But in an instant she recovered her self-possession. It must be that he had been faint or giddy, nothing more. It could not have been recognition that had startled him from his earnest contemplation, for he had not been looking toward her, but, with his body half turned away, had been gazing up at the highest story of the palace.

CHAPTER VI.

And now, having avoided the immediate peril of recognition, Ænone turned into the palace. Even there, however, her disordered fancy pictured dangers still encompassing her. How, after all, could she feel sure that she had not been known? During that clear moonlight passage along the Appian Way, what revelations might not have been made by a chance look or gesture! At the very first she had almost stumbled upon the truth merely through the magic of one upward glance of the eye of the wearied slave; why, then, might she not have unconsciously revealed herself to him by even a wave of the hand or a turn of the instep, or by some other apparently trivial and unimportant motion? And if so, at what instant might he not forget his fallen condition, and disregard not only his safety but her reputation, by pressing into the palace and claiming the right of speech with her? Rasher deeds were not seldom done under the promptings of desperation. Trembling beneath the sway of such imaginings, each footfall that resounded in the hall seemed like the light and buoyant step of him who had trodden with her the sands of Ostia—each figure that passed by bore, for the instant, the outline of his form—even at the open window the well-known face seemed to peer in at every corner and watch her.

This paroxysm of terror gradually passed away, but was succeeded by other fancies equally productive of inquietude. What if the captive, having recognized her, had whispered his story to the companions with whom he had walked! He would surely not do so if he still loved her; but what if his love had ceased, and he should be meanly desirous of increasing his own importance by telling how he, a slave, had been the chosen lover of the proudly allied lady before him? Nay, he would never act thus, for it would be a baseness foreign to his nature; and yet have not men of the most lofty sense of honor often fallen from their original nobility, and revelled in self-degradation? And it somehow seemed as though, at the last, the dwarf had looked up at her with a strangely knowing leer. And was it merely her imagination that made her think there was a certain sly approach to undue familiarity in the usually deferential deportment of the armor bearer?

With the next morning, however, came more composed reflections. Though the forebodings of the evening had naturally tinged her dreams with similar vague imaginings of coming trouble, yet, upon the whole, her sleep had brought rest, and the bright sunlight streaming in at the window drove away the phantoms which, during the previous gloom, had so confusedly disported themselves in her bewildered brain. She could now indulge in a more cheering view of her situation; and she felt that there was nothing in what had transpired of sufficient importance, when coolly weighed and passed upon, to make her anxious or afraid.

In a sick and travel-worn slave she had recognized one to whom, in her younger days, she had plighted her faith, and who had, in turn, given his faith to her. He was now a captive, and she had become one of the nobles of the empire. But his evil lot had not been of her procuring, being merely one of those ill fortunes which are cast broadly over the earth, and whose descent upon any one person more than upon another can be attributed to destiny alone. Nor, in accepting her high position, had she been guilty of breach of faith, for she had long awaited the return of her lover, and he had not come. And through all those years, as she had grown into more mature womanhood, she had vaguely felt that those stolen interviews had been but the unreasoning suggestions of girlish romance, too carelessly indifferent to the exigencies of poverty and diverse nationality; and that, if he had ever returned to claim her, mutual explanation and forgetfulness could have been their only proper course. There was, therefore, nothing for which she could reproach herself, or for which he could justly blame her, were he to recognize her as the wife of another man.

But there was little chance, indeed, that such a recognition could take place. Certainly, now that, apart from her troubled and excited fears of the previous day, she more deliberately weighed the chances, she felt assured that in her rapid passage through the evening gloom, nothing could have betrayed her. And it was not probable that even in open daylight and in face-to-face encounter with him he would be likely to know her. She had recognized him almost at a glance, for not only was his dress composed of the same poor and scant material which had served him years before, but even in form and feature he seemed unchanged, his slight frame having gained no expansion as his manhood had progressed, while his face retained in every line the same soft and almost girlish expression. But with herself all things had altered. It was not merely that the poorly clad maiden who, with naked feet, well-tanned hands, and tangled and loosely hanging curls, had been wont to wander carelessly by the shore of a distant bay, had become a richly adorned matron of the imperial centre. Beyond all that, there was a greater change, which, though in its gradual progress almost inappreciable to one who had watched her day by day, could not but be remarked after a lapse of many years. The darker hair, the softer complexion, the suave smile into which the merry laugh of girlhood had little by little subsided, the more composed mien, replete with matronly dignity, the refinement of air and attitude insensibly resulting from long continued instinctive imitation, the superior development of figure—all these, as they were improvements in her former self, were also just so many effective disguises upon which she could safely rely, unless she were to provoke inordinate scrutiny by some unguarded action or expression. But all this she would earnestly guard against. She would even put no trust in the natural immunity of which her reason assured her, but would make everything doubly safe by totally refraining from any encounter with one whose recognition of her would be so painful.

