foray in Missouri, the plan for capturing Washington, which was part
of the original scheme, are convincing proofs, that if by any
pacification whatever our troops were disbanded to-day, to-morrow a
Southern army would be on the march for Washington, Philadelphia, New
York, and perhaps Chicago.

The South has sufficiently declared the cause of this trouble to be
the irreconcilable conflict between their institutions and the
fundamental principles of this government. While the cause remains
in full strength, and after it has once burst forth in bloody and
final collision, nothing will ever check that strife, whether in or
out of the Union. The cause must be eradicated. Meanwhile, our own
position, both before the world and in our own struggle at home, is a
false one, so long as we blink the real issue.

Many indications are hopeful. Gen. Butler's letter to the Secretary
of War, and the Secretary's reply, look in the right direction. The
Confiscation Act is pregnant with great consequences, and may yet be
so used as to become an emancipation act in all the rebel States. It
is high time it were so used. We have serious doubts whether the
rebellion will ever be suppressed till that trenchant weapon is
wielded. We reverently doubt whether the Lord means it shall be. The
quiet passage of the Confiscation Act was an immense step of
governmental progress. Perhaps it was all that the nation as a whole
and the government were ready for. It may answer as a keen wedge. But
we trust that, in December, Congress will make clean work by the full
emancipation of all slaves in the rebel States, and by provision in
some way for the speedy and certain extinction of slavery in the
loyal States. To accomplish the latter event, we would ourselves
willingly submit to any proper amount of pecuniary burden, provided