It is certain that when this page comes under the eye of the reader, the relations of the United States, both foreign and domestic, will have been changed materially.  At the present moment, however, the condition of the country is unpromising enough; yet not so gloomy as to preclude the hope of a fortunate issue.  The sacrifices and sufferings of the people are greater in civil than in foreign wars, and the ultimate advantages and benefits are proportionately large.  We speak now of those civil wars which have occurred between people inhabiting the same district of country,—­as the civil wars of England.  Other contests, as the revolutions of Hungary, Poland, and Ireland even, were not, strictly speaking, civil wars.  The parties were of different origin, and had never assimilated in language, customs, or ideas.  The struggle was for the reestablishment of a government which had once existed, and not for the reformation or change of a government that at the moment of the conflict was performing its ordinary functions.

The civil war in America does not belong to either of the classes named.  To be sure, in Missouri, Kentucky, and Western Virginia, the contest has been between the inhabitants of the several localities, aided by forces from the rebel States on the one hand, and forces from the loyal States on the other.  But those States, as such, were never committed to the rebellion; and the struggle within their limits has demonstrated the inability of the so-called Confederate States to command the adhesion of Missouri, Kentucky, and Western Virginia by force; but it does not, in the accomplished results, demonstrate the ability of the United States to crush the rebellion.  The border States were debatable ground; but the question has been settled in favor of the government so far, at least, as Western Virginia and Missouri are concerned.

In the eleven seceded States there is no apparent difference of opinion among those in authority, or among those accustomed to lead in public affairs.  The sentiment of attachment to the old Union has been disappearing rapidly since the secession of South Carolina, until there are now no open avowals of adherence to the government, unless such are made by the mountaineers of Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina.  These men are for the present destitute of power.  Should our armies penetrate those regions, the inhabitants may essentially aid in the reestablishment of the government.  Still, for the present, we must regard the eleven States as a unit in the rebellion.  Thus we are called to note the anomalous fact that the rebels seek a division between a people who speak the same language, occupy a territory which has no marked lines or features of separation, and who have from the first day of their national existence been represented by the same national government.  Hence it is plain, whatever may be the immediate result of the contest, that there can be no permanent peace until the territory claimed as the territory of the United States is again subject to one government.  This may be the work of a few months, it may be the work of a few years, or it may be the business of a century.  Without the reestablishment of the government over the whole territory of the Union there can be no peace; and without the reestablishment of that government there can be no prosperity.