This she could do, and yet not fail in any friendly duty which the remembrance of their former love might enjoin upon her. Unseen in her retirement, she could watch over and protect him, now that in his sorrow and degradation he so greatly needed a friend. She could ameliorate his lot by numberless kindnesses, which he would enjoy none the less for being unable to detect their source. She would cunningly influence her father to treat him with tenderness and consideration. And when the proper time arrived, and she could take her measures without suspicion, she would herself purchase his freedom, and send him back rejoicing to his native land. And when all this was done, and he should again have reached his home, perhaps she might then write to him one line to tell him who it was that had befriended him, and that she had done so in memory of olden times, and that now, when she was so far removed from him, he should give her one kind thought, utter a prayer to the gods in her behalf, and then forget her forever.

So much for her security and her friendly duty. As for the feelings of her heart, she was at rest. Strong in self-confidence, she had no fear that her mind could be influenced to stray from its proper path. It is true that during the previous evening, in the first tumult of troubled thought, she had felt a vague presentiment that a day of temptation might be before her, not as the result of any deliberate choice upon her part, but rather as a cruel destiny to be forced upon her. But now the current of her mind moved more clearly and unobstructedly; and she felt that however chance might control the worldly prosperity of each one, the will and strength to shape his own destiny, for good or evil, are still left to him unimpaired. Away, then, with all thoughts of the past. In her heart there could be but one affection, and to her life there could be but the one course of duty, and in that she would steadfastly walk.

Strengthened, therefore, with the well-assured belief that the impulsive affection of her youth had become gradually tempered by lapse of years into a chaste and sisterly friendship, and that the pleasant memories which clustered about her heart and made her look back half regretfully upon those former days would be cherished only as the mere innocent relics of a girlish romance, she felt no fear that her faith could be led to depart from its lawful allegiance. But aside from all this, there lurked within her breast an uneasy sense of being the holder of a great secret which, in the end, would surely crush her, unless she could share its burden with another. In this desire for confidence, at least, there could be no harm; and her mind rapidly ran over the array of her few friends. For the first time in her life, perhaps, her isolation from close and unfettered companionship with others was forced upon her attention, and her soul grew faint as she thought upon her dependence upon herself alone for comfort or advice. To whom, indeed, could she venture to pour out her heart? Not to her father, who, with unreasoning ignorance and little charity, would coarsely form base conclusions about her, and would most likely endeavor to solve the problem by cruelty to the unfortunate slave who had so unwittingly originated it. Not to any of those matrons of whom her rank made her the associate; and who, after gaining her confidence, would either betray it to others, or else, wrongly misconstruing her, and fancying her to be influenced by scruples which they might not have felt, would scarcely fail to ridicule and cast disdain upon all the most tender emotions of her heart. And above all others, not to her husband, to whom, if she dared, she would have wished to reveal everything, but who had, she feared, at the bottom of his soul, a jealous and suspicious nature, which would be sure to take alarm, and cause him to look upon her story, not as a generous confidence bestowed in the hope of comfort and assistance, but rather as a cunningly devised cover for some unconfessed scheme of wrong against him.

Burdened by these reflections, Ænone slowly passed from her room into the antechamber. Lifting her eyes, she there saw her husband standing at the window, and, at the distance of a pace or two from him, a female figure. It was that of a girl of about eighteen years, small, light, and graceful. Her costume, though not in form such as belonged to the freeborn women of Rome, was yet far superior in richness of material to that usually worn by persons of low degree, and was fashioned with a taste which could not fail to assist the display of her graceful perfection of form, indicated in part by the rounded lines of the uncovered neck and arms. As Ænone entered the room, Sergius advanced, and, taking her by the hand, said:

'Yonder is a new slave for you—the present about which I yesterday spoke. I trust it will prove that during my absence I was not unmindful of you. It was at Samos that I obtained her. There, you may remember, we tarried, after taking the town and burning part of the fleet.'

