21 abroad were changed to disgust, and the rebel cause turned its back upon Europe, in doing so faced its foes at home, in whose countenance it read no hope but in submission and loyalty. And thus another prime delusion of the rebel mind collapsed in disappointment. Again, the rebellion was nursed by an added hope, viz., that the North, deprived of the Southern market, would be bankrupted and ruined; grass would grow in our streets, labor would be worthless, gaunt famine would watch at the doors of the poor; hungry mobs would march and parade in our streets with the watch-words on their banners of “ bread or blood.” We can hardly believe it now, amidst the whirl and rush of all the activities of commerce, with a freshet of prosperity filling the channels of business and overflowing in munificent and magnificent charities; with an increase of taxation that would have scared us once, met and paid easily and cheerfully; with an abundant supply of life’s supports and life’s elegancies, and a greater abundance of means to procure them; with sure evidences that this is not inflation and falsity, but a positive increase of material wealth—with all this around us, we can hardly conceive that the death-dealing prophecies of the South were ever seriously uttered or honestly believed. But they did believe it, and believe it still, until
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