AMERICA.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 366, 26 April 1861, Page 5 (Supplement)

AMERICA.

DISRUPTION OF THE UNION. All hope of an amicable settlement of the unhappy difference in America is at an end. Chaos is spreading over the country. _ State after State either secedes from the Union, or proposes some impracticable compromise, which only enhances the difficulty of the situation. One fact alone is clear, that the hour for an amicable arrangement is gone by. The seceding states have already formed them--«elves into an independent Confederation, a^rrewr^ —-wUmnal constitution, and elected federal Unions in America; Jinintit'csfeiSft of Mr. Lincoln to office on the 2nd March is looked forward to with universal anxiety Washington is expected to be the scene of a violent struggle on that occasion, and preparations are making on both sides to turn it to account. The actual situation is at present this :—Seven states, namely, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississipi, Alabama, .Honda, Louisiana, and Texas, have seceded, and the old Union has not a mile of coast on the Mexican Gulf. The border slave states

are in favour of a reconciliation, but their sympathies are so much with the seceders, and their demands are so exorbitant, that they are ill-fitted to play the part of mediators. At the same time, by letting it be understood that in case of failure they are prepared to join the South, they give the secessionist leaders every encouragement to persist in their schemes. It is now certain that an active party has been intriguing for secession for many years past. The schemes of these men are nothing less than the conquest of the finest regions of the Forth American continent. The South openly boasts of what it will do when a separation has been finally arranged. New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora, and Chilmahna are to be occupied by a slaveholding emigration. Mexico Proper is to be invaded in due time, and the silver mines again made productive. Cuba is to be acquired, Central America and the Isthmus brought into subjection; in fact, the schemes of Walker and Quitman at length realized.