Samos! Where had Ænone heard that place mentioned? Searching into the recesses of her memory, it at last flashed upon her. Was it not from Samos that he—Cleotos—had come? And was it fate that forced the recollection of him ever upon her? She turned pale, but by a violent effort succeeded in maintaining her self-possession and looking up with a smile of apparent interest upon her husband as he spoke.

'She had nearly fallen the prey of one of the common soldiers,' he continued; 'but I, with a few pieces of gold, rescued her from him, picturing to myself the gratification you would feel at being so fitly attended. And that you might the better appreciate the gift, I have retained her till to-day before showing her to you, in order that you might first see her recovered from the toil of travel and in all her recovered beauty. A rare beauty, indeed, but of a kind so different from thine that your own will be heightened by the contrast rather than diminished. How many sestertia I have been offered for her, how many high officers of my forces have desired to obtain her for service upon their own wives, I cannot now remember. But I have refused and resisted all, for I would that you should be known throughout all Rome by the beauty of those in waiting about you, even as you are now known by your own beauty. Pray, accept of her, therefore, as your attendant and companion, for it would sorely disappoint me were you to reject such a pleasing gift.'

'Let it be as my lord says,' responded Ænone. 'And if I fail in due utterance of my thanks, impute it not to want of appreciation of the gift, but rather to inability of proper expression.'

It was with real gratitude that Ænone spoke; for, at the instant, a thought of cheering import flashed upon her, swelling her heart with joy, and causing her to welcome the captive girl as a gift from the gods. Here, perhaps, as though in direct answer to her prayer for sympathy, might be the one for whom her heart had been longing; coming to her, not laden with any of that haughty pride and ill-befitting knowledge with which the Roman world about her reeked, but rather as she herself had once come—with all her unstained provincial innocence of thought yet nestling in her shrinking soul—one, like herself, an exile from a lowly state, and with a heart filled with those simple memories which must not be too carelessly exposed—so seldom do they gather from without anything but cruel ridicule or cold lack of comprehension—one whom she could educate into an easy intimacy with her own impulses and yearnings, and thus, forgetting all social differences, draw closer and nearer to her as a friend and confidant.

As she thus reflected, she felt the soft pressure of lips upon her left hand, which hung idly at her side, and, looking down, she saw that the captive girl had knelt before her, and, while lightly grasping her fingers, was gazing up into her face with a pleading glance. Ænone's first impulse was to respond with eager warmth to that humble appeal for protection and friendship; and had it not been for the morbid fear she felt lest her husband, who stood looking on, might chide such familiarity, or at the least might cast ridicule upon the feeling which prompted it, she would have raised the captive girl and folded her in her arms. As it was, the impulse was too spontaneous and sudden to be entirely resisted, and she held forth her other hand to lift the kneeling figure, when a strange, intuitive perception of something which she could scarcely explain, caused her to withhold further action.

Something, she knew not what, in the attitude and expression of the captive before her, which sent her warm blood flowing back with a chilled current—something which told her that her hopes of the moment had been smitten with decay as suddenly as they had been raised, and that, instead of a friend, she had perhaps found an enemy. The full dark eye yet gazed up at her with the same apparent moistened appeal for friendly sympathy; but to Ænone's alarmed instinct it now seemed as though behind that glance there was an inner depth of cold, calculating scrutiny. Still, almost unheeding the gentle gesture of the hand extended to raise her, the Greek knelt upon the floor, and, with an appearance of mingled timorousness and humility, laid her lips upon the gathered fingers; but now there appeared to be no natural warmth or glow in the pressure or real savor of lowliness in the attitude, but rather a forced and studied obsequiousness. For the instant Ænone paused, as though uncertain how to act. Then, fearing to betray her doubts, and hoping that her startled instinct might have deceived her, she bent forward once more and raised the captive to her feet.

It had all been the work of an instant; passing so quickly that the pause between the impulse and its completion could hardly have been noticed. But in that instant a change had swept over the expressions of both; and as they now stood opposite and gazed more intently upon each other, the change still progressed. The face of the young Roman matron, but a moment before so glowing with sympathy and radiant with a new-discovered hope of future happiness, now seemed to shrink behind a veil of despairing dread—the fear chasing away the joy as the shadow flits along the wall and banishes the sunlight; while, though every feature of the Greek still seemed clothed with trembling humility, yet, from some latent depths of her nature, a gleam of something strangely wild and forbidding began to play upon the surface, and invest the moistened eye and quivering lip with an undefinable repulsive harshness.

