinterpretation. The
Southern States thought that they had the right to separate themselves from the North, and it was for this they fought.
This is made clear by Lincoln's inaugural address as President. After• stating his policy with regard to slavery, in which he seems to have conceded all that the South could require, be went on to declare that " no State can of its own motion get out of the Union." " There must be intercourse between us; we cannot separate and live further apart as man and wife can do. This intercourse cannot be made more advantageous as aliens than it is now." How many of us, who consider what would now be the position if the United States were two distinct countries, can deny that Lincoln was right in main- taining the Union in spite of the awful loss in life and property which that war• entailed ? There were ardent patriots on both sides, and one wonders whether Lee and Jackson would not now rejoice in their own defeat had they lived to see the United States of this century.-1 am, Sir, &c., P.S.—It looks almost as if Longfellow foresaw that impend- ing struggle when he wrote :-
" Thou, too, sail on, oh ship of State. Sail on, oh Union strong and great. Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate."
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