It is mournful to see the finest country on the earth--a land peculiarly
blessed with every element of material wealth, a land that has grown
like a giant, and commanded the respect of the world--now in her central
government made an object of contempt, and crippled in her strength by
those very States who should, upon the principle of gratitude for favors
granted, have been the last to leave the Union. While the Government at
Washington has shown the utmost forbearance, they have manifested the
greatest insolence, as well as disregard of the most sacred rights of
the Union. An Absalom the most willful and impetuous of his father's
family, and yet the most caressed and indulged, requites every debt of
parental kindness by seeking through treachery and the prostitution of
all his privileges to raise an insurrection in the household of David,
and turn away through craft the hearts of the people from their rightful
lord. So like Absalom, South-Carolina first unfurls the banner of
treason and war among the sister States, desperately resolved to secure
her selfish aggrandizement even at the price of the ruin of the country,
but like Absalom, also, she is destined to experience a reverse as
ignominious and as fatal.



_A STORY OF MEXICAN LIFE_

VIII.

'My neighbor gazed at the stranger with bewilderment, and remained
speechless. There was, nevertheless, nothing in his outward mien to give
rise to so much emotion. He was a robust and rather handsome fellow, of
about twenty-five, bold, swaggering, and free and easy in his
deportment--a perfect specimen of the race of half-breeds so common in