'Your name?' said Ænone, rousing herself with exertion, as though from a painful dream.

'Leta, my lady,' was the reply, uttered in a tone of despairing sadness, and with eyes again cast upon the floor.

'Leta,' repeated Ænone, touched in spite of her forebodings by that guise of an unhappiness which might, after all, be real. 'It is a fair-sounding name, and I shall call you always by it. Poor girl! you are an exile from your native land, and I—I cannot call myself a Roman. We must be friends—must we not?'

She spoke rather in the tone of one hoping against evil auguries than as one indulging in any confident anticipations of the future. The Greek did not answer, but again slowly raised her eyes. At first, as before, with the same studied expression of pleading humility; but, as she glanced forward, and saw Sergius standing behind, and gazing at her with an admiration which he did not attempt to dissemble, a strange glow of triumph and ambitious hope seemed to light up her features. And when, after a hasty glance of almost responsive meaning toward Sergius, she again looked into the face of the other, it was no longer with an assumption of humble entreaty, but rather with an expression of wild, searching intensity. Before it the milder gaze of Ænone faltered, until it seemed as though the two had suffered a relative interchange of position: the patrician mistress standing with troubled features, and with vague apprehension and trembling in her heart, and as though timorously asking for the friendship which she had meant to bestow; and the captive, calmly, and with a look of ill-suppressed triumph, reading the other's soul as though to learn how she could most readily wield supremacy over her.

'OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS; OR, HOW TO TREAT THE REBEL STATES.'

When the rebel States (?) passed their respective ordinances of secession, what results flowed from the action? The political doctrine that the union of the States is not a mere confederation of separate States, but a consolidation, within the limits of the Constitution, of the different States, otherwise independent, into one nation, is now too well established to remain a subject of debate. We are not, therefore, members of a confederacy, but are a unit—one. It follows, as a matter of course, that no State can withdraw or hide itself from the control of the National Government. The ordinances of secession passed by the rebel States did not, therefore, affect the Federal authority. The broad and just ground taken by President Lincoln in his Inaugural Address was, that the rebel States were still in the Union; and it is, we apprehend, the only tenable ground of right upon which we can carry on the war in which we are now engaged. The Constitution of the United States requires (art. ii. sec. 3) that the President shall 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' When the present head of the executive came into office, in March, 1861, he found several of the States, having already seceded on paper, seeking to perfect their treason by 'the armed hand.' Lighthouses had been destroyed, or their beacon fires—the sentinels of the sea—shrouded in darkness, custom houses were given into rebel hands, the revenue cutters were surrendered, and deed followed deed in this dark drama of treason, until it was consummated by firing upon the unarmed Star of the West, while she was performing her errand of mercy, to relieve the hunger and reënforce the exhausted strength of the heroic little garrison of Fort Sumter. The plain and immediate duty of the President was, therefore, to call out the strength of the nation to assist him in 'taking care that the laws be faithfully executed.' And this brings us to the proposition that the Government is not engaged in a war of conquest with another nation, but in enforcing the laws in what is already a part of the Union.

