Staunton Spectator

The Augusta (Ga.) Constitutionalist says that the Yankee scheme of Southern conquest is rapidly hastening to a denouement and to the Yankees it is a disastrous one, indeed. They have already lost more than France lost by the calamitous battle of Pavia; for they have lost their honor. What little prestige was left them after the Bull Run catastrophe they ignominiously lost in the Mason and Slidell back down. Now, the Yankee Government stands, with all its laurels won in honorable battle, in the better days of the old Republic, tarnished and drooping--its swaggering gait tamed down to the mincing step of the convicted poltroon--its position irrevocably assigned, as morally on a par with the vain-glorious little Republic of Spanish America.--Politically it will be in time scarcely more powerful or influential; for the process of disintegration, once begun, will not stop until what remains of the Northern Confederation will end in half a dozen discordant organizations.

Now, the monster evil of a financial panic is upon the Yankee Government and its people.--This is a more appalling enemy than Southern bayonets, for the Yankees have shown their ability to get out of reach of the latter. But there is no running away from debt and taxation. There is no escape from a prostrate credit and a bankrupt Treasury. The army and navy must be supported, or disbanded. The soldiers, sailors, and marines, officers and men, with their myriads of adjuncts and satellites, contractors and camp followers, have got to be fed and paid; and if they are not furnished with Southern plunder, or pickings and stealings from the public crib, they will turn upon private property of the North.

It is an ugly fix. The time is approaching when the Lincolnite dynasty will be at a loss to know which most to fear--the armies of the South, or the armies of the North. It will be easier to run from the one than to get rid of the other.

But now is the very time for increased vigilance on the part of the South. Now is the time for us to brace every nerve, and marshal every appliance for the conflicts yet to come.

It would be folly to relax a muscle--to snatch a moment for repose. The Yankees are in a death struggle for national honor, national safety, national existence. They are infuriated, desperate, malignant. Like the savage bear, or the broad antlered moose of their frozen regions, when mortally wounded and at bay, they are most fierce and dangerous. At least, the Yankee Government, in its extremity, may be looked to, to put forth its most desperate efforts in this dying struggle. It must achieve some success, to propitiate Wall street. It must make an advance, to appease popular clamor. It must display some capacity to retrieve its great losses, to keep British fleets from off its coast. Even conceding, as in its heart it must, that defeat and humiliation are to be its portion, the opening of Southern ports to the commerce of the world, and its recognition of the Southern Republic, events not to be staved off many months longer, there is a necessity upon it to put forth now more Herculean efforts. It must achieve something on which to retire from the contest with honor. It must have something to show for the blood it has spilt and the money it has squandered. Therefore, we look for more bloody work, and more "grand" movements upon the Southern rebels, ere the contest flags and closes. We would speak a word of caution against a false security--against looking abroad for British fleets and armies to avert the coming blows.--What the Yankees intend to do, they will try to do quickly. Therefore, be on the alert, be vigilant--be ever ready; brave soldiers of the South, 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.'