The Constitution (art. ii. sec. 2) makes the President the 'commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States.' In the President, and in him alone, supremely, is vested the authority which is to conduct the course of war. Congress has the war-making power, but war once brought into being (if we may be allowed the expression), the manner in which it shall be conducted rests with the executive. It is, of course, to be conducted in accordance with the laws of nations and of civilized warfare. The first step necessary to enable the President to enforce the laws in the seceded States is to put down the military power by which their execution is resisted. That is now being done. By the 'necessity of war,' then, the executive is authorized to take such measures as may be necessary to put down the rebellion; and though no power is given him to appoint Governors over the States in ordinary times, it is given him, indirectly, but as surely as if expressly granted, to be used in times of actual war, by the clause of the Constitution which we have just quoted, making him commander-in-chief of the national military force. Whenever the States, or any of them, cease to be debatable ground—that is, when the military force of the rebellion is put down, the military necessity ceases, and with it the authority of the President to appoint military governors. Nor is there danger of encroaching upon the liberties of the nation; for, as the power attaches to the President, not in his capacity as the civil head of the nation, but as the military commander-in-chief, it ceases the moment military opposition is overcome. The fear of the Atlantic author would seem to be ill grounded, for we cannot believe that any military force could be raised by a despotic executive who might endeavor to place himself in absolute power, and we think there is little danger that the Government may 'crystallize into a military despotism.' Would supplies be granted by Congress; or, if granted, would not the people of a country which has sprung to arms only to defend a free government, be strong enough to resist any single military despot? Let the history of the present rebellion, in which a population of only eight millions, and that in the least defensible States of the Union, has resisted for nearly three years the combined power of all the other States, with a population of more than twenty millions, answer the question. The Atlantic writer admits the propriety of appointing military governors in the cases of Mexico and California before the latter was admitted as a State, but denies it in the cases of the rebel States, because they are States, and therefore (as he says) within the civil jurisdiction. But at the period to which we refer, Congress had jurisdiction over both California and Mexico by the express provision of the Constitution (art. iv. sec. 3), 'the Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations concerning the territory or other property belonging to the United States.' If, then, the power of the President be admitted in the two cases referred to, it is even stronger in the cases of the rebel States, where no such power is given to Congress. And further it would seem that the act of admission to the Union would operate rather to take the Territory from under the jurisdiction of Congress, and give the right of government into the hands of the PEOPLE of the new State, even if their State officers did seek to betray them into treason. Our author asserts that 'there is no argument for military governors that is not equally strong for Congressional governments; but we suspect his mistake here, as, in fact, his whole theory comes from his neglect to note that this appointing power attaches to the President, not as the civil head of the nation, but as military commander-in-chief under the necessity of war.

To sum up the argument on this point, it stands thus: Neither Congress nor the President has power under the civil head to institute governments of their own in the rebel States: that power must arise, if at all, under the head of military necessity, and must attach to the commander-in-chief, viz., the President, and ceases the moment that necessity ceases. In the authority quoted from Chancellor Kent by the author of the Atlantic, we find nothing to shake our argument; for, though the power be, as the learned Chancellor says, 'to be exercised subordinate to the legislative powers of Congress,' still it is an executive power, and must be exercised by—must emanate from—the President. The same learned authority, from whose lucid and fascinating pages we enjoyed the first glimmerings of the 'gladsome light of jurisprudence,' says (vol. i. p. 264): 'The command and application of the public force, to execute the law, maintain peace, and resist foreign invasion, are powers so exclusively of an executive nature, and require the exercise of powers so characteristical of this department, that they have always been exclusively appropriated to it in every well-organized government upon earth.' Taking this provision of the Constitution, so interpreted by Chancellor Kent, as vesting the power exclusively in the executive, it only remains to be considered how far it is a necessity of war.

In all the rebel States there is a population, more or less dense, to be protected and governed; but what can a civil authority accomplish when the States are overrun by a military force which has so long defied the power of the army? Advancing as our armies conquer, and fleeing as they are overcome by the rebel hordes, it could accomplish nothing but its own ludicrous history and the fettering of the military power, which so eminently requires one secret and independent will. How little a military force so fettered by civil authorities could accomplish can hardly be fully realized but by those who, like the author, have summered and wintered upon the 'dark and bloody ground' of the rebellion. But, it will be asked, how are the rebel States to be governed when the military power of the rebellion is crushed, and the authority of the executive ceases with the necessity of war? No express power is given by the Constitution to Congress to govern any other territory than the District of Columbia, the dockyards, lighthouses, and lands ceded to the United States for similar purposes, and the territory not included in the several States, but belonging to the United States. Under these three heads is included all the territory over which Congress can claim jurisdiction by direct grant; and, by the Constitution (Amendments, art. x.), 'the powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' Unless, therefore, the rebel States have lapsed into Territories, Congress can have no authority over them, except the general powers which it may exercise over all the States of the Union. The question then arises, and it seems to be purely a legal one—have the rebel States lapsed into Territories?

We have already seen that the doctrine maintained by our Government is, that the rebel States have not, by their ordinances of secession, separated themselves from the Union, but that they are still in the Union. The ordinances of secession are, like any other unconstitutional law, even supposing them to have been the will of the people (of which we will speak hereafter), to be set aside by a competent tribunal, if brought to the test at all. Their paper treason, then (to commit a solecism), amounting only to so much waste of paper and ink, did the overt act of firing upon the flag of the United States operate more effectually to destroy the State identity? If they are incapable of separating themselves from the nation, and if, as is clearly the case, there is no power vested in the General Government to expel them from the Union, from what source does the power or act arise which destroys their identity? The rebel States are either in the Union or out of it. We cannot claim that they are in the Union for the purpose of enforcing submission, and then, when that object is accomplished, turn round and say they are out of it, and must be governed as Territories.

But it is a fixed fact, and history will so record it, that the voice of the people in the rebel States never concurred in the ordinances of secession. In the few cases where they were submitted to the popular vote, force was used to awe that vote into acquiescence; while in most cases they never were submitted to the form of such a vote; and why? Because the leaders in treason dared not trust the voice of the people: they knew too well that it would thunder a rebuke in their ears. They were merely the act of the individuals who were chosen as members of the several Legislatures, and who, in betrayal of their trust, sought to commit the States which they misrepresented to treason. In any one of the States which we have solecistically termed rebel States, we venture to assert that, if fairly and fully taken, the vote of the people at any time during the last five years, and now, would be, by a large majority, in favor of the Union. Wherever our armies have obtained a permanent footing, the people have, almost unanimously, given their expression of attachment to the old flag. Shall, then, the treason of those individuals who, for the time being, held the places of power in the rebel States, be construed to the prejudice of a whole people, who had no part nor lot in the crime, in face of the often declared law that a State cannot commit treason? If we turn to the fact that many, if not most of the citizens of the rebel States, have done treasonable acts under compulsion of those who were the leaders in the rebellion, we are met, at the very threshold, by no less an authority than Sir William Blackstone, who says (Bl. Commentaries, book iv. p. 21): 'Another species of compulsion or necessity is what our law calls duress per minias, or threats and menaces which induce fear of death or other bodily harm, and which take away, for that reason, the guilt of many crimes and misdemeanors, at least before the human tribunal. Therefore, in time of war or rebellion, a man may be justified in doing many treasonable acts by compulsion of the enemy or REBELS, which would admit of no excuse in the time of peace.' The fact that such violent compulsion was and still is used to overawe the Union sentiment of the South is patent. It has been and still is the cry, coming up on every breeze from that bloodstained land, that the leaders of the rebellion seek to crush, by whatever means, those who are

'Faithful among the faithless found.'

But, supposing for the moment that the majority of the citizens of the rebel States are, of their own free will, participators in the rebellion; where is the grant of power to Congress to establish a government in any of the rebel States? No clause of the Constitution gives it; and by the express terms of that instrument, 'all powers not granted by it to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' But, while no such power is granted by the Constitution to the Federal Government, it is, we think, strictly forbidden by that clause of the instrument which declares that 'the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.' Would this injunction be complied with if Congress were to establish, directly, a government of its own over the rebel States? Would it not rather be a transgression of the provision? The essential nature of a republican government is that it is elective; but a Congressional government would be directly the reverse; for it takes the power from the hands of the people and places it in the hands of the national council. Mark the form of the expression, too, that the republican form of government is to be guaranteed, not merely by Congress or the executive, but by the United States; as if to pledge the whole power of the nation, of whatever kind, to protect this priceless blessing, through all coming time, to the use and benediction of all ages. Notice, too, to whom the guarantee runs—not to the territory now composing the State, but to the State its very self—ei ipsi; as if the Constitution could not contemplate such a thing as a State being struck out of existence, under whatever phrase, whether of 'State forfeiture,' 'State suicide,' or 'State abdication,' even if treason were attempted by those in power. The Constitution still terms it a State. Is not the present precisely the event, or rather one of the events, which it contemplates and provides for? The doctrine of 'State Rights,' whether as contemplated and maintained by Calhoun in the days of Nullification, or as declared by Jefferson Davis and his compeers in treason, we abhor utterly, whenever and wherever it may lift its serpent head, and whether supported by Southern men with Southern principles, or by Northern men with no principles. But a true and indisputable doctrine of State Rights there is, which ought to be as jealously maintained and guarded as the doctrine of National Sovereignty. The Atlantic author asserts that, because the State offices in the rebel States have been vacated, therefore Congress has the authority to govern them, and intimates that all powers not reserved to the respective States belong to Congress, because there is no other to wield them. This is not true. Every power possessed of the Federal Government must be actually granted. It must attach to that Government, not because it belongs to no other, but because it is granted by the Constitution.

Our author quotes Mr. Phillimore as saying 'a state, like an individual, may die, by its submission and the donation of itself to another country.' Very true; but the word state must, in that sense, be equivalent to nation; and our author admits that a State cannot perform the first act necessary to be done in so giving itself away, viz., withdrawing itself from the Union. If, therefore, it cannot withdraw itself from the authority of the Federal Government, very clearly it cannot donate itself to the self-styled Confederate Government. If a thief sell or give his ill-gotten possession to another, it in no way affects the right of the owner. He cannot give away that which he does not own; and so of a State. Another error into which the Atlantic author has fallen, is that, in assigning the three sources of Congressional power, 'ample and hospitable,' he enumerates as one of them 'the necessity of the case;' but, as we have already seen, Congress possesses no powers but those expressly granted by the Constitution. If Congress may assert its authority in this instance, from the necessity of the case, and be itself the judge of that necessity, when no authority is given by the instrument, which expressly declares that all powers not granted by it are reserved, where are we to find a limit, and why may not that body assert itself in any number of instances, until, at length, the rights of the States are wholly absorbed by the overmastering power of the Federal Government? There is but one rightful source of authority to Congress, and that is the Constitution, which itself so declares, and which is the supreme law of the land.

But the true course to be pursued is, we think, to allow the rebel States (as indeed we cannot help doing) to be governed by the military power until such time as a civil government can be maintained, and then for the whole Government of the United States, legislative, judicial, and executive, to stand by, as the constitutionally appointed guardian, and permit THE PEOPLE to elect their own State officers. Whether the conventions of the people are called by law of Congress or by proclamation of the President, would seem to be immaterial, though the latter seems the least cumbersome method. Thus the rebel States would pass from rebel forms to constitutional ones, in a legal and formal manner. Sooner or later this must be done, even if, for a time, provisional governments are instituted; for no Congressional government can be an elective government, and hence not a constitutional one, because the elective principle is necessary to a republican form of government. But if, under the clause of the Constitution which enjoins upon the United States to guarantee a republican form of government to each State, conventions of the people be called to elect their own officers, they are at once put in possession of their constitutional rights. And how can a State be readmitted to a Union which it has never left?

The writer has no pet theory to maintain, but is, like the writer in the Atlantic, 'in search of truth;' and the views here expressed are the result, not merely of closet reflection, but of observation and experience in the seceded States, while 'marching under the flag and keeping step to the music of the Union.' If only, through this baptism of blood, the nation, freed at last from the blighting curse of slavery, and purified into a better life, shall lift her radiant forehead from the dust, and, crowned with the diadem of freedom, go on her glorious way rejoicing, the writer will count his past sufferings and shattered health only as the small dust in the balance compared with the priceless blessings of peace, freedom, and national unity, which they may have contributed, however slightly, to purchase. Only to have contributed, however little, something for the peace—something for the glory—something for the permanence, beautiful and bright—of those institutions which are for America the pride of the past and the hope of the future, will be a joy through life and a consolation in death.

THE MOUND BUILDER.

I have only space here to say that we traversed the whole of the north and west of the State of Wisconsin, and through the chief parts of Minnesota and Iowa; and that subsequently, about, eighteen months afterward, we visited the region of the Four Lakes, of which Madison is the centre, where there are hundreds of mounds, arranged in nearly every form and of nearly every animal device, which we had found in our previous travels.

I made drawings of all the remarkable groups which I met with; and, without going into particulars, I may give you some idea of their likelihood in the following summary: Mounds arranged in circles of three circles, with a large earthwork in the inner one; the outer circle containing sixty mounds, the second thirty, the first fifteen. I examined the earthwork, and found in it, about four feet below the surface, remains of charcoal and charred bones, burnt earth, and considerable quantities of mica. It had evidently been an altar or sacrificial mound—and I afterward, upon examination, found many such—but they were always enclosed by other mounds; and these (the outer mounds) contained nothing but earth, although there was this remarkable peculiarity about them, that the earth of which they were composed was altogether of a different nature from the surrounding earth, and must have been brought to that spot, as the old Druids brought the enormous blocks of stone which composed their temples and altars at Stonehenge, from an unknown distance.

Other mounds were arranged in squares, triangles, and parallelograms. Others, in a series of successive squares, about three feet apart, having an opening to the east and west, and terminating in a square of about fourteen feet in the centre, where a truncated mound is sure to be erected.

Others, formed a good deal like a Minié rifle ball, but with a more pointed apex, running on both sides of the earth effigy of a monstrous bear for upward of forty rods.

Others, shaped like an eagle with outstretched wings, having walls of earthwork two feet high, of oblong shape, and enclosed on all sides except at the east and west, where there are entrances of about four feet in width.

Others, composed of hundreds of tons of earth, shaped like a tortoise, with truncated mounds all around it.

Others, fashioned like men, and Titans at that, some lying prone upon the prairie, others in the act of walking. The limbs clearly defined, the body vast and well moulded, like a huge colossus. One near Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin, discovered by Mr. William H. Canfield, and reported to the Philosophical Society by Mr. Lapham, of Milwaukee, was visited also by us. It is two hundred and fourteen feet in length; the head thirty feet long, the body one hundred feet, and the legs eighty-four. The head lies toward the south, and the motion (for he is represented in the act of walking) is westward. All the lines of this most singular effigy are curved gracefully, much care having very clearly been bestowed upon its construction. The head is ornamented with two projections or horns, giving a comical expression to the whole figure.

Near the old military road, about seven miles east of the Blue Mounds, in Dare County, Wisconsin, we found another man effigy. It lies in an east and west direction, the head toward the west, and the arms and legs extended. It is one hundred and twenty-five feet long, one hundred and forty feet from the extremity of one arm to that of the other. The body is thirty feet in breadth, and is most carefully moulded and rounded; the head twenty-five feet; the elevation above the surface of the prairie nearly six feet.

On the north side of the Wisconsin River, about four miles west of the village of Muscoda, we heard of and found another human effigy. Its peculiarity was that it had two heads, and they reclined with a certain grace over the shoulders. The arms were not in proportion, nor fully represented. Length of body fifty feet, legs forty feet, arms one hundred and thirty feet; lying north and south, the head southward.

Others, a kind of hybrids, half man half beast or bird.

Others, representing birds with outstretched wings, like the forked-tail hawk or swallow.

Others, eagles without heads.

Others, coiled snakes, or outstretched snakes.

Others, elk or deer.

Clusters of mounds star shaped, seven in number, with the sun-shaped mound in the centre.

Others, representing mathematical symbols.

On the banks of the Black River, near the Ox Bow, are the remains of an elevated road, about three feet high and seven feet wide, extending for miles, intersected near the river by the great Indian war path. The settlers call it the Railroad, and it has all the appearance of a work of this nature, and is strongly and carefully built—a fine remain of the old mound builders' time.

Long lines of mounds, extending for scores and probably hundreds of miles, nearly all of the same shape, varying in their distance from each other from one to four miles.

Circular mounds of a base of two hundred feet, and a height of twenty feet.

Others, two hundred yards long, from ten to twenty feet wide, and from two to three feet high—these last, also, having an open space through them, as if intended for an entrance gate.

Others, in the form of rabbits, badgers, bears, and birds; others, of unknown monstrous animals.

We examined in all thirty-nine mounds; and in one, at the very base, on the floor of the natural earth upon which the mound was built (the soil of the mound being, as I said, always of a different character to the surrounding soil) we discovered and carried away with us the perfect skeleton of a man, with a few arrow heads made of flint, and a tobacco pipe, made also of stone, with a very small and narrow bowl, having a device on it like some of the hieroglyphic monsters of Egypt or old India.

In twelve we found skeletons, male and female, of the present race of Indians, with their bows and arrows, or, as was the case in four instances, their rifles and knives and tobacco pipes; some of these last elaborately carved in red stone. In Iowa we dug into a large mound, and discovered fragments of an ancient pottery, with the colors burned into the material, and various bones and skulls, arrow heads, and a flint knife, and saw.

We saw the painted rocks, also, on the Mississippi shores, near Prairie du Chien—said to be of an immemorial age—and the questions, Who was this old mound builder—whence did he come—when did he vanish from this continent? have haunted me ever since. That he was the primitive man of this planet, I think there is good reason to believe. Go where we will, to what portion soever of the earth, we shall find these mound evidences of his existence. In Asia, Europe, Africa, and all along the backbone of the American continent, he has established his record. Yet no one knows anything about him: all tradition even of him and of his works is lost. When Watkinson started from the middle of Asia to visit the newly acquired country of Russia—the beautiful, fruitful, invaluable country of the Amoor—he was confronted at the very outset by a cluster of seven of these very mounds, and his book, from that time forth, extending over thousands of miles, is full of descriptions of these unknown earthworks. I have no doubt they mark the progressive geographical movements of a race of men who came from Asia. From Behring's Strait to the Gulf they can easily be traced.

But I have said enough, and will stop here.

THE MOUND BUILDER.